8Sarah Langford is a barrister. Her job is to stand in court representing the mad and the bad, the vulnerable, the heartbroken and the hopeful. She must become their voice: weave their story around the black and white of the law and tell it to the courtroom. Sarah describes eleven cases that reveal what goes on in court. These stories may not make headlines, but they will change the lives of ordinary people in extraordinary ways. They are stories which, but for a twist of luck, might have been yours. To work at the Bar is to enter a world shrouded by strange clothing, archaic rituals and inaccessible language. So how does it feel to be an instrument of such an unknowable system? And what does it mean to be at its mercy?