Outlaws is a new half-hour black comedy series starring Phil Daniels set in the world of duty solicitors. But Kavanagh QC it ain't. If solicitors are in the front line of the legal service, duty briefs are the advance patrols: the poor bloody infantry foraging ahead in unfamiliar territory, gleaning intelligence, securing the beachhead and digging in until morning when the top brass arrive to take the salute. There are few victories, no medals, and like any dirty job you'd prefer someone else to do it. But above all, life in the trenches is a tight round. A duty brief's horizon rarely extends beyond the arenas of the police station and the Magistrate's Court. We'll never see a jury or a wig. Just interviews, bail hearings, committals, sentencing etc. It's not life in the fast lane, more like being stuck on the hard shoulder. But that's when things pass you by quickest.
