Worst. Morning. Ever.

Okay, so yesterday afternoon, just as I was about to go home, my boss (the solicitor I work for) tells me that he needs me to be at the city local court the next day because at that time he has to go to a Family Court conference. Note that I’ve never properly appeared in front of a judge/magistrate before. So I’m nervous as hell and he tells me to not worry and to just be outside the court at 9am the next day and he’ll give me instructions as to what to do.

So today I’m there at the court at 9am, knowing that my matter is going to be heard at 9:30am. My boss saunters into the court at around 9:10am. He tells me the gist of the matter and what he needs me to do, while I madly scribble it all down on a piece of paper.

He certainly made it sound simple. Basically it was just a case review in front of a magistrate. A case review happens to civil cases every once in a while to make sure that the matter moves along and is on track to be resolved. We were the defendants and all I had to do was ask for the current review to be postponed. What happened was that both us and the plaintiffs were previously ordered to have evidence exchanged by February, but both sides had delays. The plaintiffs only gave us our documents a week ago and our evidence, which was a report from an expert witness who was out of the country until last Wednesday, was just about ready.

After getting the gist of what I was supposed to do, I rushed to find the courtroom I needed to be. I find that my matter was the first one on the list to be heard (the list being a list of cases to be heard that morning, for minor matters like our case reviews and people seeking directions and such… basically stuff too minor for a proper hearing but still need to be decided by a magistrate). I was heaps nervous but I thought that since I had relatively straightforward instructions it should be okay.

I met the plaintiff’s solicitor outside the courtroom and I had a chat with her. She was quite nice and was also instructed to postpone the review. At this point I was relatively relieved and was only worried about speaking in front of a magistrate.

Now here’s the thing. I’m not a solicitor yet, I’m just a law clerk. Therefore, before I can even introduce myself to the magistrate, I have to seek leave from him/her, to ask their permission to be there. I’ve heard from people that some judges/magistrates hate having to deal with law clerks and get grumpy at them because they prefer dealing with lawyers who are properly instructed and know the law. I thought, the worst that could happen is that I might annoy the judge but since I have pretty good instructions, it should be sufficient to get me through.

So anyway, ours was the first contested matter to be heard. The courtroom was absolutely packed (all seats taken, many lawyers having to stand) because there was some 50 cases to be heard by the magistrate that morning.

The magistrate called our case name. The plaintiff solicitor and I approached the bench. The other solicitor introduced herself. Then it was my turn. I asked the magistrate the standard, “I seek leave to appear”.

Then came the answer. The magistrate said, looking mighty angry, “No I will not grant you leave to appear”.

He went on about how in the case review he needs the solicitor to be present. He talked about how we were late and contravened the previous orders. He quoted sections from the practice notes. But all I could think of was, “Oh shitballs, what the hell do I do now??“. I have never heard of law clerks actually NOT getting leave to appear, and I had no idea what I was supposed to do. The magistrate kept ranting at me about how it was inappropriate that I am seeking leave. The room with scores of lawyers present, was absolutely silent, it felt, while the magistrate went on. I managed to squeak out that the plaintiffs were late too with their evidence and so they contravened the orders as well, but the magistrate retorted that it wasn’t for me to submit that but for the solicitor.

He then said something like, “if you want me to make orders, these are the orders I’d make”. He gave orders to basically say that the defence (us) will not be allowed to serve any evidence and that the whole defence might be struck out altogether (i.e. we’ll need to restart the case from scratch) if the solicitor doesn’t show up by the end of this list. My hands were absolutely shaking while I scribbled those orders down as the magistrate listed them off.

The magistrate then called for the next matter on the list and we were dismissed. I rang and smsed my boss many times but he didn’t respond, undoubtedly because he was in the Family Court. Not knowing what to do, I called Tim to tell him what happened and the upsetness really set in. I went to the bathroom and got a bit teary, mostly because of how devastatingly bad it went. I felt like I somehow ruined our client’s case, and in front of heaps of lawyers no less.

But I pulled myself together and just waited, keeping my eyes on the phone. I sat in the courtroom and watched the magistrate hear other people’s case. I felt a little better seeing the magistrate interacting with other people, and concluded that he’s basically mean to everyone.

Finally my boss was done with the Family Law stuff and rushed to the local court. He appeared before the magistrate, whom totally told him off. In the end the magistrate ordered that our client pay the other side $900 for today’s hearing. Just like that. The other side didn’t even have to argue for the costs, the magistrate just pulled that number out of the ether. So yeah, conclusion: meanest magistrate ever.

I spent the rest of the day writing letter after letter at work, before rushing off to class that ended at 9:11pm. Long fucking day. I cannot express how tired I am. I’m rushing this entry because I’m so sick of typing words and am in dire need to shoot something for a little while before going to bed.

And tomorrow? I have to go to the Federal Court for a subpoena matter. All by myself again. Fingers crossed that it’ll turn out a bit better than today.