Concordia
Merchant Taylors’ School
Stephen
Rubin
Stephen Rubin QC
(
1968-1973) has been a barrister for over thirty years, specialising
in commercial litigation and advocacy. He has a particular focus on civil fraud,
banking, telecoms, share sale litigation, foreign exchange, professional negligence
and regulation and evidence from and for foreign jurisdictions. He sat on the Bar
Professional Conduct Committee from 1994-1999, on the Bar Council Working Party
on the proposed Supreme Court in 2004 and currently sits on the Honorary Board of
United Kingdom Law Students Association (UKLSA). He is a Deputy Circuit Judge
(Recorder) and a Chairman of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal
didn’t find it satisfying – so developed a
civil practice; that is disputes about money,
which are, surprisingly, rather good fun.
A barrister’s working life is usually very
interesting. One early memory was in 1980
when I defended a gang of Hell’s Angels
who had smashed up a pub in Surrey
(and a few of the customers also). On the
first day of the trial the barrister for one
of the gang had not arrived. In fact he’d
never met him before. The Hell’s Angel
kept on asking me
“Where’s my brief
[i.e.
barrister]?
”
. I told him not to worry, he
was an excellent barrister and on his way.
As time passed and there was still no
appearance the Hell’s Angel asked me for
the fourth time “
Where’s my brief?
”. I said
to him, for some reason:
“He’ll be here soon,
don’t worry – and he’s a really big bloke”.
The response to this was:
“I don’t care how
big he is, I don’t want to fight him – I want
him to defend me.”
I remember pleading a case against a
supermarket in Finchley for a woman who
had been bitten by a tarantula that ran up
her arm after she had grabbed a bunch of
bananas from the fruit counter. We had an
expert witness who informed us that his
research revealed that “about six families
of spiders a year (i.e. mum and babies)
walk from fruit in shops”. Among other
things in my written case, I alleged that
Tesco had been negligent (careless) by
et me begin with a brief
introduction about working at the Bar.
Barristers are courtroom advocates –
we are often portrayed in films or TV
with white horsehair wigs and gowns
speaking to juries or judges. These
wigs and gowns are still worn in some
courts but unfortunately are on the
decline and mostly we just wear suits
and ties. We present people’s cases in
court. We are specialists in analysing
the issues and presenting the client’s
case attractively to the court. We
emphasise the good bits but we must
not say anything we know to be untrue
or mislead the court.
How did I end up doing this job? Well,
I was at Merchant Taylors’ and received
an excellent education under Brian Rees
– an inspirational Head Master who went
on from us to lead several other major
public schools. Although not particularly
successful until the Upper Sixth (I was
in the B stream till the Sixth Form and
on weekly report for a term in the Lower
Sixth) a late spurt led to an unexpected
exhibition to Brasenose College, Oxford
where I read law. I left Oxford in 1976 and
read for the Bar. Why? Well in those days
the Bar seemed to be the glamorous part
of the legal profession (which of course it
still is!) and I liked arguing and acting so
L
It’s a bit of a
rollercoaster
life, an unusual
way of working,
challenging and
stressful at times
but very enjoyable
and stimulating
for the mind.
it seemed a good thing to do; the fact that
my Dad told me to also helped.
I’ve done it for over 30 years and it
has been great fun. I am now a Queen’s
Counsel (QC) at the Commercial Bar in a
Chambers called Fountain Court, a Deputy
Circuit Judge (Recorder) and a Chairman
of the Bar Disciplinary Tribunal. But it
was a zig-zag route to there. I started off
prosecuting criminals in the Magistrates
and Crown Court, defended a few – but
