I often have to give staff advice on careers.  I am actually very proud of the fact that a number of my staff, who never had ambitions to become attorneys, was encouraged by me to become attorneys.  That is because I spotted their potential and realised that they would do very well as attorneys, even though they came to me for secretarial or administrative jobs.  I have number of staff now who are still studying law and I have no doubt that some of them in particular will make successful attorneys.

The one word of advice that I gave a former staff member, which she did not listen to at the time, but now acknowledged that I was right, is also to make sure that you work in a big city.  To me, and remember our cities in South Africa are so small compared to some of the international cities around the world, I don’t want to work in a village.  The two cities where money is made are generally Johannesburg and Pretoria and I would not be looking to work anywhere else.  I’d take a job in Cape Town for the beauty of Cape Town or I would retire in Cape Town – and in fact I have spent some time looking at a holiday home there which I am planning to get – but you need to be where the money is. 

The bottom line is the leading advocates, medical specialists, neuro-surgeons, actuaries, attorneys, etc are not in Benoni, Roodepoort or Vereeniging.  That does not mean there cannot be some very good legal practices there, but it is too far away from the action.  Name me one top five law firms or top four accounting firms that are anywhere other than in Johannesburg?   Tell me about the massive advocates’ chambers they have in Benoni or in Roodepoort – the answer is they don’t.  The top specialists, top advocates, major courts and major companies are all based in either Pretoria or largely the northern suburbs of Johannesburg and so personally, even if it saved me money on petrol, I would never be working in the smaller town or a village.

I grew up in Durban and I am so happy we moved to Johannesburg, because to me, to be quite honest, Durban is a village where nothing goes on other than secret meetings about trying to put Jacob Zuma back into power!  There is more money, more action, more head offices of companies and more of everything in every other category in Johannesburg and the northern suburbs of Johannesburg and I cannot imagine anybody would want to grow their career in any other city.  Even if you do prefer another city, one cannot really make it big if you are practicing in the country and even if you are the best attorney in the country and you are living in a small town, you will always be hamstrung by the fact that you don’t have as many top experts, in whatever field you are in, in your town and you will forever have to travel to the big city either for the court case to be actually heard or to a big city to use the top experts and the experts who have the most experience in testifying before court.