This Delco lawyer created a secret British pub inside his office

Meet Adam Barrist, a personal injury lawyer who had a private, British-themed speakeasy installed in his Media office this year.

A defense attorney from Chicago came to Adam Barrist’s law office in Media this year ready to take names and take a personal injury lawsuit filed by Barrist to court.

The out-of-town lawyer deposed Barrist’s client in a nondescript conference room at the Barrist Firm, which is housed in an equally nondescript red brick duplex on Second Street near Jackson, two blocks away from the Delaware County Courthouse.

After the deposition concluded and the client left, Barrist led his opposing counsel to an unremarkable white door across from his conference room with a small plaque on it that read “The Barrister” and invited him into his secret British pub.

Inside the private pub, that lawyer, like everyone else who enters the Barrister, marveled at the posh and cozy ambience — the dark navy-blue walls and Scottish tartan plaid carpeting, the perfectly draped gold-and-maroon satin and velour curtains, and the stunning 10-foot-long mahogany bar.

“He’s just like, ‘Oh my God! Holy cow!’ and, this is a true story, he missed his plane,” Barrist said. “I could not get this guy out of here!”

When the attorney finally got an Uber after they shared a few drinks, Barrist suggested before he left that instead of going to trial, they should take their case to mediation.

Not only did the lawyer — who previously intended to take the case to trial — agree with Barrist, he insisted on returning to settle the details in person and over another drink at the Barrister.

Moments like that are why Barrist wanted a pub in his law office.

“It was just so rewarding,” he said. “We made the money that we spent on the pub in that one case, and then some.”

Of course, this is all hearsay (as told to me by Barrist over drinks at his pub) and it would not be admissible in court, but luckily you don’t need to pass the legal bar to saddle up to this secret one.

I’d never met Barrist before he invited me to his pub, but I had seen him and his partner in life and business — his wife, Leeann — standing with their arms crossed on a billboard on I-95 near the stadium complex recently.

They are the only two employees of the Barrist Firm, where Leeann Barrist works as a paralegal, along with working a second job in graphic design. The couple met on Match.com and Adam Barrist would like it stated — “just so the record’s clear” — that Leeann Barrist was his girlfriend and fiancée before they began working together.

On his company website, Barrist is pictured — depending on the page — with a furrowed brow, arms crossed, or leaning against a fence in aviator shades.

A native of Bala Cynwyd and an alumnus of the University of Pennsylvania and Villanova law school, Barrist — who typically represents plaintiffs in car accidents, slip-and-falls, and dog-bite cases — is less serious than he appears in his marketing materials.

I got the sense he wants to come off as an average Delco guy, but he has funds for a billboard and build-your-own bar money, his initials monogrammed on his shirt cuffs, and says things like, “The bank is a religious experience for me,” so he is decidedly not.

Barrist, who loves British pubs and pub culture, originally wanted to put one in his house, but his wife wasn’t on board with that idea. So when they began looking to buy a law office in Media, where they’d rented office space since 2018, the pub remained in the forefront of his mind and morphed into something more.

You see, anytime Barrist watches a legal thriller or reads a legal novel he’s struck by how opposing attorneys often share a drink together after a case. In his experience, that had never happened.

“It’s like it’s a fiction and I always sort of romanticized about that, about, you know, let me bring my adversary back and we’ll talk things over,” he said.

Leeann Barrist designed the pub and the contracting work was done by Joe Villante of Forge Construction. It officially opened March 8, as detailed by the Roman numerals on a little gold plaque affixed to the bar.

“We have all these pubs in London that we love going to and I kind of just took bits and pieces from each one,” Leeann Barrist said, of designing the space.

The Barrists ordered the mahogany bar from Egypt, which includes a mirrored bar back with Adam Barrist’s favorite quote etched in gold: “Esse quam videri” a Latin phrase that means “To be, rather than to seem.”

But that doesn’t apply to the British cask taps on the bar, which are just for show. Barrist says the shelf life of cask ale kegs is too short. He keeps nitro cans of Boddington’s Pub Ale in stock, which can be poured into glassware etched with “The Barrister” on it. The pub’s name is a nod both to Barrist’s surname and to the profession of barrister, the term for a trial lawyer in England. The first purchase Barrist made for the bar was an authentic barrister wig.

“The rule is the lawyer who’s been admitted to the bar the longest who comes in here has to put the wig on,” he said.

Other decorations include British flags, a wall dedicated to the Chelsea Football Club, a corner-mounted TV, two leather arm chairs, a library of books of court rulings and opinions, framed sketches of barristers, a crystal-and-gold chandelier, a portrait of Winston Churchill, and a photo of King Charles III.

“I figured as long as this bar is here, we’re going to have the reigning monarch here,” Barrist said.

On a recent Thursday evening when I came for our interview, the Barrists invited a few friends in the profession over for drinks and hired a private bartender, Jeremy Winkler, who’s poured at several Media establishments.

“I’m hard to impress and I was blown away when I walked in,” Winkler said.

Attorney David Caputo was among the guests in for his first visit to the Barrister but promised it would not be his last.

“How do you work with this pub here?” Caputo asked.

“The rule is I only drink when someone else is here,” Barrist said.

It’s a brilliant rule, truly, but if I had to follow it, I’d definitely be Weekend at Bernie’s-ing that place sometimes (with a mannequin, not a real dead guy, of course).

As six of us sat around the bar chatting, the conversation easily flowed from the reason I was there, to talk about the pub, to various other topics like regional accents, artificial intelligence, and the new pope.

It was clear to see how the pub’s ambience puts people at ease and helps formal conversations become more personal ones. As big-ticket purchases go, I see this as a far better investment — both personally and professionally — than buying say a new high-end sports car that depreciates in value the moment you drive it off the lot.

The estimated total cost of creating the Barrister was around $25,000 and includes a well-stocked bar with sought-after bottles of liquor like Russell’s Reserve 15, Barrist said.

Since the pub is not open to the public, Barrist doesn’t need a liquor license, just like your uncle doesn’t need one for his basement Eagles bar.

But word about the pub has slowly leaked out. The Barrists were at home one Sunday when they got an alert from the front-door camera at their firm. It was a young couple trying to figure out how to get into the most-exclusive speakeasy in town.

For me, the Barrister is a reminder that you never know what’s behind your neighbors’ walls — especially in Delco — and that you don’t need a castle to create your ideal corner of the world.

But being a lawyer doesn’t hurt.