Before soup in the wood-panelled dining hall, the outgoing sub-treasurer of Inner Temple, dubbed the man who made the bar a ‘demilitarised zone’, discusses scrapping dining, big ideas for post-graduate education, and why his will be the first Inn to fly the rainbow flag at this year’s Pride.

This is the final engagement for Patrick Maddams after 12 years in post. His successor Greg Dory, a former ambassador to Ethiopia and Hungary, listens attentively and takes copious notes. Both men are seated below an austere portrait of Baron Waller, a long-dead chancellor of the exchequer.

‘I didn’t choose him,’ says Maddams. ‘He was here when I arrived. I was told it was bad luck to move him, and I am superstitious. He glowers at me from time to time.’

A familiar face, often seen strolling around his fiefdom, Maddams grew up in North London, the son of a nurse and an engineer, and brother of travel journalist Bob.

He attended the Salvatorian College in Harrow. ‘We always to called it “the other Harrow” because it wasn’t the one at the top of the hill, but the Catholic state school at the bottom,’ he recalls.

Political connections

 Studying economics at Leeds University, he first encountered the former Labour home secretary, Jack Straw, who was president of the student union, whom he was to meet again years later when he [Straw, who got a 2:2 in law and became a barrister] was made a bencher of the Inn.

Pointing out his political neutrality, Maddams states that his first job was with the Standard Chartered Bank in West Africa where his boss was the former Conservative prime minister John Major.

‘He was a good boss,’ recalls Maddams, recounting that the young Major had been spotted and recruited by the bank’s chairman, Tony Barber, who, prior to joining the bank, had been Ted Heath’s chancellor of the exchequer.

Here, he notes an intriguing piece of history: ‘I mention Tony Barber because he was called to the bar by Inner Temple in 1943 in absentia from his prisoner of war camp in Germany. The Red Cross used to, in effect, run a correspondence course for those doing the bar. I have his file in the records – “Tony Barber, called to the bar in 1943 and his address, Stalag Luft whatever”.’

Managerial jobs with a shipping line in Liverpool and for Dunlop were followed by a stint as managing director of the Royal Academy of Music, before Maddams found his way into the law, as partnership secretary at City firm Beachcroft Wansbroughs [now DAC Beachcroft], where the senior partner was David Hunt, Conservative politician now Lord Hunt of Wirral.

From posh law firm to the Inn

‘Then came this remarkable move from a posh international City law firm to an Inn of Court,’ says Maddams. As the only civilian among the sub-treasures of the four Inns at the time, he recalls being disparagingly described as the person who made the bar a ‘demilitarised zone’.

It was the time of Clementi and the Legal Services Act, which looked set to turn the profession upside down, with a ‘strange and unfamiliar regulatory landscape’, opening the door to new providers and allowing barristers and solicitors to work together. Which, he imagines, is why his head was hunted. ‘Coming from a City firm that had been looking at legal regulation, it was a world I knew’.

The transition was not s simple as Maddams had imagined. ‘Not withstanding the fact that at Beachcrofts we’d instructed hundreds and hundreds of barristers, when I got here, I realised how little I knew about the barristers’ life. It was quite a steep learning curve.’

The legal profession

Keen to encourage closer relations between solicitors and barristers, Maddams stresses that neither has anything to fear from the other. He does not foresee fusion, but greater interchange between the two halves of the profession. ‘I am always pleased on call night to see seven or eight transferring solicitors,’ he says, explaining that they are generally lawyers who have done a lot of advocacy and want the prestige of the ‘barrister’ title, but who generally remain at their law firms.

For the bar in general, he sees a bright future. But the falling numbers going into criminal practice casts a shadow over the future for the criminal bar. ‘If we do not have junior members going to the criminal bar, where will get the future silks and judges?’

It would, he suggests, make a big difference if the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) and HM Revenue & Customs recognised that the ‘experiment’ with employing in-house counsel in order to save money had proved to be a false economy, and reverting to instructing the independent bar more. He would also like to see the CPS training more junior barristers, who could after a few years’ experience, go into chambers.

His time at the Inn makes him feel that he would have enjoyed being a barrister, but a state-school boy in the 1950/60s put that out of reach. ‘Although the school was ambitious, and wanted its boys to do well, the bar was considered beyond you and you were advised not to do it,’ he says.

