firms. The book also contained his views on the development of the legal profession and Bermuda's international business industry.

Some excerpts: On the early 20th century: The life of a lawyer in the Colony of Bermuda at the start of the 20th century was not overly demanding of a man's time. A fellow might walk to his Chambers in the morning, pop into the Supreme Court for an hour and then head down to the Yacht Club for lunch. If he looked in at the office near the end of the day, it would be to collect the post, sign a few letters or draw ten shillings from Petty Cash to cover an unexpected evening out. Bermuda was a relaxed place, protected by its remoteness.

If Bermuda at that time was a more parochial and insulated place than it is today, the issues which dominated the newspaper headlines were not that far removed from current concerns. In its issue of 7 July 1903, The Royal Gazette, Bermuda Commercial and General Advertiser and Recorder , in a style as verbose as its name, reported on Legislative Council debates on the rights of foreign wives of Bermudians, changes at the Public Library and improvements to Middle Road in Devonshire.

On the 1920s: In a manner almost incomprehensible in the hard-pressed modern world, the learned professions were vocations, rather than, as now, gainful employment. The systems of voluntary social service which mark Bermuda now were even more keenly pronounced when the population was smaller, and therefore the number of financially comfortable individuals was more limited.

The narrow, winding dirt roads, made of crushed coral and fringed with oleander, had been adequate for Bermudians for centuries, even if social activity had effectively been limited to the nearby parishes. The roads became sticky with reddish clay when it rained, but the porous soil ensured that they dried quickly. On special occasions, families rode in carriages, but most people simply walked. Bermuda,Mark Twain wrote, displaying his complete understanding of the ways of the Island, is a little place of great distances.

On office equipment in the 1920s: It would have comprised little more than pen and ink and a typewriter. Word processors, scanners and photocopiers would have been the stuff of science fiction in 1928.

The first word processors, far removed from the days of the hand-written ledgers of the 1920s and '30s, appeared in Bermuda in the early 1980s. The word processor more or less filled a room and users had to book it in advance, like today's conference rooms. Its application was unofficially limited to large and important work. Computers were becoming a part of the business landscape, with George Orwell's 1984 still two years away.

On the 1930s: The work of a lawyer's office comprised appearances in Supreme Court and, more often, Police Court, consultations on applications for liquor licences, the authentication of documents supporting passport applications, deeds of charge, and the drawing of wills and leases. Firms might collect rents on behalf of clients. There was, too, a degree of corporate legal work for the larger Bermudian companies and ventures, such as its hotels.

On forming international companies in Bermuda: Today, setting up an international company in Bermuda involves little difficulty. Having consulted with professional advisers and weighed the pros and cons of such a course of action, one makes an application, usually through local counsel.

The proposed incorporation is then advertised, although this requirement was withdrawn for exempted companies in the second half of 1998. The Bermuda Monetary Authority carries out background checks into the applicant's principals, as a formal extension of the less formal vetting already carried out by the potential company's professional advisers.

The proposed venture and its management must meet Bermuda's strict background, quality and financial requirements. Those who pass the character examination pay a registration fee, the Bermuda company is formed, and it is ready to carry out its purpose.

But in 1935, all Bermuda companies, whether private or public, were required to be incorporated by an Act of Parliament, which had to be approved by the House of Assembly and the Legislative Council, the forerunner of the Senate. A Bill of Incorporation then as now required the assent of the Governor.

Offshore companies, in the way the term has come be understood, did not exist.

On the 60/40 rule: The rule is a transparently protective measure, designed to keep Bermuda's affairs exclusively in the hands of Bermudians. In 1998, the notion survives as much in the breach as in the observance and is coming under fire from those who see it as a potential roadblock to Bermuda's progress in the electronic 21st century.

But back in 1935, when America had yet to introduce social security or electricity to its rural areas, Bermuda businessmen did not dream of competing globally. They were, comparatively speaking, small businessmen. The 60/40 rule was their Maginot Line, their last and only defence against the possibility of being gobbled up by big business interests from the United States.

For the notion of exempted companies to succeed, a proposal had to be devised which met the essential requirements of the law -- Bermudian control of Bermudian affairs -- and then a way found to persuade Bermudians that it left their defences secure.

That method was the exempted company. Today, thousands of such companies are incorporated annually in jurisdictions all over the globe. Estimates place as much as a third of the world's private wealth offshore. Exempted companies and their ilk provide owners with a range of advantages such as anonymity, tax efficiency and seamless succession. Almost every large company in the world has an offshore element in its corporate structure; more than three-quarters of America's 100 largest industrial companies maintain a presence of some sort in Bermuda alone.

On how exempted companies operate: The International Match Company, one of the first exempted companies, could only deal in real or personal property outside of these Islands. It was not entitled to hold land, acquire shares issued by any company incorporated locally, nor take a mortgage or acquire bonds secured on land in Bermuda. Any lease agreement the company might execute in Bermuda was to be limited to 21 years. Most of these conditions hold today for exempted companies, although individual exceptions have been, and are increasingly being made as the protectionist sentiment weakens.

