Last of the many, not first of the few

It took time to realise that the days of intensive revision and exams were behind me. There was a feeling of anticlimax.

I set off on a hitch-hiking tour of Europe with my girlfriend. I had arranged with my flatmate to send on the results of the honours exams to the youth hostel in Biarritz. We arrived to find that I had something to celebrate.

The return to London presented a number of problems. My contemporaries were snapping up jobs in the City at as much as £15 per week, but I could not join them. I had a contingent liability for national service which I had put off until now. I could be called up to serve at any moment.

I attended a number of attractive job interviews but interest in me ceased completely as soon as I disclosed my handicap.

The Major, ever the opportunist, took me on again at £12 per week, but it wasn’t the same. This was the rock-bottom rate for a newly qualified assistant.

One benefit of my studies was to be able to inform him that the largest property transaction by far that his firm had handled was void. This was for failure to obtain prior Charity Commission consent and an enabling order of the Chancery Division. It was my job to remedy the situation without informing or disturbing the clients! Everybody was very helpful and I’m sure the Major breathed a great sigh of relief when the deal became legitimate.

In those days, clients did not sue their solicitors for negligence, though our situation was not as secure as in Spain at the time. There it was professional misconduct for one firm to take legal action against another.

My first week’s wages were spent on a slap-up dinner for two in the West End. But I had the constant feeling of being on borrowed time. The Royal Air Force rejected me as a technical non-commissioned officer as I could hardly tell a nut from a bolt. However, to compensate I was offered a national service commission in the Directorate of Legal Services, but when would I be required to serve?

It was nearly a year before my papers arrived. During that time I had begun to build my own portfolio of clients, on which the Major grudgingly paid me commission.

Two of my closest friends had set up in practice in the Temple and wanted me to join them. Alas! I had to give all that up for two years’ perfunctory service in the RAF. While I was doing my time, national service was abolished. That made me one of the last of the many rather than the first of the few.

How the profession has changed since those far-off days. Starting with advertising and marketing, everything was strictly forbidden and a striking-off offence. The detailed rules were designed to preserve the status quo and prevent newcomers breaking into a cozy market. Pull up the ladder, Jack. I’m all right.

There were regulations governing the size of your firm’s nameplate and its lettering. If it was situated in a dark alley, you were grudgingly allowed to illuminate it with a dim bulb. If you were invited to appear on television as a lawyer, you had to have your back to the camera and remain anonymous.

Enormous respect was still shown to the bar, which I found difficult to share having got drunk with a number of its members who were contemporaries at university. This was coupled with over-reliance on their services.

I did see instructions to counsel, an eminent Chancery practitioner, which began: ‘Counsel is instructed to draft the documents to incorporate a joint stock company with an authorised capital of £100 & an issued capital of £2.’

That particular firm had never heard of company agents. Weak solicitors propped up weak barristers.

Dress was still extremely formal. If you worked in the City, a bowler hat and rolled umbrella was not out of place.

The bar had a tight hold on higher-court advocacy. Even if you had rights of audience, judges ostentatiously found it hard to listen to a solicitor’s arguments, so that the discouraged solicitor or the discerning client made sure to instruct counsel next time.

Transition between the two branches of the profession was made very difficult. If you wanted to acknowledge your mistake and switch, you had to face at least a year without earning. Newly qualified and bursting with novel ideas, I sometimes felt that I was wearing a straitjacket.

The contrasts between the profession then and now are enormous. The transition to all-graduate entry has made a huge difference. I was articled at a time when the five-year apprentice straight out of school was slowly giving way to the law graduate.

The old-fashioned managing clerk with little education but loads of practical experience was dying out and being replaced by qualified graduate solicitors. This had to enhance the status of our branch of the profession and reduce the gulf between us and the similarly university-educated bar.

I have left until last differences in pay. When I was articled, payment of premiums was still quite common. You paid for the privilege of your five years of servitude. Nowadays, law firms recognise that to survive and thrive they are in competition for the best talent. They assiduously comb the law departments of universities to recruit the best. Eye-watering salaries are part of the attractive packages offered.

What can I say about the salaries offered to newly qualified solicitors? I know it is all a question of supply and demand but, even taking into account the effects of inflation, how can you compare my miserable £12 per week with what is now on offer at the top firms in the City?

We were downtrodden and exploited in the 1950s. Since then, the pendulum has swung. But I would do it all again!