Recalling an anecdote from former grammar school girl, Lady Justice Hallett, who is a contemporary of his and now a bencher at Inner Temple, he says: ‘She told me that because she was a bright girl, the careers mistress told her that if she did very well, she might become a domestic science teacher.’

A brush with the law

While the young Maddams had no legal aspirations, he had a brush with the law when he was caught speeding. ‘I had been given a company car, which was a really big thing. It was a bright day, 7 o’clock in the morning, the M62 was empty and young Maddams decided to see how fast this car could go.

‘Suddenly the blue flashing light appeared in my mirror.’ He recalls the ‘sardonic policeman’ who wandered over and quipped ‘having trouble taking off are we, wing commander?’

The following Monday, he found himself at Huddersfield Magistrates’ Court – on the morning after a ruby match that had ended with a punch-up between the two teams. ‘It was mayhem.

‘I was on my way to work, so I was wearing my suit. I was going to plead guilty, of course, and throw myself on the mercy of the magistrates. In this bedlam, there was a court official shouting out “Mr Maddams, court number three”. I walked up to him and I said “Mr Maddams”. He replied ‘I’m terribly sorry Sir, your client hasn’t arrived yet’.

Education, education, education

His post, he suggests, combines three functions: a deanery role, covering education and training, scholarships and the library; property management for the estate; and a general ambassadorial role.

Education and training is at the heart of what the Inn does. Expanding that, suggests Maddams, will ensure it retains its relevance. At present, that training function focuses mainly on students, pupils and new practitioners. Maddams would like to see more done for established practitioners. ‘For six years I was on the board of the Royal Institute of British Architects. It delivers 90% of all the CPD that architects do.’

More widely, he would like the four Inns to play a greater role in legal education and is a big fan of the proposal that they jointly provide a two-stage bar course through the Inns of Court College of Advocacy.

Until 1997 the Inns of Court School of Law (ICSL) held the monopoly on barrister training, before it was taken over by City University and the market opened up to other providers.

‘I get the sense from reading back through old minutes that the Inns were glad to get rid of it. They weren’t making any money out of it, it needed a lot of governance, and it was being criticised for being a monopoly,’ he reflects.

But times have changed. Growing concern over the high cost of the bar professional training course and dissatisfaction with its delivery, coupled with the regulator’s desire for alternative ‘pathways’ to becoming a barrister, have perhaps provided an opportune moment for the Inns to step back into the classroom.

Project Pegasus

Inner Temple has planning permission and money in the bank for a £23 million development of its Treasury Building to provide a state-of-the art education and training facility, which could be used to provide its quarter share of the proposed new bar course.

But Project Pegasus is not without controversy, as the stonking new space would, according to its opponents, ‘devastate’ the Inn’s historic library.

It is up to the benchers to vote on whether the build goes ahead. While Maddams would have liked it to have been completed by now, he respects the self-governing nature of the Inn.

A traditionalist, but also a realist who understands the need to move with the times, Maddams believes the four Inns should retain the statutory responsibility for calling people to the bar, stating ‘I haven’t seen any other model anywhere around the world that does it better.’

But he is emphatic that the dining requirement for aspiring barristers should be scrapped. ‘Dining has had its day,’ he asserts, proudly noting how Inner Temple has lead the may in combining the current dining or qualifying sessions with other training, in line with the BSB’s requirement that all qualifying sessions must be ‘outcomes focused’.

The Inn, he states, is ‘not a dining club’ – rather it is there to provide education, training and outreach. But, he adds, students can and do attend voluntary dining sessions.

Moving with the times

He accepts that the modern legal world, where technology allows barristers to work from home more often, means that some of the Inn’s collegiate services will become less relevant – already fewer people are driving into the Temple or lunching in hall.

The art, he says, is to replace them with services that are relevant – and online learning is at the top of his list. ‘The big opportunity is to re-engage in postgraduate legal education. You’ve just got to scratch the surface to see where that might lead – degree-awarding powers, our own professorial chair with a law faculty, international outreach.’

With a keen eye to where the Inn could help out, he moots offering training for magistrates or people preparing for the British citizenship test.

‘Brexit has brought into focus how little we know about our own constitution,’ he adds, spotting another role for the Inn with the proposal for a new court complex off Fleet Street. ‘There is talk of a constitutional learning centre on the ground floor of the building for kids and the general public. I have told Greg that we must be associated with that.’

