Connect Magazine – In conversation with Tony del Amo – Senior Partner, Le Gallais & Luce
A law firm deeply rooted in its community
It’s clear when you first walk into Le Gallais & Luce that you are stepping into what has for decades been the heart of the legal profession in Jersey. Over the road from the Royal Court and States Building, 6 Hill Street has been the firm’s home since the partnership was founded 95 years ago. In fact, the company’s roots go even further back than that when G F D Le Gallais first began practicing from the same premises towards the end of the 19th century.
Senior Partner, Tony del Amo, has been full-time at Le Gallais & Luce for 40 years. His association with the firm began with a work experience placement when he was between A Levels and university, coming back to work there permanently once he’d graduated.
“Back then, nearly all the offices along Hill Street were law firms and while Hill Street was full of lawyers, there were a lot less of them than there are today. The number of qualified lawyers in Jersey has risen exponentially since I first started. Following the most recent advocate and solicitors’ exams 15 people will shortly be sworn in as lawyers. When I qualified there were only three of us, although Advocates and Solicitors had separate swearing ins at that time. There are I believe about 450 qualified Jersey lawyers. For an island this size this might seem a little excessive but there’s obviously enough work to go around and it is arguable that this gives the public more choice, which is always a good thing. It may also have a lot to do with Jersey’s growth as a finance centre over the period which requires a wide experience and a high quality legal system”
With the expansion in the size of the industry, the nature of the work that most larger law firms do has changed. But rather than follow the large corporate clients, Le Gallais & Luce has stayed with its core strength of providing services to local people and businesses.
“We tend to do things from birth to death. Typically, that’s family law advice including children’s law matters, property transactions, local commercial advice, wills and probate” Tony explained. “A lot of firms have niche areas they work in, and there are the big corporate firms that do a lot of the things we do. They may have a property department, a litigation department and a commercial department of varying sizes but they don’t necessarily all do as much in the way of wills and probate.”
This distinction means you won’t see Le Gallais & Luce competing for headlines in the local media announcing their part in a multi-million-pound deal involving a large corporation that they’ve advised on, instead its full-service ethos providesthe kind of advice that their clients need. Steering away from the work that attracts other more high-profile law firms is exactly the direction that Tony and his fellow partners want the firm to go.
“We have great history with the people in the island. The former partners had a very good client base and generations of clients have come to Le Gallais & Luce. We’ve tried to maintain that, but at the same time you must move into other legal practice areas. Employment law is one of those areas that has become more important in recent years and has expanded to include protection in regard to many different social issues such as discrimination (in all its forms), bullying and harassment, etc.”
As well as being senior partner, Tony is the Head of Commercial Law at the firm. He describes his team as quite small when compared to other law firms. Their strength lies not just in the vast experience they have, it’s also the personal connection that they have with their clients.
“There’s a team of just five people including me and three other fee earners and between us we’ve got over 120 years of experience. We have two senior lawyers – my wife Fiona and Robin Troy – and a Senior Legal Assistant Kathryn le Monnier who has been in Hill Street for almost as long as I have.”
As the President of Chambre des Ecrivains and as such an ex officio member of the Law Society of Jersey Committee, Tony takes a keen interest in the way the demands upon the legal profession have changed and developed over the years. In many instances he says things have changed for the better, but not in all.
“What I have noticed is the change from what was primarily traditional Norman French customary law to more Anglicised law. Whilst as an Island our language is now predominantly English rather than French and it makes sense for the laws to be written in English as it is appropriate for laws to be available and understood by the majority of people the laws themselves have in many respects been changed simply to follow what happens in the UK. Yes, you’ve got to move with the times, but I think the local law has to a large degree lost its unique Frenchness and I find that a little disappointing.”
Moving with the times, however, is inevitable and shows the strength of the legal traditions within the jurisdiction. A law that might have been appropriate in the nineteenth century or even 50 or 60 years ago may no longer work in modern society, but Tony says there is an argument that by allowing current attitudes to influence our law making can cause difficulties. It’s one of Tony’s favourite topics.
“For me, the law is about regulating what’s best for the society you live in as a whole, but I think it’s strayed more into the rights of individuals and groups.
There is much legislation which has been imposed upon us by outside entities ostensibly for the benefit of all, but it is an example of ever increasing interference with the everyday lives and activities of the individual. Over there period I have been working in Hill Street we have seen more of everything. More legislation, more regulation, more taxes and more social engineering than at any time in the past. Whilst you might think more laws and regulations would be good for a lawyer a lot of what we now have to deal with has taken over from what we traditionally did as a business. I now spend a lot of my time working on compliance, including dealing with data protection issues and due diligence questions and queries and liaising with the authorities in regard to the same which takes up much of my time that used to be spent on doing legal work for clients. Don’t get me wrong I’m not advising on these areas; I’m checking that our procedures are in place and making sure we have robust systems to protect our clients, the Island and our business.
There seems to be a feeling that you must bring in legislation for every situation, but if you look at the laws we had, they covered most things. They may not have been as specific but there was usually a piece of legislation that you could rely on to deal with most situations. In my view Laws need to be adapted to deal with societal change, but not necessarily to create societal change.”
The conversation moves onto individual rights and the recent developments brought in such as discrimination law and whether it’s there because people don’t fully understand what discrimination really is. Such legislation is clearly needed as it is still happening, but is there more we should be doing as a society so that we don’t have to fall back on making new laws to cover every situation?
“You shouldn’t have to tell people to do what is right , not to discriminate for example, but I think the problem is we are losing sight of what is morally right and morally wrong. I went into the law because I believe in rules. They are an important thing for guiding society’s behaviour towards one another. But you don’t have to have rules for everything, you’ve got to give people the opportunity to develop their own moral compass and form their own views on things We’re in danger of not being able to have an opinion because it might offend somebody, but having an opinion is important. We need to be a society where you have robust arguments. People are never going to agree on everything, we’re not robots, so you can’t expect everybody to think the same, but that’s what these new laws expect. They are telling you what to think and what kind of opinion to have, and if you don’t have it, you are in the wrong. I don’t think this is healthy for any society”
As a law firm that helps people with everyday challenges, it has had long associations with local charities and groups. One of those more recent associations is its sponsorship of the St Clement Golf and Sports Centre and the firm’s annual Charity Golf Day which this year is raising money for the firm’s chosen charity Beresford Street Kitchen. Keeping those close links to the local community and the general ethos of the firm is one of the reasons for the length of time that many members of the team stay with the business. Tony’s 40 years isn’t uncommon at Le Gallais & Luce. One colleague retired on the 50th anniversary of starting work with the firm, previous partners at the firm had similar periods with the firm and there are plenty of of our present colleagues with over 20 years’ service.
“The length of time people continue to work here is something the firm is immensely proud of. Part of the general atmosphere we try to create here is that whilst you come here to work and you spend a great deal of your time here this is easier if it’s a friendly place to work. We always try to think about our colleagues as they are what make the business work and make Le Gallais & Luce the friendly and approachable firm that it is. They do an excellent job, and they are professional without being stuffy. They obviously like being here too and I wouldn’t have been here 40 years if I didn’t enjoy it.”