fairly clear to the poor tutor early on that
I probably knew more than he did so,
he quietly tapped me on the shoulder
afterwards and said “I don’t think you
need to attend the lectures or do the
exams”.
I spent two years there and I then
wanted to become a land agent. All the
land agency firms came to Cirencester
to advertise their jobs and then they
would interview the applicants. I had
various interviews and Strutt & Parker
offered me a job in Lewes. Now, I wasn’t
particularly looking to come to Lewes.
I knew nobody down here, and I didn’t
particularly want to come here but, in the
end, I thought, well okay, they’re a good
firm - I’ll go down there and the rest is
history. I’ve never left.
I worked for Strutt & Parker for two
or three years and I had to take the
professional exams, that you had to
do then, which were horrible, four six
hour papers in four days. You go to a
university (we went to Leicester), and
you’re sent out into the fields and given
an exam paper and you have to write a
report - it’s not great. But, anyway, I got
through that and became a chartered
surveyor.
58
A short while after qualifying the partner
I worked for at the firm, John Anderson,
felt there was nothing in Lewes for me
but by that time, I was so embedded in
Lewes, particularly with the hockey club
that I didn’t really want to leave. I used to
get very frustrated when I was working
as a land agent as when there were any
legal problems - you had to send them
off to dusty old lawyers in London, who
would then take weeks and weeks to
reply and I thought, well, I know I can do
this so let’s get back to law. And that’s
what I did.
and they failed quite a few candidates.
So, the first year was a good year to
do the new course. In the meantime,
Thomas Eggar offered me, not articles,
but a training contract, so I then did
my training contract with them based
in Horsham largely but also I spent my
first six months in Chichester doing
litigation.
expert but I just decided, with various
things going on in my life, I didn’t want
to and so I left them at the end of ‘98 I
think, I then worked with a friend doing
a bit of property investment for a year
or two until I met Emma who soon told
me early in the year we were due to get
married, that I had better get a proper
job!
By then my law degree was too old and
The Law Society, specifically for me,
said if you do this, that and the other,
we’ll revalidate your law degree and
then you can carry on. So, I did part
of a day release course at Brighton
Polytechnic as it was then. It was part
of the conversion course for non-law
graduates, and then I worked for Thomas
Eggar (they were then Thomas Eggar
Verrall Bowles). I worked for several
months for them and then went to law
school at Guildford. I was the first year of
the legal practice course as opposed to
the Law Society finals and I think I was
quite lucky, because I think the first year,
they pitched the standards pretty low
and made the exams pretty easy - I think
everybody passed and got distinctions
and whatever, but the second year
they realised and it went the other way
I do remember just about the first thing
I had to do was to send a fax, a whole
load of papers to counsel and counsel
rang up about ten minutes later laughing
and said, “This is all very well but there’s
twelve blank sheets of paper.” I hadn’t
worked out which way you had to put the
paper in, so that wasn’t a good start. But
I had great fun for six months working
for a guy called Tim Gleeson who was
a keen hockey player at Chichester and
his boss was also a real character called
James Morgan-Harris. I was encouraged
on regular occasions to go to what was
called the Regnum Club where many
professionals adjourned at lunchtime
and the beer and the wine flowed. That
was fun for six months but I was never
going to do litigation. So, I ended up in
Horsham. They wanted me to make
a long-term career as their agricultural
Completely coincidentally soon after
that I sat next to David Gordon (a
Partner here at Mayo Wynne Baxter) at a
networking club I used to go to. I knew
David because he was playing hockey
at Lewes and his brother had been the
Oxford captain when I was there. At that
time, Martin Costin, who had been the
Senior Partner at Wynne Baxter, was
winding down for retirement and they
were looking to recruit somebody to
replace him and we were chatting and
David said, “Well, why don’t you come
and see us.” So, I went and had a little
chat. I suppose it was an interview with
David and Martin Costin and then I
started for Wynne Baxter Godfree as it
then was.
That worked out well!
It worked out very well. I was very lucky,