Ensuring that the Inn is a welcoming place for its diverse student and practitioner members, Maddams is proud to reveal that it will become the first of the four Inns to fly the rainbow flag during this year’s Pride in London festival.

The great estate

Wearing his estate manager’s hat, Maddams is in charge of the land and buildings that make up the Inner Temple, including the Medieval Temple Church, which are all within a conservation area. It’s a big job, but he is happy to do it, not least because the rents fund 80% of the Inn’s annual expenditure.

A few years back, the Inn sold the building that is now the Apex Temple Court Hotel, after it was vacated by a large international law firm. ‘We originally planned to convert it into a modern type of barristers’ chambers. But the bar was going through one of its periods of doubt and we were finding it difficult to get pre-lets from the big commercial sets.

‘We were not prepared to take the risk of redeveloping the building if, at the end of it, we didn’t have any tenants.’

Among the alternatives that did not get off the ground were an education and training centre, an international arbitration suit and a children’s nursery.

Ultimately the Inn sold a long lease, by happy coincidence, for a sum broadly equivalent to the amount needed for Project Pegasus. Retaining the freehold, it receives a ground rent, which funds one third of its scholarships. ‘I don’t regret selling it. It was a commercial deal and it wasn’t a building that was part of the conservation estate,’ he states.

Bad press

The Inn got some ‘bad press’ in 2013, he admits, when leading criminal set 6 Kings Bench Walk upped sticks to Cannon Street. ‘They [the press] said we were putting the rents up too high for the criminal bar, which was under the cosh.’

He counters that assertion, stating: ‘We sorely wanted them to stay, as did a number of the senior members of chambers. But, the younger ones wanted to buy somewhere as a self-invested pension plan.

‘And as soon as they left, we almost had to have an auction because so many people wanted to take it.’

He is pleased to report that the Inn remains home to criminal sets and the Temple Legal Centre provides pro bono advice from the Treasury Building. ‘At the moment we’re full, so I don’t think our rents can be too exorbitant. But we watch it carefully,’ he adds.

His home is in Chichester, but the sub-treasurer also gets a flat on site. The ‘technical reason’ for this, he explains, is due to the Inn’s residual local authority responsibilities, from the days when it was its own local authority.

Part of that residual function requires him to respond to freedom of information requests, which over the years have included queries about how the Inn regulates milk powder products, scholarship interviews and recycling.

From Da Vinci to Magna Carta

The year he arrived, 2005, Hollywood descended on the Temple to film the Da Vinci Code. ‘The link between the Temple Church and secret of the Da Vinci Code is tenuous at best, if you believe the story, but we flogged it for all it was worth.’

Among much jollity, one of the highlights of his tenure was the yearlong festival of events marking the 800^th anniversary of Magna Carta, which was negotiated in the Temple Church. That celebration included an open weekend attended by 25,000, who took part in mock courts and children’s trials. ‘For us to have a project that engaged every part of the Inner Temple was very satisfying.’

Not its finest hour

The Inn has close relationships with India – boasting Ghandi, Nerhu and Jinnah as members – and it marked last year’s anniversary of its independence from Britain. During one of its least fine hours, Inner Temple expelled Gandhi in 1922, reinstating him only posthumously in 1988.

In 1909 it had previously disbarred Shyamji Krishna Varma, who in 1884 was the first Indian to be called to the bar. He was kicked out for supporting Indian independence and writing to The Times arguing for home rule.

Varma was not reinstated until 2015, when India’s prime minister, Narendra Modi, came to the UK on a three-day state visit today. Keen not to upset any trade deals, the Foreign Office got in touch with the Inn to see what could be done to repair his status.

Proudly independent from all branches of the government, the Inn was reluctant to follow orders, yet realised that Varma had been wronged, and found its own reasons to reinstate him. Maddams dutifully trooped off to be photographed handing Varma’s readmission papers to Modi.

What next?

‘I’m making my first ever trip to Australia on the first ever non-stop flight from London to Australia. I’ll spend three weeks there and go to the Commonwealth Games,’ says an excited sub-treasurer.

On his return, he will join the board of governors of Chichester University and is looking at a couple of consultancies. He will not be leaving the law behind and has plans to do a masters degree by dissertation on the development of the common law in Malaysia, Ghana and Barbados.

Concluding: ‘I was thrilled and honoured to be elected an honorary bencher, so I can come back here. But I have promised Greg not to be a shadow.’