Graham Cox is testament to how much difference one man can make in a lifetime. He formed a law firm in Mercury Lane in downtown Durban in 1964, bringing to life a teenage dream of becoming a lawyer specialising in business.

Back then he didn’t want anyone to tell him what to do, so he set up his own practice and paid the princely sum of R30 a month in office rental.

He retired last year, aged 82, though he still consults and is a regular at the offices of Cox Yeats on uMhlanga Ridge.

It is 50 years since he set up shop, but Cox Yeats, probably the biggest individually owned law firm in KZN, still has most of the clients Graham and his partner Jeremy Yeats secured years ago. Some of KZN’s oldest and most established companies are clients of the firm, including JT Ross, Tongaat-Hulett, Investec, Grindrod, Richards Bay Minerals and Hulamin.

Cox Yeats, now headed by Michael Jackson, has 30 lawyers, including partners, associates and candidate attorneys.

Jackson said the firm had doubled in size in the past five years because it has offered specialised services regionally, which many companies with local headquarters preferred.

Jackson said the firm attracted talent by creating a culture of freedom and independence for professionals who operated in teams to service focused areas of law.

He said the firm’s founding ethos was as relevant today as when Cox opened for business. “We foster local expertise and place great emphasis on relationships.”

This week Cox, who still drives himself around, put much of the firm’s achievements down to his successors.

He is a charming, self-effacing, old-school gentleman who listens carefully and answers questions precisely. “I’m very proud of the chaps who have succeeded me; they’ve done very well,” he says.

Cox knew from early on that he’d be able to offer something distinctive in law if he specialised in business. He also studied commerce at university and worked briefly at Unilever (in 1956) as a management trainee.

He could read accounts and understood finance, which not many of his peers could deal with.

Focusing on corporate and business law has meant a rewarding career, consulting clients as varied as newspaper groups and seed companies.

Cox got his break in the 1960s when he was working late one evening in Mercury Lane and a group of accountants in offices nearby approached him for advice.

They were involved in a big liquidation and needed a lawyer urgently. He got stuck in and the work opened up countless doors.

Cox has given legal advice to hundreds, if not thousands of companies and has been involved mergers and acquisitions, running into billions of rand.

Businesses, he said, should take care to give their lawyer quality information. While each brief varied enormously, he said lawyers and clients should have a clear idea of what they wanted to achieve in any engagement.

“A good attorney should help you formulate what you want and point out the potential minefields on the way… it’s good to have a wide open discussion at the start and look at all the possibilities.”

His focus on customer care, he said, had been instinctive.

“When somebody consults me I really care for them and do my best to help them achieve their desired outcome.”

Cox said his earnings as a lawyer helped him live comfortably, but never made him real money. He said he made money by saving up and investing on the stock exchange.

His wife, Jill, is a doctor and her earnings contributed to their monthly income.

He said he always treated the firm as a business.

“You have to run it like a business, but don’t think of your fee first. If that’s the case, you’ll come unstuck because the client sitting in front of you is probably cleverer than you and will see that straight away.

“A law firm is like any business: you have to build up capital. That’s not a novel proposition. I built up slowly by spending less than others. I caught the bus to work. Don’t ever get involved in a scene you can’t afford – that’s crazy.”

Paul Valayudum started out as an office assistant a few days after Cox set up the practice. He is still with the firm and remembers Cox as “kind and humble, but stern. “

He always said simplicity was the key to success; every night I used to see him standing up behind the counter before he went home, doing his own bookkeeping in the ledger.”