Law Society’s Gazette, 23 February 1972Lamentations of a junior partner by a Struggling Solicitor

Have some pity for a junior partner. There he sits with his name appearing at the foot of the letterhead, apparently secure with the panoply of office around him, yet reflect for a moment on what lies ahead. He looks with envy upon his senior partner who has a battery of executives and assistants to do the really hard work while he, with years of experience behind him, is able to dispense legal advice with a sureness and affability which the junior partner despairs of ever being able to summon.

There he sits, your junior partner, knowing that all the efforts must come from himself. Not for him the Friday golf matches, the demand that all post should be available by mid-day during Wimbledon fortnight, the leisurely lunches at the smart clubs. For he must work so much harder if he is ever to achieve that exalted position. In his struggling career upwards, slow but defined, convinced that one day he too will be treated with deference by the managers and assistants, and one whose views at partnership meetings will be accorded their due weight.

But alas for your junior partner - during his youth in law he will be content with the thought of jam tomorrow, but when he becomes senior partner how different the tale will be! By that time it will be the junior partners who will require the additional finance and assistance - children to educate, ways to be made. And at last he will retire with the thought - as do all senior partners - ‘that we ordered these things better when I was young’.

And so the junior partner dreams - only to be awakened to reality: ‘I’m sorry sir, but there’s no-one left to sign the post but you’.

Publishing marathon

An ambitious publishing project by Butterworths. The firm is to reprint the whole series of Law Reports containing High Court decisions from 1865 to 1971. They will come out in 565 volumes. Each set will cost £2,000 and will take up 95ft of shelf space. Inquiries for the volumes have come in from all over the world and publication - in batches of 100 volumes - begins next year.

The new venture is backed by some interesting, if useless, statistics. When all the books have been printed, they would stretch 85 miles if anyone wanted to undertake the small chore of laying them end to end.