From David Simpson (15.01.21):
Richard was my first pupilmaster. I was his first pupil. I think we were both finding our ways in new roles. I was extremely nervous. As soon as I learned who my pupilmaster was going to be, I had read up on his recent cases which had involved media disputes involving bands including Oasis and, I think, Showaddywaddy. I then spent the few remaining days before pupillage reading up on IP and copyright law. As it turned out Richard had a broad practice and he was actually working on a number of construction cases at the time. In my life before the bar I had worked for a charity building boreholes in Uganda and I had fancied myself as a budding construction lawyer – although this was mainly based upon my experience of things going wrong: drills getting stuck, boreholes failing to find water. I had mentioned this in my pupillage interviews so I think this may have been why I was placed with Richard in my first seat.
Richard was in the final stages of a case involving the construction of a hospital in Kensington. The case had gone on so long that the hospital was now a block of flats - an absurdity which I think Richard rather relished. He was also working on a dispute about the negligent design of the roof of a girls’ school in Chislehurst which had allowed leaves to block gutters creating water ingress. Richard threw himself, and me, into the case and I think we both lapped up the obscure technical details about roof drainage systems. He had a marvellous sale of goods case that went to trial in, I think, Northampton: the buyers had purchased a two cabin cruiser and delighted in showing it off to friends whom they had invited on its maiden voyage, only for something to go wrong with the bilge pump resulting in raw sewage seeping into the cabins. Again, Richard delighted in the crusty details. And so we went on. He had a wonderfully other-worldly client who had, I think, remortgaged and remortgaged without his wife’s knowledge in order to fund his business running cultural tours of medieval Umbria. He had an IP dispute involving the design of a toy caterpillar, an example of which took pride of place on his CD-strewn desk throughout my time with him. I still regard my experience sitting with Richard as a profoundly formative stage in my legal education. His masterful handling of the law, his carefully marshalling of the facts, his charming courtroom manner, were all an inspiration. And slowly he dragged me up from utterly hopeless to just plain hopeless.
I think at this stage Richard’s son Louis must have been about two and his daughter Elizabeth a few years older. It was clear to me then that his family was the centre of his universe. I once met Louis, and indeed Richard’s wife Claire, during pupillage. For reasons into which I did not pry, Claire arrived one day with both Louis and a vacuum cleaner. Louis had brought along a dinosaur which he proceeded to show me whilst his parents set about cleaning Richard’s office. New as I was to the legal world, I didn’t really know the correct etiquette for discussing dinosaurs with one’s pupilmaster’s offspring. Fortunately, Louis, like his father, quickly put me at my ease. I remember that Richard had a really delightful photo of Louis and Elizabeth by the door – it must have been the first thing he saw when he arrived in the morning and the last thing he saw when he left.
When I say “arrived in the morning”, Richard was at this stage something of a night owl. His mornings were generally devoted to getting his children to school (and sometimes, in good weather, a brisk walk to chambers along the Embankment). He would sometimes arrive just in time to put on the immaculate suit he kept on the back of his door before heading off for lunch in Gray’s Inn. He would then make up for the late start by epically late finishes. I could tell when Richard had worked particularly late because an ash tray on his desk would contain the butts of the cigarettes that had kept him going in the wee small hours - back when it was permitted to smoke in chambers. I recall that on one occasion, he had finished a pleading at 3am on Sunday morning, having worked on it all through Saturday. Why? Because Sunday was a particularly important family occasion and he wanted to make sure that he could attend. The solicitors, who thought he was fantastic, sent an email on Monday morning thanking him for his excellent pleading and adding, “Richard, please work harder”.
Like me, Richard had briefly enjoyed a different career before coming to the Bar. As his web CV still proudly says, he had worked for some time for an art dealer specialising in Old Master and British pictures. When his art and cultural property practice really started to take off with the Coleridge Collar case in 2012 and the Cardsharps case in 2015, I really couldn’t have been more delighted for him. He was clearly loving it and felt that he had come into his own professionally. He was quickly and rightly recognised for his expertise in the field. At the same time, he had other collars on his mind as he fought valiantly for the interests of bank customers who had entered into complex interest rate derivatives and then lost out badly when the interest rate collapsed in 2008. I think it’s fair to say that he was one of the counsel in this area that the banks most feared – and I should know because by this time I was working on the banks’ side. I don’t suppose we will know how many excellent settlements he forced out of them, but there were a lot. He approached the cases with genuine passion and belief and I could see the sense of purpose and satisfaction that he derived from helping individuals and small businesses to stay afloat in difficult economic times.
I think Richard and I had much in common but also much that was different. I remember one day during pupillage he had invited me for lunch in Lincoln’s Inn. He told me how much he admired the painting by Hogarth behind the high table. A gauche and uncultured boy from Rochdale (well, alright, I did, like Richard, have a degree in English literature), I didn’t know anything about Hogarth, but sagely noted something to the effect that I thought sure she was very talented, before proceeding to tell him a story about the day Colonel Gadhafi had come to visit the town where I was working in Uganda. Richard being Richard was not at all snobbish about the gaping holes in my culture hinterland and was instead fascinated by my very different life experiences. And I think it was this openness to others’ experiences and this willingness to listen that endeared Richard to so many people. I saw it so many times in later years over lunch in Gray’s Inn – an institution to which Richard was greatly devoted – as he showed genuine interest and delight in the exploits and triumphs of his colleagues and friends.
