A barrister's first duty is to the court. The second is to one's opponent. The third — last in order, though often loudest in the brief — is to the client. It is a hierarchy that will not be flattered by the modern client's expectation of advocacy as performance, and we have built our chambers around its observance.

The discipline of restraint is the difficult part. It is easier to say more. A client paying by the hour, anxious before a hearing, will hear silence as inattention. The cross-examination that strikes the witness once and sits down — and which often does the work — is harder to draft than the one that strikes seven times. It is also kinder to the court, and kinder, in the long run, to the case.

The rules of conduct (BSB Handbook, gC8 in particular) place the duty to the court above the duty to the client because the courts are the place where the public, in the end, has agreed to settle its differences. Without a working court, there is no client; without restraint in advocacy, no working court. The two things are not separate.

We do not promise our clients an aggressive defence. We promise them a careful one. Most of our cases are settled before trial; of those that go to a final hearing, we have lost only fourteen in the last four years. We do not advertise that number; we have included it in this monograph because the alternative is to leave you to guess.

The Halsbury matter came to us in February 2023 from a Magic Circle firm whose senior partner has known David Grey since pupillage. Our client had sold a software business in 2019 for £64m. The buyer alleged that the indemnity clause covered tax liabilities not disclosed in the data room and sought to claw back £8.4m.

We took the view from week one that the indemnity, properly construed, did not extend to the alleged liabilities — and that the buyer's commercial purpose in the negotiation had been to allocate that very risk to itself. We drafted the defence accordingly and the case went into pleadings.

By March 2024 we had completed disclosure and exchanged witness evidence. The buyer's solicitors made three Part 36 offers in succession, each lower than the last. We declined each. We made one offer — at twelve per cent of the claim — which was rejected.

On the morning of the trial in Commercial Court, the buyer offered to discontinue with costs. We accepted, took the bundles back to chambers, and were home by tea time. The case did not go to a judgment.