Orlagh Kelly: So we've got Jayne Drake, Senior Clerk from St Paul's Chambers here today. Thank you so much for joining us, Jayne. We've been looking forward to this for quite some time.

Jayne Drake: Thank you for having me.

Orlagh Kelly: You're very welcome. So I know a little bit about you — that you started out very early as a clerk and that you're now, after a profession of time in the clerking world supporting barristers, on the Executive Committee for the Institute of Barristers' Clerks. You've moved into that higher echelon of not only making it as a senior clerk and being professionally successful yourself, but also bringing guidance and support to the profession coming behind you. And I'd love to hear a little bit about how you got into clerking. Was this in the nineties, maybe?

Jayne Drake: Yeah, it was 1995 to be precise. So it's now my 30th year. And it was by chance. I finished my A-levels. I didn't really fancy going straight to uni. So I decided to take the year out and just see what the world had to offer. I really had designs on going into the police on a longer term basis, but having made some enquiries, I was too young — I was 17 — and I think I just needed some life experience. There was an advert in the local press that I replied to for a junior position, a junior clerks' position, at an annex to a London set, KBW, as it was then. It's now 1 MCB. And yeah, I was interviewed and got the job. Never really looked back after that.

I stayed in York for a few years, then moved over to Leeds. I then took a position at St Paul's Chambers in 2000 and I moved up in the clerking arena at St Paul's really, and ended up being senior clerk in 2009, and I'm still part of the furniture at St Paul's Chambers.

Orlagh Kelly: And so thinking about 1995, what did a clerking room look like then compared to 2025?

Jayne Drake: Well, there were two very different clerking rooms, because I was trained in fact in the London clerks' room. And so that was 8 King's Bench Walk. And that was a very different environment to the one that I was in in York, because we were above a solicitor's office in York and it was just the two of us — senior clerk and myself — and there were barristers that would be there quite a lot of the time, as it was back in those days, with quite a lot of people milling around. But the training that I had in London was very different because it was the engine room of the entire place. And that's the difference. And the learning that I gained from being part of that team — that's why I had to go down there, because otherwise I think I just wouldn't have picked up all the necessary elements of clerking.

I think I'm a staunch believer in going across all the different areas of clerking and having those experiences first-hand. Back in those days, there wasn't the training programme that the IBC offers now. So you just had to learn on the job. So I ended up going down there and the barristers would put me up. It was very informal. I mean, I was only 17, 18. So it was fine for me to just be down there for a few days and then come back up again. And the clerks — it was just on the cusp of going into the case management systems on computers, but we had the big diary that you could only use with pencil. God forbid if you used a pen, you'd be sacked. That sort of level. It was very proper. It's hard to remember how we got on without computers, but we did. And then in York, we had the Rolodex. We had strips of cardboard encased in files where we would create the cases. All the briefs lined up in alphabetical order on the shelves. And we only had a word processor, and that was it. So I ended up being a bit of a typist as well. I was typing advices for the barristers. So it was a bit of a dual role. I don't think I was really defined in any particular way — I did everything, which was quite a good thing.

Orlagh Kelly: So that is very interesting. One of the things that stands out to me there is the suggestion that the clerking room in a London set versus the clerking room possibly in a more Northern set would be different. Is it controversial to say that you think chambers operate differently in London versus everywhere else?

Jayne Drake: I think the essence of what we do is the same and the challenges are similar, but I think we have differences in the cultural environment that we're in — or not even cultural, it's the social aspects. When we're in the city in London, we would think nothing of going for a drink after work. And a lot of the time, I would say the clerks there are commuting on public transport. In the provincial sets, we're all in our own vehicles, we can't really go out drinking after work because we're driving. So the social aspect is different. So therefore you're not really seeing your counterpart clerks in other sets as frequently as perhaps in London. But I would say in contrast to that, we've got a very close-knit relationship with the listing officers at the Crown Courts and the County Courts, because specifically with the Crown Courts, we liaise with the listing officers to create the current court lists. And that's unique to the provincial bar, because in London you just can't do that. There are too many court centres to manage, too many chambers. But here we have liaison bar clerks that would be in communication with the listing officers on a daily basis. We come together on a Zoom with the other bar clerks and we represent different court centres. So in that respect, we have a very...

