Member profile
Member profile
Darren Goodey reflects on his career from a junior barristers’ clerk to head of a commercial department and, along the way, becoming a barrister and a FCILEx.
About the author
Darren Goodey is head of the commercial department at Gross & Co Solicitors, in Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk.
I think it’s fair to say that I had a long and protracted route to the legal profession before arriving at my current position as head of commercial for Gross & Co Solicitors. On completion of my A levels, in 1992, and having completed the Potential Officers Course at the Commando Training Centre (also known as CTCRM), which is the principal training centre for the Royal Marines based at Lympstone in Devon, I was set to join the Royal Marines.
However, before signing up, I made a trip to London and visited Lincoln’s Inn. I was immediately inspired by the surroundings, and by pure chance happened upon the small oÿces of the Institute of Barristers’ Clerks. This led to an impromptu interview and, within a matter of weeks, I was offered a position as a junior barristers’ clerk with (what was) the Chambers of E W H Christie at 13 Old Square, a set that ultimately became Maitland Chambers. My plans of a career in the Royal Marines fell away at this point, and so began my career in the law.
My life as a junior clerk greatly inspired me. Attending the Royal Courts of Justice (RCJ), the House of Lords and, on occasion, the Privy Council at the tender age of 18 provided an incredible insight and exposure to the highest echelons of our legal system; even if it was only in the capacity of hauling books and files to and from court. At this time, a career practising law, or even becoming a barrister, seemed out of reach; after all, I had not gone to university and I did not have the traditional background ordinarily associated with the Bar.
So, I decided to use the experience I was gaining to carve myself a career in legal and commercial management. After three years in chambers, I moved into the City, working in overseas trade finance and the international sale of goods. It was from there that, in 1999, I joined a medium-size private sector company, owned and run by two of the most inspirational people I have yet had the privilege to know, and who I count as friends to this day. As with any company going through stages of growth, there were legal and commercial challenges to overcome. I found myself somewhat ‘in at the deep end’ , trying to help them to do so by dealing with a wide range of legal topics.
Despite being part of a team working through these challenges, having a wonderful job, and building a successful career, I struggled to reconcile the fact that I had not formalised my growing legal experience with a recognised qualification. I therefore obtained certificates of academic standing from both the Solicitors Regulation Authority and the Bar Standards Board, and matriculated onto the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL).
At this stage, CILEx was incredibly helpful since my original plan had been to undertake an LLM. Following a very frank conversation with Rosemary Verlander-Smith at what was then ILEX Tutorial College, I was encouraged to follow the GDL since this, unlike the LLM, was a qualifying course that could lead to a professional qualification. Two years and a graduation later, I advanced to the Bar Vocational Course (BVC) (now known as the Bar Professional Training Course) with BPP University College in London and, following another graduation, I was ultimately called to the Bar of Lincoln’s Inn, the origin of my initial inspiration.
Four years of part-time study at this level is not easy, especially when trying to do so alongside other responsibilities. By this time, I was the head of group legal with the aforementioned company, and my wife and I had moved to an old and crumbling, albeit magical, house on the Essex/Suffolk borders. It is at this point that I should give all due credit to my wonderful wife of almost 20 years. It is without question that had it not been for her support and encouragement, and carrying many of the burdens of daily life, I could not have committed to my studies and achieved the results that I did.
I graduated from the BVC in the top 3% of my cohort, and received three scholarship awards from my Inn over my period of academic and vocational study. My wife would disagree, but I believe that she was the most important element in my achievements over this important period of my life.
After call, I became a director of the company where I had now been for some years; it was at this point that CILEx re-entered my professional life. I was eligible for Graduate status and, following detailed appraisal from what was then ILEX Professional Standards (now CILEx Regulation Limited) and completing the requisite period of relevant work, I could obtain Fellow status. The ability to obtain such a qualification, by the passing of time, CPD and doing the job I already did, was too good an opportunity to miss.
Over the coming years, I found myself not only responsible for the group legal affairs of what was now a larger, more complex and successful company, but I had also been fortunate enough to undertake ‘extra-curricular ’legal work in the form of judicial marshalling. This began in the county court, marshalling alongside a district judge on financial dispute resolution matters, and led to marshalling alongside a High Court judge and a Lord Justice of Appeal in the declaratory courts of the RCJ concerning matters of judicial review in ‘right to die’ cases. I freely admit that the latter were the single most emotionally difficult matters I have ever had to engage with in my professional life.
Throughout this work I was exposed to, and had to analyse, the unimaginable conditions endured by the applicants in such cases. I also witnessed the incredible burden carried by our judiciary in adjudicating where parliament seems reluctant to legislate on such divisive issues, perhaps through fear of alienating their electorate; all in all, it was a quite remarkable experience.
My vocational activities continued to expand, and I became a trustee of a substantial and long-established youth charity, which was chaired by the senior partner of a large provincial firm in Essex. Through this connection, I joined his firm as a commercial law partner (I believe being their first CILEx partner) in 2014, and spent an interesting two-and-a-half years working with some quite wonderful people whilst also making the transition from in-house to private practice.
Sad as I was to move on, in March 2017 I joined Gross & Co Solicitors, a firm I had had the pleasure of meeting with almost four years previously, and am very happy to be a part of. Not only is Gross & Co a long-established and very well-regarded firm, its reputation for international work takes it far beyond the confines of its beautiful home town of Bury St Edmunds.
Despite being some distance from London, my links with the capital remain strong through my Inn and, since 2008, a Freeman of the City. My firm also has a satellite office in Marylebone, and I am in discussion with a leading London chambers to become a door tenant.
It has all been a grand journey so far, but it is without doubt that had I followed a more traditional path, I would have arrived in the profession sooner. That said, I am not sure I would have arrived with the same level of experience, or indeed had the same types of experience I have enjoyed along the way. I firmly believe that my experiences in the business environment - balancing at times the competing interests of the law with the objectives we were trying to achieve for the company - has given me a wide appreciation today of my commercial clients’ interests. As a consequence of my various roles, both in and outside of my work, I have had the privilege of witnessing firsthand and acting in almost every layer of our civil judicial system in a wide range of subject areas. There is counter-argument to this though: I missed out on the full-time ‘uni’ experience, and of course my years in different areas of business mean that I have had fewer years in the private legal practice environment.
However, (hopefully) I still have some years ahead of me to redress that balance. I believe that all our experiences in or around the law are valuable to the work we do, and how we share it with our clients, colleagues and even our opposite numbers. I feel that our profession would be less colourful and interesting if we had all done things the same way, and that one of the greatest aspects of the law is hearing, reading and learning from the experiences of others. That is, after all, a cornerstone of our common law system, and indeed something that has become a cornerstone of my life since making that trip to London in 1992.