Geeklawyer has decided to retrain as a solic­i­tor advo­cate. It is a bit depress­ing to make that admis­sion given the amount of pis­stak­ing he has done of Ruthie, and she will, no doubt, grind your author’s nose in it.

It was a hard deci­sion prompted by yes­ter­days news of a 20% drop in pupil­lages. To Geeklawyer this is the final indi­ca­tor that the Bar is on its last legs: in a famine lions eat their own cubs just before they die. Geeklawyer is some­times com­pared to a lion (by him­self any­way, oth­ers have said an ass or vul­ture but …) so the anal­ogy is omi­nous. In recent months work has been very poor. Geeklawyer did have to busk for a few weeks ear­lier in the year when instruc­tions dried up and the yield was poor; only a stint in a porno movie, “Cure for Les­bian­ism 3″, paid the rent that month.
So Geeklawyer has writ­ten to the Bar Coun­cil ask­ing to be vol­un­tar­ily dis­barred and begun the solic­i­tor con­ver­sion course. Easy enough of course, becom­ing a solic­i­tor is not too demand­ing, but he is not proud of learn­ing how to do con­veyanc­ing even if he will never use it.

Nat­u­rally the big firms in the City are ecsta­tic, or rather they will be once the news begins to spread, as it will like wild­fire there can be no doubt. Geeklawyer imag­ines a senior posi­tion at Bird & Bird, Fresh­field or some­such will be on offer immi­nently fol­lowed by a part­ner­ship in a year or so. But there will be a tear in his eye; and the manda­tory poorly styled suit on his shoulders.