Orlagh Kelly: I've never heard it put like that before. You're able to actually leverage that smaller working environment, I guess, to your advantage — and it works for the court, but it works for your counsel and for you guys as well, to be able to influence the listing.

Jayne Drake: It absolutely allows us to get our barristers to, arguably, more cases than would be the case if you're just leaving it to chance with a listing officer in London who's just telling you, right, your trial's next in line. So we have more say in it, I think.

Orlagh Kelly: Just slightly on a tangent, but I'm wondering about it as it comes into my mind: does that allow you to provide your members with support that possibly isn't available in London, in terms of maybe they've got caring responsibilities that require a little bit more nuance in terms of where they can be and when? Is that something that would feature in your clerks' thinking process when putting those lists together?

Jayne Drake: It's an easier challenge to navigate up here because I think we have a greater control over what we can expect our barristers to be doing. And so when our barristers may have two or three matters in their diary for tomorrow and the pre-report, we can ensure that they get to those cases and we can manage diaries in an efficient way.

Orlagh Kelly: So just picking up what you were saying there — being able to navigate the potential nuances of what counsel might require, particularly if they've got childcare or dependent responsibilities — that is something that your clerks are actually able to take into consideration much more cohesively than a London clerk would have available at their fingertips. That's not something I'd thought about before.

Jayne Drake: Yeah, I think that's fair to say, and I think the relationship that we have with our barristers is focused on their needs. So we appreciate that it's not always the case that they can be here, there and everywhere. But with the liaison we have with the court centres and the input we can get, it provides us with some sense of control. It's not like we're getting to the end of the day and making everything fit and just sending barristers everywhere. We are quite focused on not accepting briefs where we're not able to get to them physically. Because in the provinces, we have to travel — it's quite time consuming. Not all cases are on Cloud Video Platform. So we have to take into account that our members have specific needs and caring responsibilities and start times and finish times that are relevant. So having that liaison with the courts is an advantage, and I think that's probably one thing that sets us apart from the London sets.

Orlagh Kelly: And do you think — one of the things that I've become aware of is that it's hard to get people to come into the clerking profession. Certainly anyone that I've spoken to like yourself has sort of fallen into it in some capacity, rather than knowing about it as a career pathway at school. Is that the same now, do you think, or is there a more defined career pathway from post-GCSE, post-A-level that people would understand as a great opportunity for a career?

Jayne Drake: I think we are working on that, and as part of the movement under Dave Scothern, who's now the chair of the IBC, we've recently met — the exec committee have met — and I think one of the things that's come out of that is that there is a need for us to engage at school level, at the young person level, to advocate this as a viable profession for young people to consider at school-leaver age.

We are offering so much more from the IBC than we ever were, and it has evolved — there's a greater focus on the academic side as well. So I think at the moment the challenge is that young people don't know this as a career, and schools don't know it as a career either. I know a few teachers when you mention it, they say, oh, what's a barrister's clerk? Do you go to court? And it's like, no, I don't go to court. But when you start explaining that it's effectively an agent to a barrister, it's quite intriguing to them. And I think that's the outreach we need to explore more from the IBC point of view. And I think it started actually with Howard Rayner from QEB — he's just retired. He has done some outreach work in schools and it's been really successful and well received.

So Dave wants to roll that out a little bit further. And so we're looking at that programme and looking at how in reality we're going to be able to do that, because we offer these elements of input as voluntary. We have to do our day jobs as well, so we can't spend too much time doing it.

Orlagh Kelly: And it is — I mean, there is that ethos in the bar profession, widely, of giving back to the profession. And it's interesting to see, of course, on the chambers professional side, that you're also doing that to try to create a little bit of succession planning, bring talent into the clerking world where they can be developed and have really great careers and opportunities to earn very good money.

Develop, travel around the world, be involved in very exciting things. It is a wonderful career. Certainly from the outside it appears to be a wonderful opportunity. Is that what you'd say from your experience?

Jayne Drake: Yeah, I do think so. And I'd say that some sets have it great. I mean, if you get into international work then as a clerk you can — I mean, Dave's going to Vancouver in September, I think, or November.

Orlagh Kelly: Sure, it's really hard work.

Jayne Drake: Yeah, it sounds — my heart bleeds for him. But yeah, from my point of view, I don't have that opportunity, but I still love exactly what I do. And the opportunities that I have had have been brilliant. I really have seen — I've met so many lovely people along the way. And the pool of talent is smaller up in the north, and that is the problem, and that's why we need to attract people to consider this as an option. When we're looking to recruit here we struggle. We use the recruiters as much as we can but they have more of a connection with the clerks of London because there are more of them.

Retention is an issue then for the chambers, because we have to rely on keeping our staff members happy and not having their heads turned by bigger budgets, bigger incentives and fancy London sets. And with us all working remotely to some extent, it's a viable option now — you're not stuck to staying in a set that's local to you and you could actually work in a London set now. So yeah, your head could be turned, and that's the difficulty in the provincial sets, I think, to keep the talent pool. So I'm really interested in trying to get out there and getting schools thinking about this as a professional career for them.

Orlagh Kelly: And what about the barristers then? Because of course barristers might get their heads turned by fancy London sets as well. Is there the same issue in identifying and attracting barrister talent into the chambers? Or not?

Jayne Drake: Yeah, slightly different, I think, because of the way the job works for them. They do have CVP — Cloud Video Platform — but by and large they have to be present in the courts. And I think with caring responsibilities, in the way that we were talking before, you build your roots, you build your life in the hometown that you're in — you've got your child in nursery perhaps. So you've got time constraints to consider.

I don't think necessarily there is a massive pull for barristers in the north to think about sets in London unless you haven't got those ties and you could be a bit more flexible and could up sticks and just move. Otherwise I think it's difficult because it depends on the discipline that you're doing. If you're doing crime, then you're going to have to travel or you're going to have to move, and that's a big ask when you've made all the family decisions in the north. So I'd say that mobility isn't as great for barristers as it possibly could be for clerks, who could work on a consultancy basis and be effectively self-employed.

Orlagh Kelly: One of the things that I'm interested to get your perspective on is AI. I've talked a lot to barristers about how it affects them and how it could potentially affect them going forward. And I'm very interested in how you think it could potentially affect the clerking room. As I've said on some of our other podcasts, I have never had the benefit of having a clerk because I practised in Belfast where we don't have a clerking service. However, I would love it. I can see the value — as someone who didn't have it, trying to set up a business and run a business and be the product, which is also providing the legal advice and representation — that is a very, very difficult thing to do. And to me it's the clerking acumen and dedication and relationships that would really have accelerated that, had I had the opportunity.

So I know where my thoughts sit about AI around clerking. But I'd be interested, Jayne, to hear where your thoughts are in terms of AI and how it can either support or put the clerking world at risk. What do you think?

Jayne Drake: It's such a big subject, but I don't think it's going to hinder the clerking world. Somebody asked me the other day, in fact, whether they thought AI would replace my role. It was a no. The answer was no, because I think beyond the administration of what we do as clerks, there's so much more to it. And one of the overriding things that we pride ourselves on is our judgment. And our judgment comes from experience.

You need to read the room as well. You need to read the mood of what you're dealing with. And when you're renegotiating, it's not just a transactional thing. It's about understanding what the need of the solicitor is — traditionally it's solicitors that we renegotiate with. They've got to manage their client as well. They've got challenges on that side of the fence. So we've got to explore a little bit about what those challenges might be to understand how we can best fit with what they need.

And I don't know whether a machine has that capability, and hopefully it doesn't and never will. But I don't think we need to worry too much about AI replacing us. I think as it progresses, I can see the benefits now. It's been really useful for me as a prompt. So when I'm producing something for the website, I will get something from the barrister about what they want me to produce on the site, and then I will be able to develop that piece using the sources that AI will draw upon. And then I will be able to rehash it, make it my own, take out bits. And to some extent it's still AI-generated, but the content is better than I probably would have been able to achieve, because I don't live and breathe that case and my barrister's busy.

