BabyBarista and the Art of War

Reprinted as Law and Disorder ISBN: 9780747594642

It's BabyBarista's first day as a pupil barrister in chambers. Never mind his legal qualifications; it's his summer working in Starbucks that's going to stand him in good stead, since coffee-making seems to be his chief responsibility (with the odd bout of photocopying to relieve the tedium).

He's got one year to make his mark and prove by foul means or fair that, out of the four pupil barristers, he's the one who deserves to stay on and win the sought-after prize of a tenancy in chambers. It's sort of like Big Brother, but with little horsehair wigs. Once assigned to a pupilmaster, an oily character he calls TheBoss, BabyB retreats to his tiny desk in a dusty corner to consider the competition:-

• TopFirst, a Cambridge graduate with a prizewinning CV and an ego to match;
• BusyBody, a human whirlwind on a husband hunt;
• and finally wide-eyed Worrier, who carries the world on her anxious shoulders.

'If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles,' says Sun Tzu, whose book The Art of War is becoming BabyB's bible. Quietly, he smiles to himself, and begins to make some plans Part Rumpole, part Flashman, crafty and naive by turns both in and out of court, BabyBarista opens a window onto the fascinating and secretive (and frequently absurd) ways of the legal profession through his secret blog.

Puncturing pomposity and exposing injustice with subversive wit, this diary of a nobody is an hilarious tour around the modern bar.