70 years in law: “I like to think I was a lawyer who really did help people”

“I became a solicitor because of an accident”

Originally, I was going to do medicine, because in those days your mother told you what you were going to be. She always said, “my son the brain surgeon”. I was due to study medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London. But the year before my higher school certificate exams, I had an ice-skating accident. I had to have a metal plate in my arm and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to pursue medicine.

Five days before I was due to go to London, I decided I’d study law at Manchester University. I’m glad I switched. I’ve had such an interesting and varied career and if I’d done medicine I would never have met my wife, Vivian. She was a Mancunian and I would have been in London – I would never have met her. Things would have been very different and I would have missed out on the best part of my life.

I qualified in 1956 – but I’ve still never had my final examination certificate framed. That’s not a sign of disrespect. It’s something I value highly. It’s stayed in excellent condition, sitting pride of place on my office wall for years.

“When you qualify as a solicitor, you don’t have any idea of what lies ahead”

The best thing I ever did during my legal career was to get experience outside law. Straight after qualifying, I took a job with a senior partner who had left law to pursue commerce. He was putting together assets to do a flotation, and he suggested I work for him for a year. I worked alongside some very clever people and gained so much practical experience. Lessons I learnt in that role stayed with me for much of my career.

I specialised in commercial and intellectual property – but my cases ranged widely. I worked on everything from murder cases to matrimonial finances to motoring offences. The latter turned out to be a very good way of getting new clients.

I was also very involved in sports law and I was solicitor for Manchester United for seven years. Later, I was the solicitor for Manchester City for many years as well. Over the years, I represented many of the Coronation Street team including cast, writers and producers. Having famous clients meant some of my cases received a lot of media attention.

They say: “jack of all trades, master of none”, but I do hope that’s not true of me. After I qualified, the first firm I joined was a small firm which did pretty much everything – including some serious legal aid criminal cases.

There was one time I was in court and there was a case of mistaken identity – I was identified as a murderer by a witness. It was quite a high-profile case and the senior prosecutor came up from London for it. When asked to point out the accused, the main witness pointed to me. The court was in hysterics.

In the 1970s, I even got to fly on a Concorde test flight. I was acting for a client who wanted to buy the training simulator so we’d gone to Bristol to discuss terms. I never anticipated I’d end up on a plane that day but we flew up the M1 and M6 into Scotland and back. This was still in the very early days of Concorde.

For a Manchester lawyer, I’ve been very lucky in the clients I’ve had, the things I’ve done and the places I’ve been. I got to travel widely, with trips to Europe, Japan and the USA. I visited Italy a lot in the 1980s while working for the architects building the Mosque of Rome. It's still the largest mosque by area in Europe. The clients were a committee of all the Arab ambassadors in Rome, so I had incredible privileges in the city.

One intellectual property case took me to the European Court in Brussels. It was nerve-wracking because I’d never experienced a court that operated in multiple languages. We had to listen through headphones to hear the different translations. It was an interesting experience.

Outside of work, I was active in the Law Society – serving as president of the Manchester Law Society from 1983 to 1984. My involvement started when I was part of the young solicitors’ group. It was a lot of fun from the social side of things, and I attended conferences which gave me lots of insights. I was the convener of the joint taxation conference, sat on the board of Manchester University and the British Airways Consumer Council.

“The secret to a long and happy career is to enjoy what you're doing”

For me, the variety of my work was very good because I got to do interesting things with interesting people. They say variety is the spice of life, and in some ways it is. I’d find specialising in one thing to be quite boring. I became managing partner and then senior partner of a long-established Manchester practice which specialised in commercial work. I was with the practice for over 43 years.

I have four children and none of them followed in my footsteps by becoming a lawyer. My eldest daughter has been a magistrate for many years, which makes her much more practical in law than me! My granddaughter is about to start her law conversion course this autumn: I do hope she’ll end up a solicitor.

I've been very lucky in my career: I've worked hard and have enjoyed everything I've done – and everything I still do. I’ve always done pro bono work and I’ve continued it – and charity work – throughout my retirement. I’ve had a successful career and developed valuable skills, so I’m delighted to keep using them.

I’m often called on for advice and it’s nice to be able to give it. I’ve continued to work on retainers and on an ad-hoc basis throughout my retirement. It’s important to keep using your brain when you retire. It’s much better than sitting in the house every day and watching TV. My advice to anyone retiring is: keep going.

Looking back, the one thing I am most proud of is that I think I was a lawyer who really did help people. It’s lovely when I meet people who say “Nathan, I remember when you did this for me and you helped me with that”. I feel that what I did was worthwhile – it’s nice to know you did help.