Congrats to Christopher Berry, who last week marked an increasingly rare milestone: 50 years with a firm.

Berry, 68, is a consultant with commercial firm Edwin Coe, which he joined straight from school in 1964, rising to managing partner in 2003 in a career as a litigator, Crown Court recorder and chartered arbitrator.

Big changes since 1964? ‘The Xerox. Copying meant feeding a page a time – all different sizes, of course – through a wet process, and then put it on a radiator to dry.’ He suggests that when copying took so much effort a bit more thought went into which bits of paper were churned out.

His advice for today’s hopefuls: ‘You’ve got to enjoy it! There’s nothing quite like the tension of a jury coming back.’

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