Harnessing a passion for criminal law
There is a wealth of knowledge that the senior bar can impart to juniors thirsty for knowledge, Darise Ogden discovers

When you’re a young lawyer passionate about criminal law, what do you do? For Davina Murray, there was only one option – go to the bar. “I just thought that was the way it was,” she says. “I didn’t even question that there was any other option.”

But going to the bar is not the easiest of options, as Murray was soon to discover. “I learned everything the hard way, from screwing up big time,” she says, laughing sheepishly as she remembers the time she told a client facing a murder charge that he didn’t need to appear at a callover in the High Court. “That was a bad day.”

Thankfully, Murray was not out there alone. She began her career junioring for two of New Zealand’s most senior and experienced criminal barristers, Ron Mansfield and Barry Hart.

Who you know…
When the supply of young, passionate lawyers keen to prove their worth far outstrips the demand, you need more than desire to open the doors to the criminal bar. For Murray, it was a case of “who you know”: a lawyer named Dave with whom she did yoga. “Dave” (otherwise now known as Judge David McNaughton) set up an interview with Mansfield, which turned out to be an informal meeting over wine and cheese, with two other senior criminal barristers present, and by the end of the night, Murray had secured her first role.

Not what you know
Murray began work on a Sunday, and it became clear very quickly that neither law school nor “profs” had prepared her for the realities of a criminal law practice. The first time she went to court was for murder depositions. “I had no idea,” she says. “Ron said to me, ‘Just stand up when I stand up’.” So she watched and she stood when he stood.

And it’s not just the court rituals that can lead one to feel slightly lost. The first trial she prepared for Mansfield was a drug case: “I didn’t even know how to spell methamphetamine or pseudoephedrine,” she admits.

Then there was the time Mansfield told her that she needed to visit a client at “ACRP”. She had no idea what he was talking about. Afraid of looking “dumb”, she did not stop to ask for further information, instead choosing to rely on Google. It was then that she found that she would be interviewing the client at the Auckland Central Remand Prison, which, of course, raised further questions, such as, where was the prison located, how do you get access, how do you visit your clients, etcetera.

“There’s so much to take in,” she says.

Soaking it up
Taking it all in was a big part of her role with Mansfield and Hart. In addition to working so hard that her life became absorbed in their practices, Murray soaked up the knowledge that emanated from them, listening as they discussed judges and analysed judgments, learning through osmosis.

But senior counsel provide more than just legal knowledge – they also offer valuable insights into how a criminal practice should be run. Insights that can only be gleaned by seeing how they deal with people – aggressive and otherwise, hearing how they are on the phone, how they manage clients who feed them line after line about the cheque being in the mail, how much rope to give such clients, and how many appearances they should turn up for before they seek leave to withdraw as counsel.

For Murray, the benefits of being mentored by two of New Zealand’s busiest criminal barristers also brought a few challenges. “You’re trying to perform, because you’re getting paid to produce stuff, yet you can’t really perform because you’ll screw up if you just assume,” she says. The thing that has kept her “tracking on” is getting results that have in turn led to the senior bar realising they can trust her with their clients, and giving her opportunities to appear. What keeps you motivated, she says, is when those appearances lead to wins. “But you couldn’t get those wins if you didn’t have the lawyers who allowed you to do it,” she says.

Murray has also discovered that being a Maori woman barrister at the criminal bar brings its own difficulties – three times in the past 18 months she has been mistaken for a defendant, and each time while she was dressed to kill in a courtroom.

Another challenge Murray has had to learn to deal with is accepting that sometimes the client you have been working so hard to “get off” is convicted. In her short time at the bar, she has seen a lot of despair and regret. She knows she has to build up a resilience to it, but she has also learned – through observing Mansfield and Hart – that even the senior members of the criminal bar are affected by clients who are convicted. “The whole length of the process to even get to the trial is so long that you end up building quite intimate relationships with their parents, their sisters, their brothers, their friends, if they’re supported by friends, and you understand the dynamic that that person has in their life, and their history, and their lack of education usually, and so it’s almost a loss for the family,” she says. “That’s a lot to carry on your shoulders.”

A supportive bar?
Murray says she’s met some amazing people “hanging around” with Hart and Mansfield. However, when I ask her whether she has felt supported by the criminal bar, she takes a moment to answer. “Support is really quite a difficult word,” she says. There is definitely support there; however, you have to generate the initial contact yourself. A telephone call to Marie Dyhrberg resulted in meetings over coffee and wine, advice, and an introduction to Auckland barrister Mary Kennedy.

She knows that if she needs advice, all she needs to do is pick up the phone, and both Hart and Mansfield will be there. And they are not the only ones, she also names Louise Freyer, Howard Lawry, and Patrick O’Sullivan as lawyers who have provided her with “totally amazing support”. The support comes from working with people, she says. They know your strengths and your weaknesses. However, she has her doubts about whether her fellow young barristers, who have not had the benefit of interacting with senior counsel, also experience that same level of support.

Two months into 2010, Murray is about to strike out on her own – a rather daunting prospect. “It’s totally terrifying,” she admits. She will be going back to basics as the complex, legally challenging, criminal cases she worked on with Hart and Mansfield will be unlikely to come her way. That is the reality of a junior barrister’s lot at the criminal bar. “It’s not that exciting in terms of the challenge of it,” she says, “but at the same time, you can’t keep being somebody’s junior for the rest of your life.” It’s also the only option for someone truly committed to working in criminal law.

Davina Murray can be reached on 021 0255 9968 or www.criminallaw.co.nz for instruction.