Today we welcome barrister and writer Tim Kevan

Tim is the author of the BabyBarista series of novels published by Bloomsbury. His first novel Law and Disorder was described by The Times as “a cross between The Talented Mr Ripley, Rumpole and Bridget Jones’s Diary”. It is based on the BabyBarista Blog (www.babybarista.com) which he also writes for The Guardian. His second novel Law and Peace will be published in May. He is also the co-author of Why Lawyers Should Surf (with Dr Michelle Tempest). He practiced as a barrister in London for ten years and he is also the co-founder of the legal training company www.cpdwebinars.com.

 

Welcome Tim, we love Baby Barista and so are very excited to have you on Legal Brick Road today.  We can move on to Baby Barista later but first please tell us more about your earliest ambitions in law, what inspired you to become a barrister?

The thing that originally inspired me to be a barrister was the advocacy. The idea of standing up and presenting the cases in court.

How have your perceptions changed since you first began to study law?

Since that time, I’ve discovered that I was right to look forward to the advocacy, particularly with a common law practice. It’s both challenging and enjoyable and provides real satisfaction when you get the chance to really get stuck into a case. What I hadn’t realized when I originally set out was another great benefit of the Bar: its independence. I liked the fact that barristers were self-employed and in charge of their own destiny (at least within certain parameters). This meant that if you worked hard and did well, your practice would grow. It also meant that it gave you the freedom to take time off and to pursue other interests if that was what you wanted.

Its more competitive than ever out there.  Any advice for future barristers and lawyers?

I don’t think there’s ever any advice which can solve all the difficulties which will present themselves. But what I would say is that if you really want to be a barrister and you’ve got the ability then go for it. Don’t be put off by the old world trappings which might appear intimidating. As the son of a social worker and a teacher, my experience was that the Bar was extremely welcoming to someone such as myself who didn’t know much about these great institutions when I started university. They also helped me with scholarships (in my case from the Middle Temple) and again this is an extremely important way of facilitating people’s path towards the profession. Above all, if you are lucky enough to make it I’d say that’s it’s a truly wonderful profession to be a part of. The professional standards are extremely high and the camaraderie between barristers makes the job even more enjoyable.

 

Right, moving on to Baby Barista.   You have book deals with Harry Potter’s publisher Bloomsbury, a popular blog (recently noted in The Hollywood Reporter) and write for The Guardian.  How did all this come about and what’s next for you?

Back in 2007 I had been practising as a barrister at what is now Temple Garden Chambers for some nine years and was enjoying the life of a London barrister. But I’d always dreamt of living by the sea and the surf and maybe even writing a novel. I just couldn’t quite see how it could be done. At that time I’d just finished co-writing a motivational book entitled Why Lawyers Should Surf with Dr Michelle Tempest, a book which encourages people to look for inspiration outside of law and used surfing and the power of the ocean as metaphors for living the day to day. Next I wanted to sit down and write a legal thriller. But instead what popped out was a legal comedy about a fictional young barrister doing pupillage. I called him BabyBarista which was a play on words based on his first impression being that his coffee-making skills were probably as important to that year as any forensic legal abilities he may have. It’s a strange thing to say but I discovered that this bold, irreverent and mischievous voice along with a collection of colourful characters had simply jumped into my head and the words started pouring onto the page.

I wrote it as a blog and was hopeful it might raise a few smiles but in my wildest dreams I hadn’t imagined quite the extraordinary set of circumstances which then unfolded with Bloomsbury buying the book rights and The Times offering to host the blog. Since then I’ve finally taken a break from the Bar and moved to North Devon where I’ve been writing, surfing and watching over www.cpdwebinars.com which provides CPD training for personal injury and employment lawyers. The first book Law and Disorder had some good reviews and the sequel Law and Peace is now finished and due out in May. In addition, the blog now has its own site at www.babybarista.com as well as partnering with The Guardian.

As for what’s next, I’d like to write book three in the series and already have quite a few ideas with that in mind. I’d also like to help build the webinars business further as well as ultimately returning to the Bar part-time, based in North Devon and hopefully through my old chambers in London.

What do you think your break from the Bar has done for you?

It’s all been quite eventful and has put me in a dramatically different position to where I was only three or four years ago. Most of all it has allowed me to return to the much simpler country way of life that I had known as a child, complete with a little border terrier dog as well as being able to get out into the surf more often and properly settle into the local community. One thing I guess it all shows is that there’s life outside of a traditional law career.

Best book you’ve read so far?

My goodness, I think it’d be pretty impossible to list all of my best books. As for law-related books, head of the list is ‘To Kill a Mockingbird’, followed by the barrister novels of Henry Cecil, the Rumpole series as well as John Grisham and Scott Turrow and in addition I think I’d count ‘Shawshank Redemption’ under this section. I also recently enjoyed two novels by barrister Elizabeth Woodcraft (‘Good Bad Woman’ and ‘Babyface’). For comedy, I’d say ‘Lucky Jim’, Tom Sharpe’s books, ‘Flashman’ and ‘My Uncle Oswald’. Alongside this, the best comedy being broadcast at present is in my view the BBC radio series ‘Bleak Expectations’ by Mark Evans. More generally, I’d pick out ‘Any Human Heart’, ‘A Prayer for Owen Meany’, ‘The Old Man and the Sea’, ‘Call of the Wild’, ‘London Fields’, ‘OldFilth’, ‘Miss Garnet’s Angel’, ‘Birdsong’, ‘Atonement’, ‘Pillars of the Earth’, ‘Crimson Petal and the White’, ‘Wuthering Heights’, ‘The Warden, ‘The Screwtape Letters’, Ian Fleming, Lee Child, Boris Starling, David Wolstencroft, the list goes on…

As for non-fiction, my all-time favourite is ‘Stealing the Wave’ by Andy Martin. Two other great books about surfing are ‘Riding the Magic Carpet’ by Tom Anderson and ‘Face of the Deep’ by Thomas Farber. Then there’s the huge number of books about daring deeds from Shackleton to Mallory and more recent high-altitude mountaineering and from those I’d pick ‘South’, ‘The Wildest Dream’, ‘The Climb’ (by Anatoli Boukreev) and Ed Viesturs’ ‘No Shortcuts to the Top’ and ‘K2’. For legal non-fiction I’d definitely recommend Alex McBride’s excellent ‘Defending the Guilty’ and Michael Mansfield’s biography.

Finally Tim, what would be your perfect dinner party if you could bring any legal types together from the past and the present and where would you be and what tipple would be in your glass?

I guess if I’m choosing the venue and the booze, it’d be here at my house in North Devon and we’d be drinking Rioja over the meal followed by Sharp’s Doom Bar in the Black Horse Pub in Braunton. As for guests, I’d go for the good friends that I made during my years of practise along with a few of those related to the law such as the ‘Queen’s Counsel’ cartoonist Alex Williams (www.qccartoon.com) and the blogger Charon QC (www.charonqc.com).

 

Thank you Tim, it’s been an absolute pleasure talking to you and we wish you all the very best for the future and we especially look forward to your next book release.

Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed in this interview are not representative of Just Go Direct Limited and we disclaim any liability in relation to the content of this interview.

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