David Freeman (solicitor)

David John Freeman was a British solicitor who founded the law firm D J Freeman, which grew from a one man firm in 1952 to a leading London law firm.^[1]

Early life

David John Freeman was born on 25 February 1928, in Cardiff, Wales. His father was in the tailoring business. The family moved to London in 1933. He attended Christ's College, Finchley, a grammar school, and after having served in the army as a 2nd Lieutenant from 1946–48, he qualified as a solicitor in 1952 and started his own practice, D J Freeman.

Legal career

Freeman built his one-man firm up to a leading London firm, with 53 partners and 250 employees by his retirement as senior partner in 1992.^[2] The firm practiced commercial property, insurance and media work.^[3] Freeman was known for high-profile insolvency, including the State Building Society crash in 1959, the John Bloom/ Rolls Razor case through the mid-1960s, and the Robert Maxwell DTI inquiry in 1970. Freeman advised in the liquidation of Barlow Clowes in 1987. In the Secondary Banks crisis of 1974, he worked on several rescues, including Hambro’s rescue of Vavasseur, the Stern Administration, the Ronald Lyon Administration, and the Israel British Bank collapse. In 1974 he advised then-Prime Minister Harold Wilson on libel. In 1977 he was appointed a Department of Trade Inspector into AEG Telefunken (UK) ltd and Credit Collections Ltd, the first practising solicitor, rather than a QC, to be so appointed.^[4] After retiring in 1992 David Freeman remained a consultant at DJ Freeman until 2003. The firm is now known as Edwards Wildman Palmer LLP after merger.

Other activities

Freeman was a secular Jew. He was a trustee of Ravenswood (now Norwood) Children's Home, a governor of Carmel College, he sat on the defence committee of the Jewish Board of Deputies in the 1960s, and was a founder member of JACOB (now the Community Security Trust).^[5] He was a governor of the RSC (1975–1996) and of the Mermaid Theatre. In 2000, he was Chairman of the Trustees and of the Executive Committee of the Holocaust Conference "Remembering for the Future", Oxford University. In 2005–2006 he was chairman of "An Inquiry into the Provenance of 654 Aramaic incantation bowls" for University College, London (UCL). In 2006–2008 he was chairman of "An inquiry into the legal, ethical, and professional considerations involved in the acquisition and receipt of cultural property in UCL." In 2007 Freeman built a children's centre, The Freeman Family Centre, for Barnardos, in the London Borough of Brent.

Personal life

He married Iris Alberge (1927–1997), an educational psychologist, in 1950. She became a partner in his law firm in 1967, after qualifying as a solicitor. Subsequently she wrote the authorised biography of the distinguished Master of the Rolls, Lord Denning. There are three children of the marriage, and 12 grandchildren. In 2001 he married Connie Levy.

He died on 23 February 2015.^[6]

References

1. The Lawyer periodical, 3 July 1990 "The only top firm in the city to be started from scratch by one man"
2. Commercial Lawyer, vol 1 no 6, March 1996. "David Freeman: Rainmaker"
3. The Times newspaper, 31 August 1991. " ... an envied reputation in commercial property and insolvency law"
4. Pride versus Prejudice – Jewish Doctors and Lawyers in England, 1890–1990 John Cooper, Littman Library of Jewish Civilisation (2003) pp 309–10.
5. History of the Jewish Board of Deputies, pp 23–26. "Among Jewish solicitors, many were household names within the Jewish Community and beyond, their prowess as solicitors matched by their prominence in communal Jewish life – Lord Nathan, Lord Victor Mishcon, Leslie Paisner, and David Freeman were characteristic."
6. David Freeman, lawyer - obituary