Before Covid, the sujet du jour in Gray’s Inn was invariably Brexit, a topic about which Richard was most passionate without ever being disrespectful to those of an opposing view. He joined marches campaigning for a second referendum. His passion for Europe stemmed from his marriage to Claire, the normalienne from the sixième whom Richard clearly adored – “ma chérie” as he would endearingly call her as he answered her phone calls. Richard spoke fluent French and their children are bilingual. They took holidays in what Richard always enjoyed referring to by Louis’s name: the Doyn-doyn.
During Covid Richard and I spoke many times by video. He was phlegmatic, coping well and mainly concerned for his children, but he clearly missed being in chambers, seeing colleagues, going for lunch in Gray’s Inn. After the first lockdown he went back into chambers as much as possible and I saw him for the last time in person when I was in chambers in November. He was as ever positive and cheerful.
By this time, I had myself become a pupil supervisor for the first time. Richard made a special effort to set up a video call with my pupil, who (as now seems normal in these strange times) was (and still is) based in Bulgaria. Richard wanted to properly welcome him into chambers and to help him get an idea of the work that others do. I thought that was very Richard.
I think that our lives have been quite intertwined over the years. My own wife (who liked Richard very much indeed) is French – indeed, I am writing this from France, where we are now sitting out Covid – and now I have children of my own who will grow up in a multi-lingual cross-cultural household. Richard and I discussed the benefits and challenges of such arrangements many times. It was one of the few joys of the lockdown that video calling allowed me to introduce Richard to my elder daughter Héloïse. I reminded him of the time I had met Louis and his dinosaur. It felt like a significant moment.
It is so tragic that Richard is gone at such a young age and I feel deeply distraught at his loss. I had always wondered whether one day, when his children had left home, Richard might leave the Bar and move to Paris with Claire. Perhaps he would return to the art world, seeing out his days in an art dealership on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, or perhaps just potter around the antiquarian bookshops of the Quartier Latin. Maybe this was just a figment of my imagination, but I feel desperately sad that he never got the chance.
I know he was immensely proud of his family. I hope he was proud of the work he had done. And above all I hope that he knew just how much he was loved and admired by all who knew him.
DS 15.01.21
From David Simpson (15.01.21):
Richard was my first pupilmaster. I was his first pupil. I think we were both finding our ways in new roles. I was extremely nervous. As soon as I learned who my pupilmaster was going to be, I had read up on his recent cases which had involved media disputes involving bands including Oasis and, I think, Showaddywaddy. I then spent the few remaining days before pupillage reading up on IP and copyright law. As it turned out Richard had a broad practice and he was actually working on a number of construction cases at the time. In my life before the bar I had worked for a charity building boreholes in Uganda and I had fancied myself as a budding construction lawyer – although this was mainly based upon my experience of things going wrong: drills getting stuck, boreholes failing to find water. I had mentioned this in my pupillage interviews so I think this may have been why I was placed with Richard in my first seat.
Richard was in the final stages of a case involving the construction of a hospital in Kensington. The case had gone on so long that the hospital was now a block of flats - an absurdity which I think Richard rather relished. He was also working on a dispute about the negligent design of the roof of a girls’ school in Chislehurst which had allowed leaves to block gutters creating water ingress. Richard threw himself, and me, into the case and I think we both lapped up the obscure technical details about roof drainage systems. He had a marvellous sale of goods case that went to trial in, I think, Northampton: the buyers had purchased a two cabin cruiser and delighted in showing it off to friends whom they had invited on its maiden voyage, only for something to go wrong with the bilge pump resulting in raw sewage seeping into the cabins. Again, Richard delighted in the crusty details. And so we went on. He had a wonderfully other-worldly client who had, I think, remortgaged and remortgaged without his wife’s knowledge in order to fund his business running cultural tours of medieval Umbria. He had an IP dispute involving the design of a toy caterpillar, an example of which took pride of place on his CD-strewn desk throughout my time with him. I still regard my experience sitting with Richard as a profoundly formative stage in my legal education. His masterful handling of the law, his carefully marshalling of the facts, his charming courtroom manner, were all an inspiration. And slowly he dragged me up from utterly hopeless to just plain hopeless.
I think at this stage Richard’s son Louis must have been about two and his daughter Elizabeth a few years older. It was clear to me then that his family was the centre of his universe. I once met Louis, and indeed Richard’s wife Claire, during pupillage. For reasons into which I did not pry, Claire arrived one day with both Louis and a vacuum cleaner. Louis had brought along a dinosaur which he proceeded to show me whilst his parents set about cleaning Richard’s office. New as I was to the legal world, I didn’t really know the correct etiquette for discussing dinosaurs with one’s pupilmaster’s offspring. Fortunately, Louis, like his father, quickly put me at my ease. I remember that Richard had a really delightful photo of Louis and Elizabeth by the door – it must have been the first thing he saw when he arrived in the morning and the last thing he saw when he left.
When I say “arrived in the morning”, Richard was at this stage something of a night owl. His mornings were generally devoted to getting his children to school (and sometimes, in good weather, a brisk walk to chambers along the Embankment). He would sometimes arrive just in time to put on the immaculate suit he kept on the back of his door before heading off for lunch in Gray’s Inn. He would then make up for the late start by epically late finishes. I could tell when Richard had worked particularly late because an ash tray on his desk would contain the butts of the cigarettes that had kept him going in the wee small hours - back when it was permitted to smoke in chambers. I recall that on one occasion, he had finished a pleading at 3am on Sunday morning, having worked on it all through Saturday. Why? Because Sunday was a particularly important family occasion and he wanted to make sure that he could attend. The solicitors, who thought he was fantastic, sent an email on Monday morning thanking him for his excellent pleading and adding, “Richard, please work harder”.
Like me, Richard had briefly enjoyed a different career before coming to the Bar. As his web CV still proudly says, he had worked for some time for an art dealer specialising in Old Master and British pictures. When his art and cultural property practice really started to take off with the Coleridge Collar case in 2012 and the Cardsharps case in 2015, I really couldn’t have been more delighted for him. He was clearly loving it and felt that he had come into his own professionally. He was quickly and rightly recognised for his expertise in the field. At the same time, he had other collars on his mind as he fought valiantly for the interests of bank customers who had entered into complex interest rate derivatives and then lost out badly when the interest rate collapsed in 2008. I think it’s fair to say that he was one of the counsel in this area that the banks most feared – and I should know because by this time I was working on the banks’ side. I don’t suppose we will know how many excellent settlements he forced out of them, but there were a lot. He approached the cases with genuine passion and belief and I could see the sense of purpose and satisfaction that he derived from helping individuals and small businesses to stay afloat in difficult economic times.
I think Richard and I had much in common but also much that was different. I remember one day during pupillage he had invited me for lunch in Lincoln’s Inn. He told me how much he admired the painting by Hogarth behind the high table. A gauche and uncultured boy from Rochdale (well, alright, I did, like Richard, have a degree in English literature), I didn’t know anything about Hogarth, but sagely noted something to the effect that I thought sure she was very talented, before proceeding to tell him a story about the day Colonel Gadhafi had come to visit the town where I was working in Uganda. Richard being Richard was not at all snobbish about the gaping holes in my culture hinterland and was instead fascinated by my very different life experiences. And I think it was this openness to others’ experiences and this willingness to listen that endeared Richard to so many people. I saw it so many times in later years over lunch in Gray’s Inn – an institution to which Richard was greatly devoted – as he showed genuine interest and delight in the exploits and triumphs of his colleagues and friends.
Before Covid, the sujet du jour in Gray’s Inn was invariably Brexit, a topic about which Richard was most passionate without ever being disrespectful to those of an opposing view. He joined marches campaigning for a second referendum. His passion for Europe stemmed from his marriage to Claire, the normalienne from the sixième whom Richard clearly adored – “ma chérie” as he would endearingly call her as he answered her phone calls. Richard spoke fluent French and their children are bilingual. They took holidays in what Richard always enjoyed referring to by Louis’s name: the Doyn-doyn.
During Covid Richard and I spoke many times by video. He was phlegmatic, coping well and mainly concerned for his children, but he clearly missed being in chambers, seeing colleagues, going for lunch in Gray’s Inn. After the first lockdown he went back into chambers as much as possible and I saw him for the last time in person when I was in chambers in November. He was as ever positive and cheerful.
By this time, I had myself become a pupil supervisor for the first time. Richard made a special effort to set up a video call with my pupil, who (as now seems normal in these strange times) was (and still is) based in Bulgaria. Richard wanted to properly welcome him into chambers and to help him get an idea of the work that others do. I thought that was very Richard.
I think that our lives have been quite intertwined over the years. My own wife (who liked Richard very much indeed) is French – indeed, I am writing this from France, where we are now sitting out Covid – and now I have children of my own who will grow up in a multi-lingual cross-cultural household. Richard and I discussed the benefits and challenges of such arrangements many times. It was one of the few joys of the lockdown that video calling allowed me to introduce Richard to my elder daughter Héloïse. I reminded him of the time I had met Louis and his dinosaur. It felt like a significant moment.
It is so tragic that Richard is gone at such a young age and I feel deeply distraught at his loss. I had always wondered whether one day, when his children had left home, Richard might leave the Bar and move to Paris with Claire. Perhaps he would return to the art world, seeing out his days in an art dealership on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré, or perhaps just potter around the antiquarian bookshops of the Quartier Latin. Maybe this was just a figment of my imagination, but I feel desperately sad that he never got the chance.
I know he was immensely proud of his family. I hope he was proud of the work he had done. And above all I hope that he knew just how much he was loved and admired by all who knew him.
DS 15.01.21
