2025i26, Sunday: Silk

I can't be alone, thank goodness, in taking a particular joy in other people's success.

It's great to win, of course. One's own victories are sweet indeed.

But I think there's something truly special in that wave of delight that washes over you when you hear that someone you respect, rate, care about, has shone.

I've had that feeling since Friday morning. When it was announced that two people I esteem deeply got just about the best news you can get when you're a barrister. Oliver Powell, probably my closest friend and biggest mentor in my chambers, and Ben Bradley - who also helped form me as one of my pupil supervisors back in 2018-19 - are both to be King's Counsel.

The deep and abiding sense of celebration is partly selfish, of course. I'm lucky enough to do a lot of work with Oliver. And if that blessing continues (and to be clear, I make no bets on that and have no right to any expectation), then with him in silk that work can only get more challenging, more interesting, more exciting.

But far, far more than that is this overwhelming sense that in times which often seem dark, something fundamentally right has just happened. Both OP and Ben are fine advocates, deep and pragmatic thinkers, and (critically) fundamentally good and kind people. If KCs are to exist in the world (and I realise that some object to the accolade in principle; that's their call, although I have no real issue with it myself), then the world's better off with these two within their ranks. I know their worth, and I treasure their achievement. Days like this should be prized. There's enough of the other kind.

I know that my colleagues in Chambers will feel the same way about both of them. That said, though, there's something singular about seeing someone who trained you honoured thus. The Bar remains a person profession. One in which one-on-one relationships are vital. When a pupillage works as it should, it's very much like an old-time apprenticeship: you learn by doing at the instruction of someone who's better at it than you, in an atmosphere of mutual (not one-way) trust and respect. And whereas in the far-off mists of time pupils had to pay their supervisors for the privilege, these days being a supervisor offers no financial return and takes a huge commitment of time, focus and energy. It's paying forward the care someone put into us, so that this weird job of ours can continue, and evolve, and thrive in the next generations of advocates.

There's some things about this job that remain strange to me (although most of it I adore) after several past lives in "normal" employment. But this core tradition of personal training, of taking on the responsibility of helping someone set their feet on this path, is wonderful. If I become a supervisor myself, and I hope I will in the not too distant future, I can imagine the sense of pride and (perhaps) relief when one's pupil becomes a tenant; the heart-deep happiness at seeing someone finally cross the line into full practice after - usually - years of struggle, expense and uncertainty.

And when it goes right, pupillage is often the start of a years-long, even career-long relationship. Which means that a former supervisor's success tastes all the sweeter. Somehow personal, even though strictly speaking it isn't at all. Again in old apprenticeship terms: I've translated from apprentice to journeyman, and I'm loving it. But now my former instructors have made it to master.

And I couldn't be happier.