President's Speech at AGM Dinner 5th February 2008 A Look at Qualifying in the 1960's

Speech by Frankie Goodman at West London AGM Dinner 5th February 2008

This speech  gives a view of  how much the Legal  World  has  changed and  how a "shy young girl of 17" played her part in those changes.

In the 1960s the Beatles became famous, capital punishment was abolished, the Profumo  scandal toppled the Macmillan government and I became an articled clerk, nowadays known as a  trainee, with Canter, Levin & Mannheim  in Liverpool.

Before one entered into articles one had to be interviewed by a panel of local solicitors  -  a  nerve-wracking experience for a shy young girl of 17, as I then was.

My first task was to draft my articles and, once they were engrossed, to sew them up with green silk ribbon.   I spent a large part of my articles sewing documents and they were better sewn than my clothes which were often threadbare because  -  as an articled clerk  I was unpaid and that meant  I was unremunerated throughout  my 5 years in articles.  However I was one of the lucky ones,  some articled clerks were expected to pay a fee, known as a premium, to their principal.

I soon learnt that there was money to be made out of affidavit fees.  Clients had to have documents sworn and  I would accompany them to a Commissioner for Oaths.  If the Commissioner were kind he would let me keep the fees – I soon learnt to avoid the mean ones.

Canter Levin’s was a general legal practice but they did undertake legal aid work which not many firms did back then.  Legal aid in those days was properly remunerated unlike today.  It was administered by the Law Society so solicitors did not suffer the unnecessary bureaucracy  that prevails today.  I am not now going  to embark on a polemic regarding legal aid, or rather the lack of it – I was thinking of wearing a black armband for the demise  of legal aid but the shops had run out of black crepe.

In the 60s,  we were not computer literate because there were no computers.  Nor were there any photocopiers.  There were primitive machines and the copied papers emerged wringing wet and were hung up to dry on washing lines strung across the office  - so one had to be careful not to garrotte oneself.

My principal M.J. Canter had a robust personality. He said Snell’s  Equity  and the Law of Property Act, 1925 should be my constant bedtime  companions.  Despite being young and naïve I thought there must be more exciting possibilities.

I  used to attend on counsel at court.  In those days judges used to come to Liverpool for the assizes.  They  would walk in procession on stone flagging through St . George’s Hall, holding their nosegays.  The Lord Lieutenant of Lancashire in his full regalia came up to me one day and said “ I say  you’re making the most awful noise with your shoes.” (I was wearing stiletto heels) and I responded in typical bolshy  Scouse fashion “It’s nothing  to the noise you’re making with  your sword”.

I  was even in  court  when the black cap went on for the last time, except that I didn’t know then  it was the last time.

After a year of so I went up to  London, like Dick Whittington but without the cat.  I went to Lancaster Gate to study for my intermediate exams.  There were only 4 girls in the class, in the 1960s only 5% of solicitors were women, now the percentage is almost 50%.

It was my first time away from home and I made the most of it  -  failing all my exams with distinction!  Soon after,  a college of law opened in Liverpool run by 2 remarkable law tutors, John and Mary Conkerton.  It’s thanks to them that I’m addressing you  today.

On admission in 1969 I joined the Civil Service,  the only equal opportunities employers at that time.  Indeed,  criminal practices were refusing outright to employ women solicitors,  regarding the work as too sordid for female sensibilities.  After 4and a half years travelling around England and Wales  prosecuting  for the DHSS I returned to private practice.  In June 1974 I set up in practice on my own account in Shepherds Bush as Goodman & Co.,  the  first women to have her own criminal practice.

After 46 years in the legal profession I have seen many changes, some good some not so good but I am as proud today as I was all those years ago to call myself a solicitor.