Spooky action man

The trouble with heavy court cases is that they generate heavy baggage. For days we had been taking out of the court the following items at close of play each day: brief case (Dawbarns standard issue, battered and split in one corner), holdall (in the motif of a Duracell battery, but lasting more than six times as long); folder of medical notes (to be transcribed for the next day: oh hell I'm too tired. Let's have a drink instead), the computer containing the day's evidence taken down in real time complete with interesting spelling mistakes (Ha Lucy Nation, High Pothesis and Near Ology), an umbrella and a handbag.
During the course of the evening we, she who cannot be named, the briefcase, the Duracell holdall, the medical notes (still untranscribed), the umbrella and the handbag all visited various destinations, and made use of London's varied transport systems: tubes buses and taxis.
Much later, she announced that her handbag was missing. After checking the obvious places (ladies' loos, on her shoulder, on my shoulder, we consoled ourselves that it had been left in counsel's chambers or court.
The following day, counsel's chambers yielded no handbag. and if it was in court no one would know because it was in chaos. Solicitors fondly believe that they practise mainly common law with a little sprinkling of statute law.
But we none of us realise that as soon as a trial starts, these insignificant codes are subsumed to the primaeval and powerful forces created by natural laws. The problem is that everything that is in the court develops a life of its own. Papers dematerialize. Bundles vanish. Computers die. If you thought that this was just down to bad organisation, think again.
Let her explain:
The law of chaos states that simple rules can spontaneously produce disorganised and chaotic behaviour. It may seem straightforward to produce 7 identical bundles. Indeed from the outside they look organised, but they have different ideas. The trial has been running for no more than an hour before the judge scowls that his bundle contains nothing after tab 37. This is the beginning. Soon the opposition's counsel is complaining bitterly that his pages have even numbers only. In the witness box, a bewildered expert is coping with a bundle which is paginated backwards.

Newton's law of motion ensures that due to conservation of momentum, the nudge which leading counsel gives to one end of his row of folders will ensure that the file on the other end crashes to the ground.

The papers released from their fragile rings spread themselves over the courtroom floor elegantly demonstrating the fractal pattern underlying the natural formations of branches and leaf patterns from the forest which was felled to facilitate the court case.

Trying to timetable the experts confirmed one of the greatest mysteries of quantum physics: that of non location. An expert, like a particle, is everywhere and anywhere in the world simultaneously, but just when you need him he is nowhere. As with bosun particles, what you do to one can affect the other, even half way around the world. Einstein called this "Spooky action at a distance"

I emerged from the court and started to use prime chargeable time for a category of work not yet covered by the Legal Aid Regulations. While others were talking meaningfully on their mobile phones about big financial deals and sex, I was desperately seeking a handbag. Many calls later, the cheerful voice of a kind lady in the Public Carriage Office said that she might indeed have just the thing I was looking for. A quick rummage through the antimatter inside, confirmed its identity.

All that was then needed was a quantum leap into a taxi, using Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle (the greater the energy you need the less time it is available for), a journey along the fractals of London's streets to Islington, an ascent of the stone stairs of the Public Carriage Office assisted by Newtons laws of motion (for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction) and finally Barr's law of finishing an article (you end where you came in, preferably with a hand bag).
"Quark", said the judge as I re-entered the court. And I knew exactly what he meant.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in July 1997 under the title "Spooky action man". It was written jointly with Kirsten Limb