Last week Obiter was left on tenterhooks at the outcome of our youngest person to set up a law firm competition.


At that stage, John Blackwell, a consultant at national firm Beachcroft, and Mark Stephens, media lawyer and partner at London-based Finers Stephens Innocent, were battling it out for the crown. Mr Blackwell had weighed in at 24 years and 38 days old. Mr Stephens was also 24 but his exact age at the time of setting up his firm was unclear.



Subsequent research by Mr Stephens appears to suggest that he was slightly older, but no matter - we have received an entry revealing that Victor Zermansky was only 23 when he founded Zermansky & Partners in Leeds.



Russell Graham, senior commercial property partner at the firm, tells us that Mr Zermansky was called up for national service a week after he qualified as a solicitor at the age of 21 (he had gone to university at 16).



'He had a choice of serving three years as an officer (as a solicitor) or serving only two years in the ranks and taking pot luck as to where he was posted,' Mr Graham says. 'He chose the latter - he could not wait to practise - and was posted to the jungle in Malaya during the troubles, but fortunately attached to army legal aid. This involved seeing soldiers on the front line to advise them on problems they had.'



On being demobbed, Mr Zermansky founded the firm on 5 November 1955. He remains an active consultant.



So the bar on this competition has been raised again. If you or someone you know can do better, email: gazette-editorial@lawsociety.org.uk.



In the meantime, it is worth mentioning a few of the many other entries we received. Shainul Kassam of niche corporate firm Fortune Law got in touch to claim the title of the youngest female to set up in practice at 29 years and 324 days. She was also short-listed for entrepreneur of the year at the Asian Women of Achievement Awards before the age of 30.



Alas for Ms Kassam, Anita Chopra set up education law practice Match Solicitors on her 29th birthday.



Stephen Gadd and Nigel Smith deserve an award for arguably the most inauspicious start to a new law firm. 'Had Nigel and I been a bit older at the time, we might have realised that opening a law firm from scratch, with no clients and no working capital, in a town we had only visited three times before, in the depths of the worst recession since the 1920s was probably not such a great idea,' says Mr Gadd, who was 28 years and 239 days old at the time. 'To cap it all off, a few days later our offices were burgled and what office equipment we had was either stolen or vandalised.'



But there is a happy ending: Smith Gadd & Co is now in its 16th year and has 23 staff across two offices.