COVID-19 PANDEMIC
MASTER ANDREW HOCHHAUSER
Confronting the Challenges presented by the Covid-19 pandemic Master Andrew Hochhauser is honorary Counsel to Westminster Abbey, a former Trustee of the V&A, Governor of the University of the Arts London, a Vice-Chairman of the Inns of Court College of Advocacy, a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators, a Deputy High Court Judge and the Chairman of Paintings in Hospitals. He is the 2020 Deputy Treasurer.
On Tuesday 14 April 2020, Master Treasurer wrote to all members of the Inn. The opening paragraph of that letter stated ‘The speed and severity with which the Covid-19 outbreak has struck this country and so many others around the world has been truly traumatic – none of us could ever have foreseen such dramatic consequences in our personal and working lives’. The Inn closed its doors after lunch service on Monday 16 March 2020. All Domus and non-Domus events ceased. The Library remained open until Monday 23 March 2020, but after the Government announced a lockdown, that too closed. Since then we have become used to working remotely. Words like ‘Zoom’, ‘StarLeaf’, ‘Blue Jeans’, ‘Skype for Business’ and ‘Microsoft Teams’, hitherto unknown, have become part of our daily vocabulary. Chambers are unoccupied. A ghostly atmosphere pervades the Temple. In such circumstances, how can the Inn help its members? The Middle Temple is a community of practitioners, pupils, students, members (including judges) and our staff. In these troubling times, we want to make sure that we preserve that special ethos, and that all still feel part of that community. We have been determined to remain in close contact through our activities, providing updates and communication channels, as well as through many other initiatives. On Thursday 14 May 2020, we held a ‘virtual’ extraordinary meeting of Parliament by Microsoft Teams. 132 Benchers attended from many parts of the world. That attendance is a record. Whilst some staff have been
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put ‘on furlough’, many others have worked extremely hard to ensure that ‘the show goes on’. I would like to pay tribute to all that they have done, which has been far above and beyond the call of duty. Here is a description of the various activities to date.
Education and Training The core activity of the Inn has been, and remains, providing education and CPD to our students, pupils, and new and established practitioners. Despite the fact that we cannot provide face-to-face activities, our Education & Training team, led by the brilliant Christa Richmond, has developed a series of ‘virtual’ distance learning initiatives that will ensure that our members do not suffer unduly as a result of the lockdown. We continue to provide a full complement of Qualifying Sessions (QS) for students. Following the Parliament meeting on Thursday 14 May 2020, we have had many offers of help from Benchers, including Master Nick Critelli in Iowa and Master Adrian Jack in the BVI! This programme now contains well over 2,500 slots, which is the number needed to give all students the opportunity to attend the required number of QS in time for Call to the Bar. These include advocacy days, designed for those who had signed up to Cumberland Lodge, 10 Sherrard Conversations, five mock trials, four MTSA events, four MTYBA events, the continuation of the Rosamund Smith Mooting Competition and two wellbeing sessions. In addition, there are courses for pupils and new practitioners including the Pupils’ Course, the New
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Practitioners’ Programme, the Advocacy and the Vulnerable course and counselling sessions. There are plans for a CPD day on the topic of handling expert witnesses, which will be held later in the year. I will be running it with Master Paul Stanley and once again it will take place remotely.
Scholarships and Prizes Despite the lockdown, it has been ‘business as usual’, as arrangements have been made to conduct all our interviews remotely, beginning with the Access to the Bar interviews, which were held in April. Eight interviewers awarded 36 Awards to second and third-year students, who are from disadvantaged backgrounds, often the first in their family to go to university. These Awards will enable them to have one week’s marshalling with a judge and one week shadowing a senior barrister in chambers, together with the provision of the necessary funding. Arranging the interviews for the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) scholarships is a challenge, even in normal circumstances. There are so many of them, because of the Inn’s policy of interviewing every single applicant. It is usually a three-day event held just after Easter with eight panels, each consisting of three members. This year we were determined that we should stick to that policy – and we did. Some 350 interviews were scheduled remotely by StarLeaf with 24 interviewers between Thursday 21 and Friday 29 May 2020. Similar arrangements were put in place for the GDL interviews in June 2020.
Financial support for our members We are extremely aware of the financial hardship that many of our members are suffering as a result of this crisis. We want to provide financial support to these members and, along with the other three Inns, have supported a campaign by the Barristers’ Benevolent Association (BBA) to help those in urgent need. It seeks to raise emergency funds from
