Pandemic Paternity Leave

My professional diary has, between different dates this year, had 'Speak to Max' noted on it. This was an instruction to my clerks to speak to me before booking in trials as I was intending to resume paternity leave to enable my wife to return to work before the baby had his first birthday.

Needless to say these dates were pencilled in just waiting to be rubbed out by a case coming along that I just couldn't refuse. Initially the plan had been for a three month period, when last we had spoken about this it had become a month as an adjunct to the summer holidays.

I know that it was never the dying regret of any barrister that they had not taken on more cases. Conversely if you miss those early days, months and years you miss them forever. And yet how much of a chasm lies there between awareness and action.

Almost all barristers fear that if they step off the treadmill they will somehow never get back on it or find that their place on it has been usurped by someone keener, more focused on the job, less distracted by family. No barrister ever imagined that the treadmill would suddenly one day stop turning.

Exactly a week ago I was on Day 34 of a jury trial with a judge determined to shepherd the case to a result while the gathering storm clouds swirled around us. To the eternal credit of that jury they shared his determination but, inevitably, events overtook us all and the plug was pulled and, immediately, I was unemployed.

Except as a father to a 3 year old and a baby I was anything but. Absurdly, despite my empty diary, I could have claimed key worker status to keep the 3 year old in nursery but with no income that would have been a crazy expense far from the spirit of the exception.

So I am now a house husband and a stay at home dad rapidly discovering what I had long suspected, namely that no fraud, however complex or torturous, can compare with the difficulty of pacifying two screaming children at the same time.

I have been spoken to fairly shortly and sharply by judges in my time but even the most irascible judge is not as unreasonable as an actual howling toddler. The Coronavirus is doing an almost unimaginable amount of harm in the world and leaving tragedy in its wake but for me, and I'm sure many fathers like me, it is forcing an adjustment to our roles in the workplace and in our families.

For the time being I really am a father first and for all that I have lost professionally I know that these terrible circumstances have given me a gift not to be squandered. And, if I really miss the day job, I'm sure nobody will mind if I wear my wig pushing the pram around the park.