US Politics

To a certain extent I think its usually not a problem for a barrister. Its all about the fair and even application of the law at the end of the day. My assumption is that its unusual to have a personal problem with a brief.

Certainly my experience. It's relatively easy for me, as I don't do criminal or family law, but friends who do crime and family just accept that it's not their job to decide who's guilty and who's not, and that everyone has a right to representation. It's one of the things that annoys me with legal dramas such as Silk, where senior defence barristers spent hours agonising about whether their client is guilty or not. In my experience, that simply doesn't happen.

In my Dad's case, it was defending somebody alleged of a particularly brutal infanticide that was the end of the line for him. He knew he was doing what was right in the eyes of the law, but coming home to his young family posed some mental barriers that he wasn't prepared for.

Ouch. That would be rough. A friend of mine once acted in a family contact case where she successfully ensured the father continued to have contact. The child was dead within six months. Not a nice position to be in.