Member profile

In November 2015, I was a guest at the Lawyers in Local Government (LLG) awards ceremony at the Rosewood Hotel in London. I suppose ‘guest’ is not entirely an accurate description, as the main reason for my attendance was because I was on the shortlist for the CILEx Lawyer of the Year award.

Happy accident

My legal career came about almost by accident. My A-level grades in 1974 were not good enough to get me to university, so I went to a local college to do A levels in accounting and law. I intended to concentrate on accountancy, with law being an add-on . I cannot now recall the exact moment when I abandoned thoughts of a career in accountancy, but after starting the course I found that law was more interesting. What eventually swung it for me was listening to late-night programmes on Radio London (the oÿcial BBC station, not the pirate one!) . Occasionally, there used to be a phone-in with a lawyer called Gary Jacobs. People would call in with legal problems. I liked the way Gary handled the callers, telling them whether or not they had a case, and I thought that it would be good to do a job like that.

My first job

I managed to obtain an introduction to a firm of solicitors via a family friend, who was a police oÿcer and kind enough to sound out some lawyers he met at court. The firm offered to take me on, from August 1975, ‘on a four-weeks trial basis, commencing salary £20 per week, oÿce hours 9 to 5, to see whether at the end of that period … you would prove suitable’ . The very first thing I was given to do was a Landlord and Tenant Act s25 notice. The next day, by way of complete contrast, was a trip to the Old Bailey. There were general oÿce duties as well: learning how to operate the switchboard; understanding the vagaries of the photocopier, etc. Nobody else at the firm was under the age of 30, so I was very much the oÿce junior.

I can well recall drafting documents, and then finding them back on my desk with a multitude of corrections having been made. I’m not sure how much I appreciated it at the time, but the main object of the exercise was of course to see whether I was prepared to have a go at doing something completely unfamiliar to me rather than how well I actually dealt with the task itself. Overall, I must have done well enough because at the end of the trial period I was told ‘see you on Monday’ , as though my continued employment had never been in doubt!

At that time, it was possible to become a solicitor without having a degree, and I enrolled at the College of Law at Lancaster Gate. Although the course was really a full-time one, the arrangement at first was that I would go to the office in the morning, and then to college at lunchtime: the lectures being in the afternoon. Although my employers subsequently gave me the morning off so I could concentrate more on my studies, it was perhaps not a great surprise that I was unsuccessful in my attempts to pass the Law Society exams. At the age of 21 my whole legal career was at something of a crossroads, but fortunately my firm was content to keep me on. It was then that I discovered the then ILEX route to qualification. As well as the academic side of the law, the exams focused on procedure and so were much more practical for someone like me, who was already working in a solicitors’ oÿce . A bonus was that having A-Level law, I was exempt from part of the first-year exams.

Full-time work, part-time study

Over the next few years, I continued in full-time work and studied for the then ILEX qualification via correspondence courses. The time and commitment involved in obtaining legal qualifications that way really should not be underestimated. Most people need to work for a living, and so cannot afford to take a break in their career in order to study full time, and I was no exception. When partly qualified I moved to another firm, but soon found that all they were really interested in was how much costs their employees could bring in rather than what level of qualifications their fee earners had. I came across a number of people who had been employed in the legal profession for several years without being qualified. I was going the same way until, in the mid-1980 s, I changed jobs again, this time to work at my local district council.

The solicitor to the council gave me an afternoon off each week to go to college. I duly repaid his faith by passing my final exams. I had anticipated that my time in local government would be a stop-gap , but the recession encouraged me to stay where I was. In 1989, I left for the London borough where I still am now. Although I took over a post which had been held by a solicitor, it would be fair to say that, at that time, there was something of a glass ceiling regarding the career path for legal executives in local government, with senior jobs being the preserve of solicitors.

Highly valued for great work

Nowadays, as has been demonstrated by the submissions for the LLG 2015 CILEx Lawyer of the Year, CILEx members are more highly valued. I was honoured merely to be nominated for that award, and even more pleased to finish as the runner-up to David Cockfield, the worthy winner from Wolverhampton Council.

Chartered Legal Executives do some great work and even one small thing, done as a junior lawyer, can help you to make a name for yourself with senior colleagues. Soon after I began my present job, I was asked about a dispute between the council and residents of a private housing estate which had been constructed some years earlier. The council was accused of having made inadequate inspections for building regulations purposes, and counsel had advised the residents they had a claim. This surprised me as it was not my understanding of the law. On seeing counsel’s opinion, I noticed that it was a year or two old and promptly informed my colleague that the case which counsel had cited had recently been overruled in the then House of Lords. I think that I had read about this in the CILEx Journal, so the simple act of doing that paid handsome dividends!

There is a wide variety of casework in local government, and you can be dealing with things as diverse as major regeneration schemes down to conditions for allotment tenancies. One thing I have dealt with recently is advising on our ‘Keeping house’ project. This innovative scheme is for homeowners in long-term care whose property is empty. Instead of having to decide what to do about the house, they can let it to the council for a fixed period and generate a rental income to offset part of their care costs. The council uses the property to house a homeless family, and the owner receives a guaranteed rent. The idea addresses the twin challenge of a lack of housing and the need for people in residential accommodation to pay for the cost of their care. The scheme enables the council to recoup, at an earlier stage, the accommodation charges it would otherwise be paying on the resident’s behalf. The scheme also prevents properties falling into disrepair or attracting anti-social behaviour.

This much I know

Being slightly below the very top level in the legal team does not particularly bother me. The chief executive will discuss things with me and, as far as I know, he respects what I tell him. I say this not in order to sound boastful, but merely to demonstrate that it is possible for a Chartered Legal Executive to reach a senior position within a firm or in-house legal department.

I am always happy to encourage others, and a colleague who was recently upgraded to CILEx Fellowship was kind enough to state that I had taught him everything he knew about the law! While this is of course a gross exaggeration, it was nevertheless gratifying to know that he genuinely felt that way.

What I would say to anyone now in the early stage of their career is to make the most of opportunities that come your way. Learn as much as you can, not only about the law, but also about the way to deal with clients and others with whom you come into contact: be polite, but do not be afraid of telling them things that they may not want to hear: just like the expert legal adviser on those radio phone-ins from whom I drew inspiration all those years ago.