Lola Becker interviews David Howe, our Head of Property. He joined Michelmores from Clifford Chance and became a partner in 1990. He specialises in development and regeneration work, joint ventures, construction contracts and professional appointments. He is widely recognised as a leader in his field, however we are taking 5 minutes out of his busy schedule to ask our formidable questions…
It was about a hundred years ago, I can’t possibly remember! It was a long time ago; I wanted to move out of London. I’d done a job with Bond Pearce in Plymouth, so I went to have a look at them as they seemed quite a reputable outfit. I arrived in what looked like a war zone (or a reconstructed war zone) and thought I can’t possibly live here and got blown in to Exeter on the way back to London and thought this looks a better alternative. I looked at the various firms that there were in Exeter and thought that Michelmores looked the best of a bad bunch really. Jim Michelmore bought me a pint. I think that was the clincher.
I couldn’t do anything else really! There’s a bit of a joke there, at Clifford Chance where I was, if you were too thick to do anything else you did Property. I did it because it would have made me much more portable outside of the City and I liked doing land law at the College of Law; that was my strong subject. I’m sure it’s very intellectually challenging and all of that, but those were the pragmatic reasons.
I think it was probably doing the Child Support Agency deal in Plymouth for EBC Group plc. We were opposite the Rotch Property Group ( Tchenguiz’s company- and for anyone who doesn’t knows about property they don’t come much bigger) doing a 100,000ft2 office prelet to the Secretary of State..We exchanged the Development Agreement on the evening before my son was born!. I was the grand age of 32,. Things happened much earlier then, so it’s been downhill ever since really. Both my children arrived on a Saturday. I can’t pretend they are so organised these days.
Well I don’t know, what is it: ‘work hard and fear God’? (That’s not my quotation, that’s Mr Glanville Williams). I’m not sure I have any advice for trainees, these days they’re all very bright and more than capable of making their own way, and know far more what’s good for themselves than I can possibly tell them.
Goodness knows. I’d probably be a property developer. There was a great joke at University that I was going to be an insurance broker as it was thought to be the most boring job in the world, but I don’t know, dealing with risk would be quite fun. I would have gone into insurance if I hadn’t been laughed at so much! You’ve sold out to Mammon in any of these things really; you’ve sold out on your principles.
I’m very hard-centred I think, so something nutty. One that you’d break your front teeth on I think, so probably a ginger nut.