English judges have never used a gavel
Every courtroom drama ends with a bang of wood on wood, and in England and Wales it has never happened. Judges there do not have a GAVEL and never have. If a judge wants quiet, they ask for it, and the room goes quiet, because it is a judge asking.
The gavel is genuine in the United States and in auction rooms, and television has made it so recognisable that British court staff regularly field questions about where the judge keeps theirs. It is one of the purest examples of fiction teaching everybody something that is not true.
Two kinds of lawyer
In England, the job is split. A SOLICITOR is the lawyer you go to see: they take instructions, gather evidence, handle the paperwork and run the case day to day. A BARRISTER is the specialist advocate brought in to stand up in COURT and argue it, and traditionally you reach one through your solicitor rather than directly.
Barristers are self-employed, clustered in sets of chambers, and still wear a horsehair wig and gown for criminal work — a costume abolished in the civil courts in 2007 and kept in the criminal ones, partly on the argument that it makes the person rather than the personality the thing on display.
Twelve strangers decide
The most serious cases are decided not by anybody legally qualified but by twelve members of the public who were sent a letter. The JURY hears the evidence, retires, argues in private, and delivers the VERDICT. The JUDGE explains the law and runs the TRIAL but does not decide guilt.
The principle that this is a jury's own decision was settled in a famous case in 1670, when jurors who refused to convict were locked up without food and a court eventually ruled that a jury cannot be punished for its verdict. Everything else about jury service — the waiting, the sandwiches, the missed work — rests on that.
Most criminal cases are heard by volunteers
The great majority of criminal cases in England and Wales never reach a jury or a professional JUDGE. They are dealt with by magistrates: unpaid volunteers from the local area, sitting in threes, advised on the law by a legal adviser and giving up a fixed number of days each year.
There are thousands of them, drawn deliberately from ordinary jobs rather than from lawyers, on the principle that ordinary people should have a hand in justice. A MAGISTRATE can fine, impose community work and send someone to prison for a limited period.
The work behind the drama
For every hour of courtroom argument there are weeks of quieter work. A PARALEGAL assembles the bundles of documents, a CLERK schedules the list and keeps the record, a NOTARY certifies that signatures are genuine, and a DETECTIVE gathered the evidence long before any of it reached a building with a flag on it.
Most law never sees a COURT at all. Wills, house sales, contracts, employment disputes and business agreements are the bulk of the profession, which is less televisual than a TRIAL and a good deal more likely to affect your own life.