Client Profile: Move With The Times

By Joely Carey

After almost 50 years as a leading litigation solicitor, Attivo client Laurence Gilford finally decided to call time on his career and embrace his other loves…

 

Not many people can say they have travelled To Brazil by cargo boat, and not many people can say they have visited 70 of the world’s countries and half of the US states, but then London-born Laurence Gilford isn’t like many people. A linguist, he speaks five languages and has the kind of zest for life’s adventures that is almost palpable. We chat as he sits at home in Chiswick, London, where he lives with his wife, Michele, a former interior designer. ‘I love to travel, I love languages, and I suppose I would have liked to use languages for a career, but the law came along, so that didn’t happen,’ he shrugs.

The son of a wine merchant and whisky broker, he had ideas to follow in his father’s footsteps. ‘My father put an end to that; he said a professional career would be more stable,’ he says. ‘My best friend at school decided he was going to be a lawyer, so I did the same!’ He studied law at Birmingham University and, during his first summer break, worked for Miller Beer in New York. This was followed with a stint as a guide for two seasons, taking holiday groups through France and Switzerland to Italy; you don’t have to delve too deeply to understand where the seed for adventure was planted.

Laurence completed his legal training (Articles of Clerkship as it was called then) with a London firm. Once he’d qualified as a solicitor, his trip to Brazil alongside a shipment of whisky came about. ‘We’d had the daughter of a business friend of my father’s come to stay with us in London,’ he explains.

‘When she left to go home to São Paulo, she said I should visit and I thought, why not? So, I roped in a uni friend; we booked passage on the cargo boat because flights back then were very expensive. The boat made unscheduled stops in Lisbon and Porto to collect more cargo, so the trip took over three weeks! ‘There were just nine passengers. I was 23, and it was my first time at sea. We were in the middle of the Atlantic in October, the weather good… at night there was this huge black sky full of stars above… it was quite something,’ he remembers.

For the next five months, his base was an apartment in Rio de Janeiro overlooking Copacabana Beach, and he learned Portuguese. ‘I had to; no one spoke English!’ He travelled widely in Brazil, but once his savings ran out, it was time to return. Did the country capture his heart?

A smile instantly cracks his face. ‘The weather, the people, the samba… it certainly did!’ Back in London, he landed a job doing commercial litigation in a City of London firm and, within two years, made Partner, aged 26. Whilst there, he represented names such as Selfridges, William Hill, Currys, Dixons and Mappin & Webb in both commercial litigation and employment disputes.

‘The Chambers I used mainly for employment cases was in the Middle Temple. Tony Blair and Cherie Booth met there as Pupil Barristers. They often sat in on case conferences. When he qualified, I gave Tony his first brief; we became friends and worked together until he became an MP in 1983.’

Later, Laurence decided to set up his own business and, along with two others, founded a niche firm in London’s Mayfair, where he specialised in insurance litigation. ‘We started out from scratch really, so it was a bit of a risk. We all had business connections, but we were setting out anew, with empty desks and empty filing cabinets,’ he remembers. Was it a worrying time? ‘I think most people would be a bit anxious when you are going in a new direction, but it was exciting, too.

Fairly soon, we were winning new business and new clients, which brought its own highs. ‘During that time, I also built up a connection with Barclays Bank, which resulted in Personal and Business Recovery actions for 13 central London branches and two regional offices.’ The risk of setting up in business paid off. ‘We acted for many of the leading insurance companies and Lloyd’s syndicates, and turnover increased tenfold in 15 years, which was very satisfying,’ Laurence recalls.

In 1981, he and Michele were married; they’d met after she’d been recommended to do the interiors of his first house in Chiswick and the rest is history. Together, they had two children, Alexander, now 35, a chartered surveyor/designer and Oliver, 31, a TV producer. As a family, they travelled extensively across the globe.

Laurence’s professional life took another turn in 1999 when he brokered a merger of his firm with a rival operation, Kennedy Law. He admits the change from being a founding partner to working within the confines of a larger operation had its challenges. ‘It was a big shift, and I was the oldest partner, but I always had clients and always managed to reinvent myself,’ he says.

‘Today, it’s a leader in insurance dispute resolution with 45 offices worldwide and over 2,500 staff.’ He retired as a Partner in 2014 but stayed consulting for two years, then continued with other part-time roles, namely as a Deputy Judge on the South Eastern Circuit (Civil and Family) from 1991 to 2020 and as a Member of the Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal from 1998 to 2020 with six years on its board.

I suggest he’s obviously a man who likes to keep busy. ‘I suppose so! I managed to do my work as a solicitor efficiently, and I could take days off to do the judging and the tribunal, which was different, challenging work I enjoyed,’ he says. Would he have preferred to be a full-time Judge? ‘No,’ he answers quickly. ‘I enjoyed being in private practice and the flexibility was so much greater. Being a Judge gave me some variety and was rewarding in its own way.’

Changes triggered by the pandemic eventually made him consider his future and look to hang up all his workaday hats in 2020 and enjoy the other things in his life at age 71. ‘We’ve been financial planning for many years, so I was very comfortable making lifestyle decisions. Attivo has been extremely helpful with overall financial planning… pensions, ISAs, inheritance tax planning, life insurance; I rely on them for all my investments.’

A keen cyclist, bridge player and golfer, Laurence, now 74, and Michele, now 71, spend as much time as possible at their second home in Portugal. Their travels have taken them to far-flung places across Europe, North and South America, Africa, Asia and Australasia, with Namibia and the Galápagos Islands as particular favourites.

‘Last April, we went to Osaka, Hiroshima, Kyoto, Tokyo, Mount Fuji, and half a dozen other places in Japan, which were all incredible,’ he says. So, where’s next? ‘This April, we are heading to Nashville, Memphis, and New Orleans, which we have always wanted to do, and then to Miami from where we have booked a cruise to Lisbon. ‘Next January, we’re flying to Barbados, doing a couple of islands, then going up the Amazon in Brazil and then back again to do about 10 other Caribbean islands by boat.’

To what does he credit his wanderlust? ‘I’m a Sagittarius,’ he laughs. Joking about zodiac traits aside, talking to Laurence about his travel plans brings to mind Malcolm Bradbury’s line from Fahrenheit 451: ‘See the world. It’s more fantastic than any dream made or paid for in factories…’ And Laurence is certainly taking that sentiment seriously.

Joe Bergin, Attivo’s Associate Director and Chartered Financial Planner:

‘I have very much enjoyed meeting Laurence and hearing about his experiences in the legal profession and as a judge – what a career he has had. We at Attivo have been delighted to help out with his financial planning and I look forward to hearing more about his wide-ranging travels next time we meet.’

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