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Consuming passions: Law ahoy for marine and wine lawyer Marcel Vaarzon-Morel
When it comes to a career in law, it doesn't have to be about big firms, billable hours and boredom. Claire Chaffey discovers four innovative legal professionals getting paid to do what they love. VOYAGE OF DISCOVERY: Former shipwright Marcel Vaarzon-Morel retrained and used his law degree to build a boutique firm focusing on his passions: marine, millinery and wine law.
One lawyer who knows all too well the joys that come with turning passion into profession is Marcel Vaarzon-Morel.
A former shipwright and cooper who dabbled in millinery, Vaarzon-Morel was forced to rethink his career as a tradesman when years of making yachts and wine barrels saw him develop dust-induced and ultimately career-ending asthma.
"Things weren't going too well from a health perspective," he says. "Unfortunately, it got quite bad and I had to stop working, so I found myself in a situation where I had to retrain."
This retraining equated to a politics degree followed by a law degree, then several years as a lawyer in both corporate and private practice.
But it was a stint in a Newcastle-based mid-tier firm that convinced Vaarzon-Morel that he should perhaps consider going out on his own and pursuing something in which he was genuinely interested.
Sensing his misery and an impending decision to drop out of the law altogether, a friend eventually suggested that Vaarzon-Morel set up his own firm - and things changed dramatically.
"Once I started my own practice, everything completely changed, because I could redefine what law meant for me, how I wanted to run the practice and the areas that I wanted to go into," he says. "I focused on what my strengths were. I couldn't re-invent the wheel ... so I sat down and thought very carefully about how I was going to go about my practice.
"When I started looking at my experience and knowledge, I found that it actually gave me an edge over other solicitors."
Vaarzon-Morel says he even did a Google search for a shipwright-cum-solicitor and found only one person who fitted the mould - and he had lived in England in the 1800s.
"I figured I wouldn't have much competition," he says.
And thus Vaarzon-Morel Solicitors was born, specialising in some rather unusual areas of law: marine and maritime, millinery and wine law.
| "Once I started my own practice, everything completely changed, because I could redefine what law meant for me, how I wanted to run the practice and the areas that I wanted to go into" Marcel Vaarzon-Morel, Vaarzon-Morel Solicitors, Newcastle
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"Marine law is an area of law that is basically non-existent," he says. "It is something that I've created myself as specific to an industry area."
Despite this, Vaarzon-Morel's name within the industry means that marine and maritime law cases dominate his time.
Cash flow requirements, however, mean he also sits on various legal aid panels, and his burgeoning wine law business helps pay the bills while he waits for his first millinery client to come through the door.
"I get enquiries from people within the millinery industry, but I haven't yet had any matters as such," he says. "Because I have a genuine interest in it, people call up and I am quite happy to point them in the right direction. It's about assisting people and, at some point in time, if they need to take things further they might come back to me. It's about building those relationships."
In the meantime, Vaarzon-Morel enjoys the many perks that come with practicing in such unique - and, let's face it, fun - areas of law, such as spending tax-deductible time in the Hunter Valley and at boat shows around the country.
"At the end of the day, you've got to have something else that makes you keep going," he says. "It can't just be about the money."
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