On the 1940s: What the financial world now calls international companies, then just starting to attract the sobriquet `multi-nationals', were few and far between in Bermuda in the 1940s. Only the oil companies can be said to have been truly global at that time, and even they concentrated their efforts on countries in which their raw materials were found and their headquarters in Europe or the United States. Bermuda figured in very little corporate planning prior to 1947.

On the 1950s: It was also evident that the old ways of the gentleman lawyer were under threat. Few professional people in Bermuda went looking for work, but this sedate way of life was being threatened by a more aggressive search for imaginative solutions, often suitable only on a one-off basis. Further, among an older generation of easy-going legal practitioners, tax work was not considered genteel.

By taking the idea that Bermuda might be a good location for the provision of financial services and running with it, the founding fathers of Bermuda's international business industry, many of them lawyers, made it possible for three generations of Bermudians, thus far, to enjoy a standard of living which consistently ranks at the top of the world tables.

Bermuda, it should be recalled, is without significant material resources other than the wits of its people and its beauty -- and, now, a gross domestic product well in excess of two billion dollars.

Even in the 1950s, legislation continued to provide that every Bermuda company be incorporated by Act of Parliament. The careful process of vetting undergone by all potential clients was a Bermudian hallmark from the very earliest days and served to satisfy the requirement that Bermuda would be engaged only in legitimate business.

The vetting began in the private sector, with the lawyers receiving instructions to incorporate a new Bermuda entity. The process then transferred to the public sector and the Private Bills Committee of Bermuda's Parliament under the guidance of Sir Henry Vesey and, separately, the Currency Exchange Control Board.

Continue on Page 31 Crombie on Bermuda's legal profession Continued from page 30 Roger Crombie On the choices lawyers make: In any profession, it surely makes sense for a newly-qualified professional to try his or her hand at a range of work. For one thing, how else would the undecided discover which branch of the work most appealed? Yet many of today's lawyers claim to know with certainty where they intend to spend their professional lives. The majority of those who qualify in the professions rarely venture from the path once selected. With age and the accumulation of experience in a particular field, such manoeuvring becomes less feasible.

On the drafting of documents: Today, drafts of important documents can be changed as often as necessary before any but the writer's eyes see the first fruit of such labour.

American author John Steinbeck, by contrast, wrote that he never shook the habit of writing his 600 words a day in longhand, and then tearing the pages off the pad to be sent to the printers.

Were professionals and other wordsmiths more efficient in the days of three drafts, or was the quality of their work less sophisticated? Perhaps a blend of both.

On time sheets: Time sheets are considered a mixed blessing by some professionals, who argue that life, particularly professional life, does not always proceed in the linear manner of the relentless march of little time boxes to be filled in all day, every working day.

Neither can time sheets reflect the thinking process carried out at the back of one's mind on an almost continuous basis, which may result in only an hour's billable work once the thinking has fallen into place.

Time sheets, however, are essential to the modern legal practice and unlikely to disappear any time soon. Without them, lawyers and other professionals would have to estimate their time, an impossibly erratic process.

On our fascination with the law: Media reports of legal matters retain a particular fascination.

The modern practice of law has changed somewhat the degree of confidentiality attorneys afford themselves and, sometimes, their clients.

In the United States, for example, Johnnie Cochran has become more famous than many of his clients, thanks to the experiment of broadcasting once-cloistered legal proceedings and the modern habit, at least in North America, of trying cases in the media. The British legal system is less susceptible to such behaviour.

On exporting Bermudian talent and ideas: A professional firm in Bermuda opening an overseas office was (in 1982) a grand reversal of the tradition by which Bermuda routinely imports business and staff from overseas.

Nowadays, the announcement of the opening of a new Bermudian-owned overseas office has considerably less impact, since the major law firms, the banks, Government and many of the larger Bermuda insurers have between them some three dozen offices in operation around the world.

On overseas training: Almost every Bermudian professional has been an expatriate at some stage of his or her life. Schooling, university, work experience; perhaps one of the reasons that many expatriates have been able to enter the fabric of Bermudian society is a shared sense of internationalism.

Estimates place at 70 or 80 the number of Bermudians studying law in the United Kingdom and other overseas countries at any given moment.

Bermudians studying law in the UK face a long and arduous task. They may spend as many as six winters in England -- a peculiar hardship for those who grow up in the sub-tropics.

free accessibility to the jurisdiction by the parties, their legal advisers and the arbitrators. As a result, participants in Bermuda arbitration are exempted from the usual work permit requirements applicable to foreign lawyers practising in Bermuda.

N.B.

This is the exact same Law Matters supplement that ran in The Royal Gazette on 20th September, 2000. However do the printing problems that affected the quality of the print, it was pulled from the circulation and did not appear again until the 9th October, 2000.