So they don't have the capacity to write a piece, articles for a case of interest. So it's been a really useful tool for web content. It's to be used with caution, because Google has a particular algorithm that will pick up on AI-generated content. And I think that's one of the things that we as clerks need to be aware of — it's not necessarily going to put you up there in the rankings because people will know it's AI-generated. So it's got to be organic. You've really got to put your own stamp on it. AI has its benefits. There's lots to it. We use it with the IBC — we're looking at summarising the last perhaps 12 months of meetings that we've had. So you can put all your minutes into that AI tool and it will generate a summary and flag things that perhaps haven't been dealt with but have been picked up halfway through the year. So it's useful, but it's not going to replace the clerks anytime soon.

Orlagh Kelly: I think it's an excellent tool, and it's probably going to be significant. We'll see over the next couple of years how it will change. But in the same way email has been significant — it replaces an old way of doing things, but it doesn't replace a person, I don't think. So it's interesting to see how it's being harnessed in chambers. We would certainly be well aware from advising chambers on AI governance and compliance and risk that a lot of chambers are using it very carefully, but to really accelerate how they get things done. It's a good support tool. So in terms of — you were promoted to senior clerk in 2009. How does it feel to be at the senior end of the profession versus when you came in at 17 and you were in that world where you just had to learn really on your feet and do anything that was thrown at you? What's the difference?

Jayne Drake: It's quite unusual for me because I've grown up in the same place. I was 22 when I joined St Paul's Chambers and I'm 48 now. There have been a lot of barristers that I've grown up with and they've seen me as a young person. And so I've evolved in front of them.

Orlagh Kelly: As someone who is almost your age, I would say you're still a young person.

Jayne Drake: I am definitely still a young person, definitely. I like that. I'm just a tad older. But I sometimes get a bit of imposter syndrome because of the way that I perhaps think I'm being perceived, and because they've seen me as a young person, a very young person to a certain extent.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah. In your early 20s.

Jayne Drake: I've got wisdom now. I feel I've earned my stripes and I've been through an awful lot with St Paul's and the things that have happened over the years. We've had our ups, we've had our downs, and we've navigated through those times together. And I've seen elevations to the bench. I've seen elevations into silk. I've met all the families. And so I feel really connected. So there are differences.

I was just a staff member when I started, so I didn't have any autonomy over the business side of things and the growth and where we were and what it was to be part of St Paul's, so I never really engaged with that. My then senior clerk, Catherine Grimshaw, she was the one that I would credit with adding the finesse to my clerking approach. She came into the profession in the eighties, and came from an entirely different sector.

And so that must have been really tough for her, and I'd never really appreciated it. I joined it ten years after she was in post. But she trailblazed for women at that level, because I don't think at the time there were very many women, certainly in the north, doing the job that she was doing. I would credit her with giving me that finesse, and she sent me on a course — which I'm really grateful for — on how to be assertive rather than aggressive. Assertiveness skills. So clearly I was just a bit clumsy in my approach to things. And that's the difference — you live and learn, you have experiences with people over the years, and you work out how best to get the thing that you need from people.

So my approaches may have been very clumsy at the beginning, and I think that's what she needed to address with me. So yeah, it's quite different now. And I still think, am I doing enough? I still worry — this is where the imposter syndrome comes in. I'm doing the job I should be doing and the job has changed so much. The expectations upon us are greater, the complexity of chambers is different.

And we've got much more to deal with. So the essence of clerking is still there, but we've got multiple layers on top of that to contend with. And because we're a smaller set, we don't have the staffing levels that other bigger sets do. So we don't have the specific roles in chambers, or the kinds of training, which is actually a good thing for us because it allows all of our staff to experience everything.

Orlagh Kelly: And so you spoke a little bit — I could almost see that you got physically more joyful when you talked about witnessing elevations to the bench and elevations to silk. In and around 25 years at St Paul's, what have you been involved in and how has that felt for you?

