It is at this time of year when I reflect on my career. It is the start of a new school year and that always feels more like the start of the year than January.
I started my articles in September 1988. On my second day, my principal (now called a training partner) asked me to sit in with him while he met a new client. It was a divorce matter. The client was in her early thirties and she wanted to divorce her husband on the grounds of adultery. It was eye-opening to see law in action; all those years of sitting behind a desk at college, learning the principles of law but it was the first time I had met a client and seen the heartache behind why some need to meet solicitors for advice. I clearly recollect her name, her address and that she was a chef. She was not from the local area but had moved here when she married.
Fast forward thirty five years… I am acting in the purchase of a property. The sale is a deceased estate. I received a copy of the Grant of Probate with the contract documents.
The name was exactly the same as that first client all those years ago. Could it be the same client? Although I know I do not need to see a copy of the Death Certificate, I ask one. No questions asked the copy was sent. The deceased seller had been a chef; her age would be about right; her birth place would be the right place. I could see her cause of death.
I sat at my desk and shuddered at the coincidence of it all.
Thirty five years later, my path had crossed with the first client I had ever met. She had always been in the back of my brain, living there without me calling her to mind other than when I ever had any discussion about the first client meeting I had. Clients come and go; we remember them for particular reasons. We play an important, if short, role in their lives. Some of them stay with us. But the important thing for us to remember is that we stay with them as well.
When we are recommended by previous clients, remember we have been living in the back of their brains until they are asked as to who acted when they bought their house. We hope that they have a positive experience. We have the ability to impact other lives more than we may realise, and equally there are some clients who have an impact on us without us realising at the time.
This is written by a real high street conveyancer who wishes to remain anonymous. Read more in Today’s Conveyancer every week.
