By Alexander Chandler KC
Barristers who sit part-time as judges gain several advantages: an insight into the workings of the court system, an understanding of the pressures of time when judges are over-listed, and, above all, a box seat in terms of seeing what works and what doesn’t work as advocacy.
I have sat part-time for a decade; initially as a deputy district judge in the county court; latterly as a recorder in the family court. The experience has been broadening and extremely useful for my ‘day job’ as a barrister specialising in financial remedies on divorce. In my view, there are three main lessons from the bench:

Keep it short;
Be reasonable;
Show don’t tell.

The first two will hopefully be self-evident.
Keep it short
One of the common threads that run through the Civil ...