My career journey: Michael Fletcher

Partner and costs specialist, Michael Fletcher, tells CILEX Journal about how he started out and his career so far

 

Michael Fletcher didn’t plan to become a lawyer. He left school midway through his A-levels, having realised he’d picked the wrong subjects and couldn’t face another year studying them – and pitched up at a careers centre in Newcastle the following day.

On offer was a role as an office junior in the postroom at a large local law firm, then called Dickinson Dees. Some 34 years later, he finds himself a partner, head of department and dual-qualified lawyer at a fast-growing mid-tier law firm in Manchester.

There have been, he says, “many sliding doors moments” that took him to this point. For example, he played for the Dickinson Dees five-a-side football team and the lawyer who ran it also headed the firm’s legal costs department; when a vacancy came up there, Michael was in pole position.

It was at Dickinson Dees that he was encouraged to study with CILEX and gain a qualification. He admits failing the first exams he took, but he soldiered on and passed them.

But his blossoming interest in costs then took him down a different and more specialist professional route, qualifying with the Association of Costs Lawyers. This allowed him to appear in court for clients, but only in relation to costs matters.

A fresh challenge

By then he had decided to leave Newcastle for a fresh challenge, moving to Manchester solicitors’ firm Glaisyers in 1998, initially still focused on costs. But as Michael’s role expanded – and changes in the world of costs threatened the long-term viability of specialist lawyers’ work – he could see the need for additional rights that would allow him to appear for clients in the county court on other matters too.

And so he came back to CILEX and restarted his studies in 2009, qualifying as a Fellow four years later. “I sold the cost of the course to my employers on the basis that we’d get the money back by keeping advocacy in-house,” he explains. “And we certainly have.”

He then had to take the additional advocacy course to obtain the practice rights. “It was a challenging week,” he recalls, “that replicated what it’s like as an advocate when you get instructions the night before to appear the next day.”

But it was worth it. He obtained the rights in 2016 and has not looked back since. He does not handle trials, but is often in court both on costs issues – where his Costs Lawyer qualification still helps – and other preliminary matters, such as interlocutory hearings, strike-out applications and disclosure applications.

“Most of my opponents in court are barristers. There is no reason why CILEX practitioners can’t operate in that arena. A lot of judges now, and certainly my opponents, are far more aware of CILEX than they were 10 to 15 years ago. The mindset is changing.”

A real alternative

Michael says he bows to no-one in his admiration for what CILEX does. “CILEX gives people a real alternative route to be a lawyer. I didn’t go to university and CILEX offered me the route to being a qualified lawyer, with practice rights and the ability to practise on my own if I want, the ability to go into any civil hearing and be an advocate for my client.”

Most of my opponents in court are barristers. There is no reason why CILEX practitioners can’t operate in that arena 

His career path makes him excited for the CPQ and the prospect of the next generation of Fellows receiving their practice rights without needing further study. “I will advocate as robustly as I can with anybody that, once someone’s been through the CILEX process, they are at least equivalent of a solicitor. I know how hard it is,” he says.

“It’s fair to say that anybody who’s been studying while practising law as a day job is at least, arguably far more, qualified as a solicitor who is newly qualified or recently admitted. CILEX really punches above its weight and CPQ could really put CILEX on a different level within the legal landscape.”

Michael’s path led last year to him being appointed a partner at Glaisyers, where he heads the costs and advocacy team. He says: “I would like to think they recognised that I was operating and contributing at partner level.”

But it is, he recognises, a long road. “You need to be tenacious. But the combination of work experience and life experience, along with legal experience, really is something to be proud of.”