Jayne Drake: I think there have been nine silks since 2009, since I was appointed as senior clerk. That's been really special. My first — I'll never forget the first silk day that I experienced as senior clerk. Going back to other clerks and how they mentor you — I was very much a bee in headlights. I was taking the family through the day, and it's quite an eventful day. You start off at Westminster, then you're at the RCJ, and there's not a lot of time between the two and you've got all the family members. You've got your silk that needs to be scheduled here, there and everywhere. And I happened to be in the wrong queue at the RCJ. I was waiting for my slot because you will give them time slots and you have to get into court at the RCJ to witness yourself being bowed in before what was then the Lord Chief Justice.

And I was in the wrong queue. It was Pat Duane, the former — the late great Pat Duane — at Chartiers Chambers. He clearly saw that I was out of my depth. He plucked me from the crowd and got me and the family, took us up a staircase I didn't even know existed, to the gallery section. And he then placed us all in this lovely gallery position with all viewing rights — brilliant.

And I thought, thank you for that, because had I not been plucked from the queue I would have been stood there for ages, would have missed my slot and the family wouldn't have seen it. Yeah. And I think, you know, he knew that. And so it was brilliant. And so things like that I remember fondly, and I'll always help anybody else. And that's what clerks do. And that is definitely something that I've found even with the IBC — being part of it at the exec level, whatever you need, you can have. People will give. And that's lovely in this profession, because we are all competing with each other, but we're not. We're not really.

Orlagh Kelly: We're like chief problem solvers. Whatever the problem might be — that's what I've started to witness as I hear the stories. And it can be as strange as anything, but it'll be a clerk that knows the answer to it.

Jayne Drake: Invariably, yeah. We solve problems. We are troubleshooters.

Orlagh Kelly: That's amazing, it's such a lovely story. And so you get a lot of personal joy, I guess, from working with those barristers — from pupillage and seeing them move forward in their careers with the success that you've been able to help bring them as a team.

Jayne Drake: It's very special to have members that are elevated that you've known from pupillage. You feel connected, you feel like that was part of my journey too. And then you end up with — I've got a gallery of people around me here that remind me of what this job's all about. You know, the end focus is that. And you look at giving each member a pathway, helping them on this pathway. And that's my role in essence — to give them opportunity when I see it and find it.

So the essence of clerking is always there, but we navigate all the other challenges on top of that. But we still focus on member pathway and practice review meetings. Very important. Keeping that focus on what they need out of the job. Because I attended a course that Nikki Ellison ran — a bit of a taster session on putting together a package on returning to work for female members who have had a maternity leave, and how as a clerk you can help them. And I found that really insightful, because I think we just assume that they'll have the odd day out and then they'll just come back. But actually there's so much more that they've got to think about. And as a mother as well, you can impart your wisdom, because I came back as a full-time worker as well as a full-time mother.

Yeah, it's a bit of a juggling act. But you get it because you've done it. And so you've got to put yourself in those shoes. And it's very difficult really, because sometimes the barristers perhaps leave the childcare issues right to the end. Have you actually got your nursery sorted? Have you got your nanny sorted, whatever you're doing sorted? And they leave it, and you think, well, that needs to be done, otherwise when you're ready to come back you're not going to have any provision for childcare.

Orlagh Kelly: You practically need to do that post-conception in some places. You'd need to be very on the ball.

Jayne Drake: So there's a lot of one-to-one caring. We've got to just make sure that we are there for their wellbeing as much as ours. And the clerks will be very efficient in that regard, and that helps them.

Orlagh Kelly: And do you think — maybe a bit controversial — do you think the fact that you're female brings something different and possibly better to the role of senior clerk in terms of assisting your members?

Jayne Drake: Yeah, I don't know really. I'm not very motherly — I've not been called motherly or maternal, to be fair. And I understand the positions, but I don't think that we should use too many challenges as excuses for not performing. So I'm very — I don't even know whether I'd be better than any male in the same position. I just view it slightly differently and I take on caring responsibilities, but increasingly so do men now. And that's probably the difference from when I first started. It was all women that took on those caring responsibilities, but I think now the split is very much 50-50 — parental leave for maternity and paternity can be very much 50-50 now.

So yeah, I don't know whether men do it better than me or I do it better than them. We bring different things.

