Local law firm founder makes UK House of Lords
(CNS): Former British Conservative minister John Maples, one of the founding partners of Cayman Islands based law firm Maples and Calder, has been given a peerage in the UK post election dissolution list. More than 50 people have been ennobled in this honours list, which includes a number of British politicians from both sides of the UK parliament. Maples founded the law firm when he was only 24 with Jim MacDonald, in the early 1960s. Following his departure from Cayman, Maples joined the British political scene, where he served in William Hague’s shadow cabinet from 1997 to 2000 as shadow health secretary, defence secretary and shadow foreign secretary.
Following his controversial call for Britain to help the Russian government in its fight against Chechen, Maples was dropped from the shadow cabinet. He returned to the opposition front bench in a minor reshuffle in November 2006, when the Tory leader and now prime minister, David Cameron, appointed him Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party.
In the recent MPs’ expenses scandal Maples claimed a prominent private London club as his principal residence. The former Cayman lawyer stood down at the recent election from his Stratford upon Avon constituency.
Category: World News
So now we know the truth regarding this gentleman’s non-place of abode. Most illuminating.
Small points (the dates are about right I hope!). The correct name is indeed Jim MacDonald. He arrived in Cayman from Canada in the early 1960’s and before Bill Walker. He practised under his own name until John Maples joined him from the Bahamas (where John had worked for a Trust Company) in around 1967. The firm then became MacDonald and Maples shortly thereafter. Douglas Calder joined the firm in1969, and when Jim retired from the firm in 1971, the name became Maples and Calder. The "and Calder" was dropped quite recently.
Was Jim McDonald a founding partner of was he was lawyer in direct competition to Maples and Calder?.
No, Jim McDonald was the Northern Irish bloke on Coronation Street.
The original firm was McDonald and Maples. They parted ways and then Douglas Calder came along and it became Maples and Calder, which these days has been re-branded as "Maples".
Pity he wasn’t elected as the new FCO for Cayman ;0)