Biglaw, United Kingdom / Great Britain, Videos

The 1981 Slaughter & May Video: Where Are They Now?

An update on the star of the 1981 Slaughter & May video.

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Earlier this week, we showed you a home movie taken inside Slaughter & May’s offices in 1981. What we learned was that practicing law at the highest levels in the early 80s involved no computers, a lot of switchboard operators, and casually telling women in the office that they had good backsides.

The natural question after watching the whole video was, “Where are they now?” Whatever happened to the young associates showing off their window views and pretending the British tax laws are interesting?

We don’t have answers for every face recorded all those years ago, but we do have updates on the current whereabouts of a few of them.

But most importantly, we can tell you whether the guy with the killer porn stache guy is still rocking it today!

Sadly, it’s been shaved off.

Legal Cheek has the scoop on many of the stars of this tremendous video.

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The mustachioed man showing off his office was, in fact, the same man who worked the camera 90 percent of the time. Meet James Mitchell: Then and Now:

Mitchell eventually left the law to run a pair of property investment companies. Legal Cheek walks us through his career:

The feisty young solicitor joined Slaughters as an articled clerk in 1978, having gained a degree in maths and statistics from Imperial College before reading law at the LSE.

Mitchell’s LinkedIn profile (seen below) shows that his amateur cinematography didn’t do his immediate prospects at the firm any harm after the senior partners sobered up in the new year. Mitchell stayed with S&M for another four years before moving to Barlow Lyde & Gilbert as a partner.

He stayed at that now defunct firm — it merged with Clyde & Co in 2011 — for another 10 years before jumping to the partnership at Stevens & Bolton in Guildford, where he was on the books for a dozen years. And from the mid-90s to the present, Mitchell has been a director at two property investment companies.

Apparently he’s also a pretty serious Crystal Palace fan. According to reports, back in 2002, Mitchell got into a “bust-up” with the then-Chairman of the team. And deservedly so — at that point Crystal Palace was starting its fifth season removed from the Premiership and showing no signs of improvement. He must be a much happier man today with his team firmly ensconced mid-table in the top flight.

Check out Legal Cheek for the background on the tax lawyer who (mistakenly) thought we’d care about British tax law and a pic of the young lawyer flashing a bottle of Beaujolais, who is now a real estate partner at a “Silver Circle” firm.

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Revealed: Where the stars of that 1981 Slaughter and May video are today [Legal Cheek]

Earlier: This Video Of A Biglaw Office In 1981 Is Absolutely Incredible

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