A father round my voyage

The problem is not in becoming a solicitor (though that should be addressed as well). It is in the impossibility of shaking off the shackle which weighs on you from the moment you hang up that little certificate in your lavatory which bears the signature of the Master of the Rolls (no, the certificate, not the lavatory far be it for me to suggest that Lord Denning committed an act of graffiti in my house) that touches and concerns your fitness to be a solicitor. I don't know when it ends, because it has not ended yet.
I was not given that advice before becoming a solicitor. As a consequence I did not dispose of my father, or change careers.
I have had to endure years of well meaning octogenarians suggesting that I was following in father's footsteps or that I was a chip off the old block.

My triumph came once, like Chesterton's Donkey: A little lady in a flowered hat approached my father at a garden fete: "Excuse me," she asked, "But are you anything to do with Richard Barr?". I would gladly have laid palms beneath her feet.
For the most part, by working in a different office in a different town and writing in the Solicitor Journal more often than he does, I have carved my own niche and have found people who love (and hate) me because I am me.
But my best efforts come to nought when the old man's clients decide to torment me.
While my father now spends much of his time taunting demented fish in the Scottish highlands, I am occasionally cornered by his clients, who often refuse to deal with my much more able colleagues and feel, without any justification at all, that "Young Barr" is the man for the job. The fact that I shed my short trousers well over three and a half decades earlier does not faze them at all.
I dread these calls. My father built his reputation (as he explains in his little book Eighteen to One Against by David Barr ISBN 0 907005 18 7 a snip at £9.95 especially in view of the authorship of the first chapter - read it and see) on personal contact. He would regularly go to see his clients in their homes. He was never worried about telephone calls from them in the evenings or on Sundays. Even now, he charms, persuades and caresses his clients, so that they would willingly follow him barefoot to the south pole if he led them there. Those whom he has tried to hand over to me arrive in my office expecting more of the same and find me vastly different. Almost at once they are disappointed. I don't think I have yet held onto one of his clients, and I consider that I do have some charm and pulling power.

It is indeed difficult to take over anyone else's client. I once had a similar problem when I briefly handled a matter which was being (I thought) handled ineptly by an inexperienced trainee. The client was totally unimpressed that I was a partner in the firm. The trainee was acting for him, and he wanted no second-best.
My own clients are just the same. They have become used to my Basil Fawlty ways. They feel uneasy if anyone is polite to them.

I suppose I should not worry too much if I fail to charm my father's clients. They scarcely seem to provide opportunities for riches beyond wildest dreams. One sent for me recently, demanding that I attend at his house after 4pm when he awoke from his nap, but before 6.30 when he had his first Scotch (no mention of offering me one). When I ventured to enquire why he needed me to drive 30 miles to see him, he explained that he wanted someone to witness his signature on a post office form.
Nonetheless I was sufficiently intrigued to try to help Dr. Hatrick. Even though I do no criminal work, a little whodunnit on the side would brighten the day. I contacted the Central Office of Information who in turn referred me to the Central Statistical Office, who said that if the doctor contacted them direct they would supply the information he needed. I passed the information back:

"Thank you very much. You see I have these moles in my woods and the only way of controlling them is by using strychnine. The ministry chappies make me go through all sorts of form filling and I wanted to know if there had been any incidents of poisoning from the stuff. It's such a bore. I want to try to stop this nonsense."
So do I. Let me give due warning to HIS clients: if any more of you ring me at 7.30 am at a weekend to enquire about riparian rights or tithe redemption annuities, I shall also be making enquiries about strychnine - and it won't be to the detriment of moles.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in October 1994. The title is a corruption of the title of a brilliant play by John Mortimer (A Voyage Round my Father) which has some parallels to my own situation.