Exclusive: Twitter slip-up sees solicitor’s identity uncovered by Legal Cheek following anonymous Mail Online article
A shadowy former City solicitor who has put the Square Mile on edge with an autobiography detailing graphic sexual exploits during a mid-life meltdown experienced can be unveiled as former Herbert Smith Freehills and Clyde & Co litigator Andrew Caulfield.
Writing under the pseudonym of “Cory Y Standby”, Caulfield — who is now in the legal profession headhunting game — has shocked the Square Mile with bed-hopping antics that nearly rival the numbers of such renowned Casanovas as political zeitgeist merchant Russell Brand and former Rolling Stones bassist Bill Wyman.
The crash-and-burn tale with its City law connection has understandably caught the attention of tabloid Fleet Street. Both the Mail Online and The Mirror have pored over the mysterious Mr Standby’s salacious tale, which details a post-marriage break-up shagging binge.
But thanks to a schoolboy Twitter error, Legal Cheek can reveal that Standby is in fact Caulfield.
Advice to aspiring legal lotharios with ambitions of anonymous literary stardom: don’t favourite tweets by your nom de plume‘s Twitter account from your real Twitter account.
Notice a resemblance between @ANDYC2311 and @CoryYStandby?
In the Mail Online article on Thursday — which appeared in the website’s Femail section — “Standby” blamed a midlife crisis for his outrageous behaviour, which saw him sleep with “hundreds of women” and start affairs with strippers.
According to the article, the 49-year-old said he was working 12-hour days as a litigation lawyer at a top London firm then staying out until 5am at strip clubs in the City. But speaking to Legal Cheek, Caulfield says the story is a bit more complicated and subtle. He says the book relates how he quit legal practice when he had three young sons — two of who were prematurely born twins that required special care.
“Realising how hard it was to balance work and family life,” he says, “my divorce and wilder behaviour came a number of years later, once I hit 35 years of age, and beyond — by which time I had long since shifted from being a lawyer to my legal headhunting career”.
Caulfield read law at Leeds University some 25 years ago, before completing the old Law Society Finals exam (now the Legal Practice Course) at the then College of Law. His LinkedIn profile shows that he qualified at what was Herbert Smith in 1989, staying with the firm for four years before moving to London, Reading and Southampton firm Pitmans. Nearly two years later, Caulfield returned to City practice with shipping and insurance firm Clyde & Co.
But he left City legal practice for good in 1996, some 19 years ago, at the age of about 30. He now runs Caulfield Search, which targets the legal profession as well as having an affiliated “sports management agency”.
In his book, Standby/Caulfield paints himself as a Richard Gere-style figure — or at least the character the actor portrayed in the 1990 film “Pretty Woman”. Like powerbroker Edward Lewis, Standby claims he was a soft touch, spending thousands of pounds “saving” strippers from the indignity of the Stringfellows/Spearmint Rhino circuit.
According to the Mail Online, after splitting from his lawyer wife, Standby launched his sex campaign with an office secretary.
“We had sex in meeting rooms, toilet cubicles, on the stairs, and over the desk after hours,” he told the website.
After finishing with the secretary, Standby told the paper he really picked up the pace:
“I went on plenty of random dates, having casual sex, one night stands and seeing girls from work.
“One girl I picked up from a club queue I took back to the office. But when I cleaned up and took the bin out, I didn’t realise the used condom had fallen out. The next morning there was uproar in the office when it was found hanging off the stairs.”
Makes a change from discarded billing report print-outs.
The book — titled “50!: The Life, Loves & Psyche of a Male Mid-life Crisis: Volume 1: The Journey” — is published through vanity publishing experts Xlibris. It is currently only available via Amazon, but Standby/Caulfield maintains it could still end up in bookshops.