After celebrating the achievements of 95-year-old solicitor Leslie Black last week, Obiter was delighted to hear from another ‘old timer’ – Geoffrey Rutter, partner at City firm Collyer Bristow – with a glimpse of what it was like to be a newly qualified solicitor in 1960.

Rutter recalls young solicitors would not address the partners by their first names, but instead called them Mr or sir, or ‘the old man’ behind their backs.

Solicitors at that time were not specialists, but would undertake any work that came into the office. The law meant that if a husband got a divorce from his wife on grounds of her cruelty or adultery, she would receive only a modest maintenance payment, so there was plenty of ‘defended divorce’ work, which was rather harsh on the fairer sex. Women also had it tough professionally, with few women solicitors, but plenty of copy typists as Xerox had only just begun production.

Barristers were instructed through formal instructions or briefs to counsel rather than a telephone call, and members of the bar were paid in guineas, but special ones. While two guineas was worth £2.2.0, legal guineas were worth £2.4.6, with the extra 2s 6d normally handed over to the clerk, making many clerks ‘far richer than the barristers’. A cursory look at who owns the best cars in Temple car park would suggest some things haven’t changed!