WHO’S WHO

Successfully Yours: Peter Mewes

by Dr. Iain Corness

Peter Mewes is a successful lawyer advising the engineering, oil, water and power construction industries, specializing in contract advice and dispute resolution, and now resident here. He is also someone who can prove to the satisfaction of any jury that not all lawyers are born with mouthfuls of silver spoons. However, like all lawyers, he came to the interview carrying copious notes!

He is a Londoner, having been born in Camberwell, South London, and his parents were not well off, having lost their chances for higher education through WWII. He initially went to school in Peckham, a fairly tough area of London, but by the time he was 8 years old family finances were a little better and he was sent to Dulwich College Preparatory school. “We were now living in a posh area and we were now truly middle class.”

It was around this time that he met his great love, and one that still enthrals him - soccer! This was so strong that when he was due to move up to secondary school, he turned down Dulwich College because they played rugby, and went to Alleyn’s School instead - they played soccer!

Peter says he did just enough study to pass his exams, but he was more interested in sport, art and music - and, of course, soccer. He was even offered a trial as a professional footballer when he was 15 years old, but it was not the time to leave home and go to the north of England. His education was also streamed towards producing doctors, lawyers and accountants, not artists or footballers.

When he finished his schooling he did not want to go to university. “I wanted to work and liked the outdoors, so I got a job as a seasonal gardener.” Raking leaves was not to be his future, however, he had some friends who were studying law and thought he might give it a try, doing a correspondence course in A level law.

Following this it was off to university for a 3 year full-time degree course. There was not enough money in the kitty to be a dilettante, so he worked many part-time evening and weekend jobs, from raking the leaves again to being a ward orderly in a hospital. This was also another watershed in his life. He had been playing semi-professional football but with study and work he did not have enough time left for training. “This ended my football career at the ripe old age of 21,” he laughed.

After the degree course was completed and he had his BA Hons Law, this was not the open door to the lawyer’s offices. There was another year to be done to become a solicitor, but he did not have enough money, so it was back into the workforce, doing two years in government service and then cramming a 12 month course into weekends and evenings while he worked part-time.

He was then 27 years old and was a trainee solicitor, receiving his lawyer’s certificate two years later. It had been a long hard road, but it was not over yet. It was just the beginning.

He joined a top London city firm and began to specialize in construction law. The work was interesting and the hours were long, but he was finally able to take a real holiday, without filling it with part-time jobs. He was 31 years old, an age where many lawyers have already been reaping the rewards of a decade of professional work. The holiday was, he felt, long overdue.

Peter continued with his law practice, but with its success came the downside. He was working 12 to 14 hours every day and could see his health and fitness deteriorating. But he was on that treadmill and it would be difficult to get off.

The next event in his life, another watershed, was probably serendipitous, but was momentous in its consequences. He had purchased some property and he was approached by a developer who wanted to make a larger development. The initial offer was unacceptable, but the property developer continued. He thought that the lawyer would be a push-over, but Peter Mewes had been working professionally with some of the toughest nuts in the construction/development industry. When the deal was finally done and dusted he had realised five times the initial value of the property. He had also realised a large sum of money, for the first time in his life. “I was 37 years old and approaching my mid-life crisis, and it (the money) changed my outlook on life.”

He admitted to himself that he was not happy, quit his job and took a holiday to soul search. He decided that he was never going back to the day to day grindstone, but would work as a consultant, which he did successfully for many years. He was also going to do things outside the legal field. He then took an Asian holiday which was supposed to include Penang, but fortuitously ended up in Pattaya instead! The experience would bring him back many times, until he eventually came here to settle one year ago to provide a legal consultancy to industry on the Eastern Seaboard.

“Pattaya helped me find art and music,” he said enthusiastically, and indeed you may just find him singing and entertaining at night, just for the sheer fun of it. “I love to watch people stop, listen and then come in for a drink! It’s nice to have some pulling power at my age.” Regarding art, he commissioned paintings here and sold them in the Middle East but then began painting himself, going so far as to have personal exhibitions in the UK.

For Peter Mewes success is not money in the bank, but is an inner contentment with one’s self, an aim he now works towards. You get the feeling, talking with him that he has passed his mid-life crisis with flying colours, and he now enthusiastically seizes every day.



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