![]() “When I started in the fifties as an articled clerk it was very different and training was different,” he said. Other changes that have impacted on the profession include the way people are trained and how lawyers now specialise at an early stage. “It was very much a family firm when I joined it but I am the last Higgs in the family working here now.” He added: “I have obviously enjoyed my years in the law – otherwise I wouldn’t still be coming in – though I don’t think I shall carry on too much longer. His grandfather, Joseph, and father, also called Joseph, all worked there. The firm was founded by Mr Higgs’ great-grandfather, Joseph Higgs in 1875. Mr Higgs is a former senior partner at Higgs & Sons and retired from that role in 2003, though he continues at the firm as a private client legal consultant.Īfter being educated at Bromsgrove School he was articled to his uncle, George Higgs, for five years in 1957. As a result of information technology a lot of firms haven’t been able to keep up to date with the changes and unfortunately a lot have disappeared, certainly many in the Black Country.” “It doesn’t happen these days, you don’t meet the lawyers on the other side any longer. “In the days I qualified when you did a conveyancing transaction solicitors used to meet and hand over the deeds. “The biggest change is the impact that information technology has had on us all, including our profession,” he said. The fourth generation of his family to work at Black Country firm Higgs & Sons, Mr Higgs admits he has mixed feelings about technology’s unstoppable rise. When he started out the photocopier was just in the process of being invented but he has gone on to see information technology revolutionise the way people do business. When David Higgs was admitted to the solicitors’ roll in 1963 Harold Wilson had not long been elected leader of the Labour Party, the Beatles were basking in the success of their debut Please Please Me album and the sordid details of the Profumo affair were just being revealed.įifty years on and Mr Higgs, now 73, is still practising in a profession which he says has been transformed by technology.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |