Recollections of first days in the law aren’t all misty-eyed nostalgia. Jane Bramwell of Brighton recalls starting out in the conveyancing department.

‘My supervisor was a male solicitor, who greatly enjoyed taking this Oxford-educated girl down several pegs, and tore up my draft letters: “You’re not writing essays now”. It quickly became apparent, however, that my main job was to stop him speaking to his clients after lunch, after which he was invariably very much the worse for wear. “Let me f… ing speak to the idiots!” he would roar, as both his secretary and I tried to distract him.

‘But between 9.00am and midday he taught me all about conveyancing I have ever needed to know,’ Bramwell adds. It was a different age. Wasn’t it

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