Senior partner, Leeds
I have been senior partner since 1 November 2002. I had risen in the ranks through the firm since starting as an articled clerk in 1987.
My appointment as senior partner was borne out of somewhat sad circumstances. My predecessor Michael Lawrence had been diagnosed with a terminal illness and indeed passed away 15 months later. Michael was, to a large extent, my professional mentor. Not long after I qualified as a solicitor, he gave me the impression that someday he would like to see me succeed him. I was just 37 at the time and knew nothing about running a business, so it has been an interesting journey since. To still be in place 22 years on when we are able to celebrate our firm’s 90th anniversary is humbling.
I was interviewed for a job as an articled clerk by Michael Lawrence. He was a friend of the family and, after about 60 seconds, told me that if I wanted the job it was mine. We spent the next 30 to 40 minutes talking about our mutual friends and family.
Real-life practice was a very different thing to the dreaded Law Society finals that I had done only months earlier. But I soon took to the work. The firm in those days did predominantly legal aid work, mostly crime, so a large part of my articles was taken up doing both crime and divorce. In those days the ‘deep end’ was the only place, and I was representing clients almost from day one.
Not long after I qualified, I was still doing divorce work. But, having said goodbye to crime, I wandered into litigation and insolvency which became my speciality for about 10 years. I always had good contacts so was able to bring work into the firm and generate fees. As a consequence, I was made a salaried partner at the age of 28.
'It is strange that a residential conveyancing transaction can take three to four months to complete, whereas a commercial property deal can be turned round in less than a week'
When the Woolf reforms came in (1999) it seemed to me to be an appropriate time to look in a different direction. By that time, the firm was doing very little legal aid work and much more private client, residential conveyancing and commercial property. I was interested in commercial property and it had also occurred to me, by that time, that all of that work was done only by Michael Lawrence. I told him I wanted to learn the ropes: first, because I was interested and, second, because I thought we would lose a lot of clients if something ever happened to him (words that turned out to be unfortunately prophetic).
Since then, I have specialised in all manner of property. I have broadened my horizons to land acquisition, development, refinance, general commercial property, and even some transactional corporate work. The most glaring difference between the property work which I have been doing for the last 25 years or so and the work which I dealt with before that, is that I am dealing with happy clients rather than clients who I came into contact with as a result of an unfortunate thing having happened to them.
There is not too much I would change about commercial property law. The speed with which most transactions are done, and the due diligence that we are able to do in that short time is, so far as I am concerned, a reflection of a system that works. It is strange to me that a residential conveyancing transaction, largely straightforward, can take three to four months (sometimes even longer) to complete, whereas a commercial property deal can be turned round in less than a week.
My career highlight would have to be the day I became senior partner. I obviously had mixed emotions due to Michael’s illness, but it was my ambition that I would be in that post one day. I was immensely proud. Other notable moments are: seeing my name in the newspaper which confirmed I had passed my Law Society finals (having stayed up all night to await the first issue), qualifying as a solicitor and becoming a salaried partner.
I was a member of Variety Club Yorkshire, sitting on its board, for 11 years. My speciality was to investigate applications made by individuals and schools for equipment and transport for disabled and disadvantaged children. It was very rewarding work.
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