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Margaret Hodge with John Mills and wife Dame Barbara Mills |
Minister’s tribute to husband
MP praises late lawyer as firm that ‘fights injustice’ celebrates its 32nd birthday
TOURISM Minister Margaret Hodge paid a loving tribute to her late husband at a celebration of the leading law firm he helped set up.
Henry Hodge, one of the founding partners of Hodge, Jones and Allen (HJA), died of leukaemia in June, aged 68.
The firm, formerly based at Camden Road in Camden Town, was marking its 32nd birthday and the official launch of a new office building in North Gower Street, Euston.
Ms Hodge said HJA was set up to fight “injustice” and that its creation was her husband’s “proudest achievement”.
“Henry would have been very pleased to be here tonight,” she said. “He believed in establishing values of efficiency, success and building a reputation. I remember how at the beginning he had an absolute obsession with cash flow – and he was always talking about how payments under legal aid were so slow. He learned about the pressures of running an office.”
She added: “Camden Town, as we know, has its vagrant community. Much to my disapproval, when the firm was in Camden Town, he gave constant consultancy to them.”
From humble origins, HJA was set up by three ambitious young lawyers first in Camden High Street in 1977, before moving to Camden Road in 1997.
Labour luminaries including former Lord Chancellor Baron Charles Falconer, MP Frank Dobson, businessman John Mills and former Camden Council leader Raj Chada, who is a partner at the company, attended the champagne event.
Lord Falconer, a barrister who has often served as a “trouble-shooter” for the firm since it opened, said: “Hodge, Jones and Allen was set up to help people who need a lawyer but cannot necessarily afford one. It has always provided quality representation and it has survived because of that core principle. It has been a disparate group and some exceptionally talented, in particular Henry Hodge and Patrick Allen.”
Patrick Allen, a senior partner who co-founded the firm, said: “We have grown from the original three to a firm of 190 but the ethos is still the same – fight injustice and right wrongs.” |
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