SEK Hulme interview 17 November 2006

Bill Martin - I understand he had a special "in" with various clerks. They could organise cases and hearings to suit him.

In the days, I think it’s fair to say, that most clerks of court were good young Catholic boys who hadn’t gone to the university and they became a clerk of court. Bill had been a clerk of court and he’d somehow done a law course at some point, so he had an in. He was part of the system. He was a very good lawyer, but he chose to practise in Petty Sessions and he said, “Why shouldn’t I, SEK? I charge as much as they charge in the Supreme Court and I’m done before lunch”, and very often Bill, you know, he could do what the rest of us could not do. He could be in two different courts, having arranged that his case in the other court would not be called on until he got there. It was always dangerous having Bill on the other side because you were never quite sure how long you were going to be kept waiting because he would have his arrangements. He was a very good lawyer and I remember him - he was another one incidentally from Eagle Star Chambers. I remember him saying, he said, “Look, I don’t want to be on the Supreme Court.” He said, “If they ever offer me the County Court, I will take it, but I do not want all this work at night. I just don’t like it and if they offer me that, I’ll take it, otherwise I’m perfectly happy where I am”, and he thought a day spent with the morning in Petty Sessions and the afternoon spent down at the cricket was a much better way of living than being in the Supreme Court all day and writing a judgment at night. So it takes all sorts. You can’t take silk if you do that, but he didn’t want to. It was David Derham who first pointed out to me just how good a lawyer Bill in fact was. It was an interesting attitude to life and he was a very happy man, I think.

Conducted for the Bar Oral History project by Juliette Brodsky in Owen Dixon Chambers West and filmed by Rocco Fasano