At dinner the other night with 50 partners in a corporate law firm, I looked around the room and noticed something alarming. I was one of the oldest people in it.

Where were all the lawyers in their late fifties and early sixties? I put the question to the man sitting next to me, who said they had mostly been eased out. The trouble with the law, he explained, is that it takes its toll on you, and if you’ve been at it for 30 years it is almost impossible to hold on to any sense of urgency. By the time you reach your mid-fifties, it is usually time to start thinking about going.

There was only one exception to this rule, he went on, and that was lawyers in their fifties who had recently been divorced and were starting again with mortgages and young children. They had all the experience of their years — and all the drive of someone 30 years younger. They were propelled by the need to make a vast amount of money but, instead of having a lifetime in which to do it, they had a mere decade. The combination of extreme wisdom and extreme hunger made them unbeatable.