Spotlight | Martyn Gowar

Fifteen minutes and counting: being a private client lawyer is about listening and recalling detail, says Martyn Gowar, who looks back at more than 40 years in practice. He talks to Jennifer Palmer-Violet

Imagine arriving at work with a pack of press waiting for you. Then Piers Morgan comes along baying for a quote about an estate you're handling. Private client lawyers don't talk about their cases, but Martyn Gowar was told he had to in March 1998 when probate was granted for Princess Diana's estate.

"It was a very uncomfortable situation," he says, "I formed a deep contempt for the national media and things that have happened since have not changed it." Only a few years later and he could have been a phone hacking victim.

Thrust into the spotlight and beamed around the world - counting about 17 global media interviews as a day's work - he was even spotted by his son's friend on an inflight bulletin in Australia.

Until his '15 minutes' of fame, Gowar had been plain sailing in a career that he wasn't destined to take up. He was born into a second-generation photographic business, run by his "five parents" - mum and dad, then three much-older siblings. "One learnt a lot about family businesses from that," he says. "It created tensions, and seeing how they worked through that was very instructive - although one didn't know it at the time."

The company was successful, delivering about a fifth of the postcards printed in the UK, and the same market share when it changed to school portrait photography, until its sale in the mid-80s. But Gowar decided law "matched his limited talents" and joined Lawrence Graham as an articled clerk in 1967.

It was there he met John Turner - "described by the late and much maligned Lord Goodman as 'the finest private client lawyer in London'" - who inspired him to pursue the specialism. But this was a time when private client work was very much general practice. "When I did the CIOT associateship in 1976, I could say that I knew tax," he recalls. "I had been through all there was in tax because the volume was so much smaller."

Now, the role has been redefined and Gowar is not sure how the industry will cope. "The real problem is that the more our people become specialists, the more the client wants a generalist because they don't want to see the problems in exhaustive detail. The client wants to feel the issue is not being blown out of proportion so they understand where it is in the context of the bigger picture."

He adds: "Another big change over the years, partly because of the complexity of things and because of the change of attitude, is that advisers have become almost decision-makers or at least guarantors, but I believe my role is to advise."

Career ladder

• 1967: Magdalen College, Oxford University
• 1970: Qualified at Lawrence Graham
• 1973: Made partner at Lawrence Graham
• 1976: Made associate of the Chartered Institute of Taxation
• 1981: Made fellow of the Chartered Institute of Taxation
• 2006: Retired from Lawrence Graham
• 2006: Given Lifetime Achievement Award by the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners
• 2009: Set up McDermott Will & Emery in London

Finer details

Being a private client lawyer is about listening and remembering detail above all. "If a client has three sons called Tom, Dick and Harry, they don't like it if you call them Tom, George and Herbert." This attentive service also means respecting an individual's biased views - not that they would acknowledge them as that - such as opposition to same-sex marriage.

"It's very difficult for some elderly people to come to terms with the pace of change that has overtaken them and to feel they are not respected for having their views, unpopular they may be. If I understand where they're coming from I can help them." It's a lesson learned from unofficial mentor John Turner, who once sold mirrored advice to both a Labour cabinet minister and a Conservative backbencher, with similar fact patterns, by adjusting to their prejudices.

The hardest part is still building and maintaining trust. "The client wants to feel like you're on their side, you know about their affairs," he says. "Luckily I find it comes easily because I put faces to names, but these things are not overnight. They take constant work to make sure you don't miss out on any details and ask the right questions. It all helps them to feel, 'Martyn's interested in me'."

Care and attention

Gowar, lauded by Chambers UK 2012 for "forging great relationships with clients", is a very amiable character and says working with people rather than things is the biggest pull. "Would I describe myself as sociable?" he asks. "My wife would say that I am never happier than when I get chance to sit down in front of 'the sport', she would say. I'm very envious of people who can work a room."

But he loves getting to know people, whether peer or client, and holds in high regard the quality and care of advice.

Liking clients, however, is not a prerequisite. Reflecting on his 40 years in practice, Gowar recoils as he remembers the most unpleasant person he acted for: a five-times married father, who refused to leave anything to his wife and youngest dependant. "I had the devil's own job to make him realise that he had to [make provisions] if for no other reason than there would immediately be litigation if he didn't," he says.

Gowar wants clients to own the concept of what they're doing. Then they won't be so "aggressively independent". "If I haven't explained something clearly, it's my fault not theirs." He takes a sensitive approach when telling them the newspaper articles about what they should be doing with their money are wrong and always offers an alternative. "Clients may say, 'I know what I'm going to do with my investments, you're not an investment adviser.' I respond: 'You're dead right I'm not, but what is it you are trying to do with your investments?'"

He highlights a career-long successional relationship, where he gave the second-generation earl of a large landed estate a sense of ownership. "The way he has taken that estate on from his uncle is so impressive. I'm thrilled to feel that I have possibly contributed," he reflects. "Now his children are in their teens and another stage is going to come, which I won't be responsible for."

Family values

Having been "bitten by his mother's puritan ethic", Gowar says he will retire eventually - in fact, he already has. He left Lawrence Graham in 2006, collected a lifetime achievement award from the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners and even rediscovered a teenage love of playing the piano. But after a quick stint at Penningtons, he was back to full-time practice. "It looks as if it's me not wanting to give up but that's not the case at all," he says of snapping up an offer from Henry Christensen, a New York partner at McDermott Will & Emery, to set up the firm in London in 2009.

"I certainly feel humble about it. I hope that I'm enjoying it because there's no point in not enjoying it," he says. But there's plenty he wants to do, from lowering his golf handicap to reading and doing more for his charitable organisations. And, of course, there's spending time with his beloved family: a wife, three sons (his best friends) and grandchildren, whom he regularly refers to throughout the interview.

Until his official retirement, there is plenty to focus on. Gowar fears the government's response to globalisation will hit with unexpected effect. "The tax system in our country, not to mention pretty much everyone else's, is a shambles for dealing with the 21st century.

"It's all very well the G20 countries saying they're going to attack offshore centres but if you look at somewhere like Jersey, Bermuda or the Isle of Man, so many of these have a population of about 60-100,000. They don't have bloated social welfare systems, they don't have amounts of expense. What do you have a tax system for? To raise money for what you need it for."

And he's no fan of government restrictions on dealing with clients. "Regulation is always at the least common multiple end, but I think professional advice should always be aimed at the highest level," he says.

"I'm so proud that London is the international estate planning capital of the world because the firms here are always pushing the bar higher in terms of their advice and the quality of their practitioners. It's always looking up; regulation just looks down and the cost is outrageous."

Jennifer Palmer-Violet is acting editor of Private Client Adviser