I'm not as confident perhaps as my male counterparts. When I get things wrong, I really do beat myself up. I go into things probably with more preparation because I fear failure. And it could be said that men fear failure, but they brush it off more easily perhaps. I mean, that's quite controversial, I get that.

Orlagh Kelly: Just think about this, because I know we do have an audience of people either thinking about joining the clerking world or already in at a more junior level. And they do take quite a bit of either inspiration or feeling from listening to successful clerks like yourself about how they feel about things. And the fact that you said, well, yeah, I fear failure — and, you know, you haven't mentioned what it might have been, but when you have failed, you've felt badly about that. You've taken it to heart.

Is there anything that you can look back on and think, there's a failure that I had, but I learned something? Anything that you can share with more junior clerks that they could take some heart from?

Jayne Drake: I think for me, I made the assumption over the years sometimes — and I've learned to deal with this — that my member barristers would know what I was doing. So if, for instance, we were having practice reviews and establishing some targets and meetings to be had, I'd assume that we left that meeting and they would think I was getting on with it, which I was. But sometimes I think you have to communicate.

I didn't communicate well at some stages in my career. So I think they made assumptions that I just wasn't doing anything. So then I was picking up on the feeling that I wasn't doing enough. So that brought a confidence issue with me. And I think then the relationship slightly breaks down because you're not communicating properly. And I think I'm now much more open about things.

I pick up the phone more regularly. I perhaps send an email just to say, hi, I'm still here. And we are very busy and the weeks go into months. And you start thinking, gosh, it was two months ago that I saw X. Have I got much to tell him or her? But it's important just to pick up the phone and say, look, this is what's been happening. Maybe you have another meeting. And I think that's been my challenge over the years — just learning how to be a bit more communicative with members and not just let them assume that I'm doing something.

Orlagh Kelly: So proactive communication. I mean, I guess what strikes me — we live in a world where there's a new generation of students, graduates, professionals coming in who are digital natives, very used to dealing with apps and emails and not great at lifting the phone. It's a bit of a running joke in our office about cutting off the emails and making them use the phone every now and again. And so you could see that that would be a problem on the horizon for a new generation of clerks if they don't understand the value of face-to-face, telephone conversations, or somewhat over-communicating if it has to be digital. That could lead to confusion and unhappiness and uncertainty in a barrister–clerk relationship, which is really the key. You talked about essence — the essence of clerking — but as I understand it, the key is the relationship between the clerks and barristers, and success will come from that or fail. If it's not a good relationship, would you agree?

Jayne Drake: Yeah, I do agree. I think the clerk–barrister relationship is super important, and that's one of the things that I provide talks on with the North-eastern Circuit for the new practitioners, because there is an absence of that knowledge about the relationship between clerk and barrister through the academics level — they're coming to the table, they're coming into barristers' chambers, they're all new and they don't see the value of a clerk. And perhaps the fact that now, certainly in crime, there is this huge backlog of cases that we are working through — that means there could be barristers that think, well, what in fact do the clerks do then? But we're so much more than that to the barristers, and to the wellbeing of the barrister as well. Everything we do is focused on their career path. And so the barrister–clerk relationship is something I'm very keen to try and get instilled in junior clerks as well, so that they have that understanding of what it means to be a clerk and what the members are looking for in them. And I get the fact that we've got new waves of generations coming through with different attitudes to building relationships, different methods of building relationships, but we still need to — confidence is key as well. And pushing members and clerks to do things that are perhaps like standing in front of an audience and delivering something, or doing something like this. It's nerve-racking, isn't it?

Orlagh Kelly: Maybe you should nominate one of your junior clerks to be next on the podcast.

Jayne Drake: Yeah, they'll thank me for that. We need to push ourselves just for our own personal development. We need to do that because pushing yourself into situations where you're doing something that's a bit awkward is good for you. It's good for you, and that's life.

Orlagh Kelly: That is a great way to end the podcast with that advice for the junior members of the clerking profession. Thank you, Jayne. It's been a pleasure having you. Lots of great advice and insights. And I would love it if you'd come back maybe this time next year and we could talk a little bit more about the IBC and what they're doing to support the clerking community.

Jayne Drake: Thank you for having me.