“Balance and being a barrister is a cruel oxymoron.
But even if we can’t hold everything in place, we can try.
And that effort—that resilience—is what gives the job meaning.”
At the Bar, we often talk about balance—work, life, emotion, justice—but rarely experience it ourselves. We argue on behalf of others while keeping quiet about our own strain.
After twenty-five years in practice, I keep thinking that being a barrister and living in balance rarely mix. Long hours, constant pressure, and emotional detachment take their toll—even if we don’t show it.
The Barristers’ Working Lives 2023 report confirms that work-life balance remains a serious challenge, affecting wellbeing—especially for women, junior barristers, and those with caring responsibilities. Criminal practitioners are particularly hard hit.
We all knew when we walked into law that neither the courtroom nor the transactional world offers peace—they’re built for conflict.
Balance sounds good, but often feels out of reach. Still, the search for it matters—not because we’ll find it, but because it keeps us grounded.
One case, early in my career, brought this home.
My client was a British jeweller living in the Costa del Sol. One day, masked police officers stormed his home and arrested him in front of his wife and children. No explanation, no interpreter, no warrant shown. It was all over the news and TV. His supposed crime? Lending money to someone later implicated in a terrorism investigation in the UK.
He had made the loan, yes—but he had no idea the individual was under suspicion. He told the truth in court. He had nothing to hide. But in Spain, where criminal defendants are expected to remain silent, to deny everything, and even to lie as a matter of legal strategy—with the tacit support of the system—his honesty backfired. There was no meaningful evidence against him, but he was locked up anyway.
The interrogation took place at half past midnight on a Sunday, before the Audiencia Nacional—Spain’s central criminal court. I had no access to the case file; it was subject to a secret summary investigation. There was no opportunity for disclosure or case preparation, and the interpreter provided was inadequate.
When I raised procedural objections, I was cautioned to remain silent. Earlier that day, the judge’s driver had said to me over coffee, “Tu cliente se va al trullo”—your client’s off to prison. He was right. Bail was refused, and my client was remanded in custody. It was clear that the case had been prejudged in advance by the examining judge.
That night, I went back to my hotel, lay down on the bed still in my suit, and stared at the ceiling, trying to make sense of it all. My client was innocent, I had followed the rules. I had done everything within my power. But none of it mattered—the decision had already been made. The system wasn’t listening. I felt helpless.
And more than that, I felt angry. For the first time, I seriously considered walking away from the profession.
He spent six months in prison. Later, when we finally got access to the case file, we found out that the UK authorities had never asked for his arrest—only to question him. The man he’d lent money to had already been released in London without charge. Meanwhile, my client sat in a cell in Madrid.
Eventually, he was released without charge. He later won a damages claim in the European Court. After all that, he still didn’t hold a grudge. He sent me a small watercolour of a sunrise with a note: “Always, unfailingly, everything—absolutely everything—happens for a reason. We may never understand it.”
I still don’t.
But that case taught me something: law isn’t just about winning. Most of the time, we’re up against systems we can’t control—delays, errors, media pressure, bureaucracy. We can’t always fix it, but we still have to keep showing up.
That’s why balance matters—not as a goal, but as a way of staying human in a job that often doesn’t feel that way.
I learned that Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (1869–1948), called to the Bar by the Honourable Society of the Inner Temple in 1891, drew the core principles of his Satyagraha movement from the Bhagavad Gītā.
This sacred text, part of the Mahābhārata—the great Sanskrit epic composed between roughly 400 BCE and 400 CE—offers a timeless lesson. In its most famous passage, the warrior Arjuna freezes before battle, paralysed by doubt against a very cruel and unfair dilema. He turns to God, Krishna, acting as his charioteer, friend and spiritual guide—who teaches him about yoga, which in this context can be understood as balance: acting with focus and detachment, aligning one’s duty (dharma) with equanimity, even under pressure. It is balance not as stillness, but as disciplined engagement.it’s a lesson in balance and courage—an enduring guide for any advocate. Krishna advises Arjuna:
“Perform your duty equipoised, O Arjuna, abandoning all attachment to success or failure. Such equanimity is called yoga.” (Gītā 2.48)
This teaching, though over two thousand years old, still speaks to me. In law, as in life, we often work within systems we didn’t build, with no guarantee of justice. But we are still responsible for what we do.
Balance and being a barrister is a cruel oxymoron. But even if we can’t hold everything in place, we can try. That effort—to be authentic, to stay present, to keep showing up—is what gives the work its meaning.
Being a lawyer isn’t about being perfect. It’s about sticking with it. Even when the law falls short. Even when we feel like walking away. We carry more than arguments and rules—we carry people’s hopes, fears, and stories.
That weight is real. And trying to keep some balance, even when we fail, is how we stay true to the reason many of us started this work in the first place.
Author’s note: I share this as part of an ongoing reflection on what it means to practise law with care, and to keep going when the system seems to pull us off course. Balance may be hard to find, but I believe it’s still worth the effort.
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