I have had the great pleasure of being shadowed this week by a work experience pupil from my old school. The young lady was sent along to get a flavour of how a law practice works in case it helped her decide on a career ( for or against… either a good example or an awful warning). I was lucky – they sent me a smart, mature and sensible creature who quietly soaked in everything she saw, read and attended.

So that she was prepared for some of the drier areas of practice she would see, I warned her that it is not LA Law ( she looked at me mystified, until it clicked with me she probably wasn’t born when that was on. Got a similar reaction to Ally McBeal – kids at primary school were not hurrying home to see that. I didn’t even bother with Petrocelli), but that a lot of the work is documentary, detailed and dull. Having so warned her, I ensured she saw as wide a range of non-paperwork stuff as possible. On Monday we went down to the remand court at Glasgow Sheriff Court. The avuncular court cop kindly showed her to a seating area for lawyers, as he was worried she might catch something horrible in the public benches , the least of which was the whiff of exhaled bevvy, leavened with eau de unwashed sock, all at 10.00 am.

After some dull procedural hearings, which were mainly inaudible due to the mumbling delivery of some agents and the poor acoustics in the room, we got some action – a series of cases in which the accused got weighed off to the jail, one having assaulted a policeman too many and not actually having learned anything from fines, probation or community service previously imposed. And it is always something of a culture shock for a law-abiding member of the public to hear violence recollected in tranquillity – the cultured tones and polite diction of the lady depute fiscal reporting to the sheriff “ the accused started shouting We’re the f***ing Bridgeton Derry, F*** the Pope and the Virgin Mary! “ before officers arrested him, at which he said to them “Youse c*** can get tae f***” “. 6 months reduced to 4 for the early plea. Jingle of cuffs and then off through the clanging door. A world away from my student’s leafy suburbs.

We sauntered in to a jury court where an expert witness was having the fiscal’ phasers set to kill, as the depute ladled into his allegedly shoddy and lopsided attempt on behalf of the defence to distinguish the features of the accused from the violent miscreant on the CCTV. It smacked of desperation a bit, as the witness sounded pretty reasonable and moderate to me, and to my student. Then on to another jury trial that was about to start. We saw a jury being empanelled, and heard the charges of serial and graphic domestic abuse being read out by the sheriff-clerk. The female cop in the court came over at the adjournment and very kindly offered to look after my student and explain proceedings to her, if I wanted to get away to other business for a while.

On other days we have seen clients asking for advice on the usual bewildering array of subject matters that general practice still throws up. We had a new matrimonial client who also wanted conveyancing and estate agency services – I sent the student out with our estate agency manager for the valuation visit, which she seemed to enjoy almost inordinately, presumably on the basis that although only 16, she has an innate female interest in/obsession about all things property. We saw an upmarket neighbourhood dispute client who was shaking with rage that the hanging baskets were being criticised, the inevitable wee old lady with an executry problem, some wills, a wheen of Power of Attorney clients, and lots more. I even sent her out with one colleague to a psychiatric hospital for a consultation in troubling circumstances.

This is my 6th year of this kind of thing. I mention it not to boast or complain, but for two reasons.

One is that it does any practitioner good to do a bit of show and tell. We all work at our own stuff, but do we ever have to stand back and ask what we do, why, how, how well, and for whom? When you have the 4th year equivalent of Jiminy Cricket standing at, if not on, your shoulder, you find yourself having to justify yourself and your colleagues. Students want to know, and it’s not good enough to say, ”Well, I always do this,” or “but that’s just the way it’s done”. I find it incumbent on me to take the bonnet off the work and look at the engine. And my student was extremely bright. I showed her some wills, and she read them quietly for a while, and started asking me: is an executor is the same as a trustee; what would happen if the children died before the parents; and what are the definitions of different kinds of property? And more. It was the same when I showed her title deeds, a criminal trial file, and a file about a petty but anxious barking dog complaint. She got straight to the heart of the issue and asked perfectly judged , relevant questions. Oh, and apparently she really wants her parents to get her a dog.

The other thing is that lawyers as individual practitioners and as a body need to be reminded of education, training and development. Some are of course at the forefront of these areas, and the Law Society of Scotland education department and staff - and those practitioners who work with them - are second to none when it comes to looking out for the next generations of lawyers, but many solicitors and firms just plough their own furrow with blinkers on, unaware and uncaring of those who wish to follow them, or who would benefit from an insight into actual mud-spattered legal practice.

My own son as a student worked with us for a couple of summers as a general office assistant (everything from photocopying and junioring to audio dictation) , though he took to styling himself as Jonathan A. Lafferty, Head of HR and Business Development, just because I once asked him to phone around for quotes for file storage facilities. He rightly has chosen not to be heir apparent, but he does now know a fair bit about how law practices work, and has as a graduate down south chosen to read for the English bar.

I have been involved in mock trials (no rude comments please any recent sheriffs I have appeared before) in schools, and have spoken regularly to school groups about life in the law. I am appearing at the Festival of Politics in Edinburgh this year arguing to have education about the law provided in all schools. Yes, there is an element of hassle about it, and some time taken from being at the coalface, but I am pretty passionate about the legal profession showing and selling itself to the wider world, and being an essential first port of call for anxious citizens, and I continue to believe it crucial to educate young citizens in the law, especially as ignorance of it is no excuse in a prosecution.

Indeed not to harp on recent ABS struggle, but one thing that will help the solicitor profession in its re-positioning coming out of the legal services legislation and the changes it will bring, is being not just user-friendly (and some of us still have a way to go on that own goal) but also an integral part of the society it serves.

The obvious liaison is with schools and education authorities, but there are other areas and organisations in Scotland we can do business with, though by business I don’t mean just acting for commercially, I am talking voluntary association and assistance - pro bono. I know there is a rising discussion about pro bono provision, and one paper I read encapsulated it nicely – it is not that lawyers don’t do pro bono, it’s just that is it not organised and identified publicly. It is piecemeal. Nothing wrong with that as such, but if some kind of formation can be put in place to streamline, highlight and enhance the effort, it will be exponentially successful. Those ordinary folk who currently vaguely wonder about a problem they have but have not a clue as to how to go about getting advice will be better aware of the welcoming legal professionals who will be on their side to encourage and advise.

And you get what you give, you reap what you sow - if you’ve seen the film Pay It Forward, you’ll get the idea. Kevin Spacey is the teacher, one of whose pupils in a class exercise makes a suggestion that if you just do a good turn for someone – ex proprio motu as we briefs would say – then that person will do a good turn for someone else, and eventually there will be a wave of good deeds that covers the globe. Fanciful, but an uplifting and positive suggestion that lightens a dark world. And for us, without getting too precious about it, the only thing that opening up to the rest of the nation will do is to make us better and more successful – and yes, financially too. I have built my business partly at least on doing media work and sitting in radio and tv studios explaining the law to the punters, in their language and on their terms.

Doing a week’s school student work experience is a small effort, and on the Friday before it feels like a nuisance, but once we’ve started, it is no hassle at all and brings me measurable benefits. As for my student, she is now better informed about the law and legal system, she has had a genuinely interesting week, has a few dramatic/poignant/funny stories to tell family and friends.

But I don’t know if she’ll be any nearer getting that dog.

Austin