The senior partner

He is a cross between the manager of a football club and an enlightened despot. He is the buck stopper. The most severe missives from the Solicitors' Complaints Bureau are sent to him. Inexperienced salesmen always ask to speak to him, but never do. Articled clerks freeze in mid prank whenever they hear his heavy footstep.
The universal senior partner always carries an aura about him. Even in democratic firms words of rebellion die on the lips of his juniors at a mere glance from him. Decisions are taken by majority vote but the senior partner is always on the winning side.
To younger members of a solicitors' firm, the senior partner may seem to be as permanent a fixture as the ferocious Miss Grindstone of the accounts department. But even senior partners have a short period as a chrysalis before the butterfly hatches, as I found out recently when I unearthed a time capsule.

As time capsules go it was not impressive. Like many of the older files in our archives it was in an old brown envelope, marked "Ration Coupons _ Urgent". At the time I was spending my second day looking for Mrs Catchpole's lost deeds.
It was the scratched inscription on the envelope which caught my eye: "Partnership material: confidential". Well I was a partner, so why not?
The story started on 26 July 1945 when the Law Society (telephone Holborn 9446 _ 4 lines) wrote a letter under the heading of National Service and Post-War Aid to John R Dawbarn Solicitor of Wisbech (telephone Wisbech 161 _ one line). Mr Dawbarn had registered for a partner at the end of hostilities and the Law Society had found a young Captain of the Royal Tank Regiment who had passed his finals and had fought in the war for 5 years.

After a discreet pause Mr Dawbarn wrote to the Captain asking him, among other things, how much capital would be available, and how much salary he wanted. His qualities as a solicitor seemed of secondary importance.
The Captain replied by return of post _ and he was keen. He was prepared to work for nothing for the first 2 months, and after that he would be quite happy with £25 per month. He offered to raise £1500 in capital.
A deal was struck. The partnership was to come into effect, all being well, a year later. The terms ("a pretty good proposition for a man of your age") were to be on the basis of a one third/two thirds split of profits, with rent for the offices to be paid to Mr Dawbarn and a sting in the tail. Instead of capital the Captain was to undertake to pay Mr Dawbarn an annuity on his retirement (or to his widow on his earlier death) for life. That sting was to turn out to be almost lethal.

The Captain did not, as one might have expected, decide to go back to shooting Germans. Meekly he accepted the terms. He even introduced a massive £275 conveyance (the consideration not the fee) to the firm. He then tried to extricate himself from the army.
That was not easy. Even the Law Society were approached _ and they gave a characteristic reply:
"I regret that his case does not come within the principles under which the Council of the Law Society is able to recommend release of solicitors serving in the forces.
The fact that a solicitors' practice has been carried on during the war years by elderly partners and clerks who are overworked and in need of further assistance _ which is very commonly the case _ is not sufficient to justify transfer of a serving man to Class B".
I wonder if they will be more positive if they are asked to help reserves to be released in the Gulf conflict.
The Captain was sent back to the front not to shoot but to imprison Germans. The British army needed judges, and rounded up all the green solicitors and barristers to punish wayward Germans for breaches of curfew.

There, in Detmold in Westphalia, he sentenced Germans by day and wooed an American doctor by night.
At last he was released from the clutches of the Germans, the army and World War Two. One fine day in June 1946 wearing a kipper tie and resplendent in his Demob suit he arrived in Wisbech with his American bride and took his place among the brown paint and formidable secretaries of Mr Dawbarn's establishment.
Six years later he was the senior partner - indeed the only partner. Mr Dawbarn died in a train accident. Suddenly he was faced with the awesome prospect of paying a large annual sum to his late partner's widow. It could have been a calamity. But he was the senior partner now and there was a quick solution: take in a couple of new partners to share the load.

And that is how the firm started to expand. Nowadays he would not have been so lucky _ or would he? Maybe we have all been doing it wrong. Instead of offering everything from filofaxes to fast cars to encourage new solicitors to join us, we should try a new approach _ take their money off them. It could hardly be less successful than most recruiting drives for solicitors outside London.
But enough of these musings. I must continue the search for Mrs Catchpole's deeds and for further time capsules - and I see that there is a message to telephone the senior partner: I ignore it at my peril.

This article first appeared in Solicitors Journal in January 1991