Pictured above: Richard Ollis 

Midland lawyer Richard Ollis is about to become a notary public - the oldest branch of the legal profession.

Mr Ollis, a partner with Stratford-upon-Avon firm Lodders, leads the commercial property department's specialist development, investment and secured lending team.

The Master of the Faculties at the faculty office of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which regulates the notarial profession, has approved his appointment and Mr Ollis will receive his "faculty deed" at a ceremony in Cambridge on December 3. He will then be entitled to practise as a member of a very exclusive professional group - there are fewer than 1,000 public notaries in England and Wales.

Mr Ollis, who joined Lodders in 1999 from DLA Piper in Birmingham, said he was "thrilled to bits" to have successfully completed the two-year distance learning course run by Cambridge University, but admits he found it very difficult, in both academic and practical terms.

Of more than 120 students who started the course, fewer than 50 successfully completed it. He said: "It all started as a bit of a joke really, by way of an ironic 60th birthday present from an old friend who had persistently refused to offer me notarial articles. Had I known then how difficult it was going to be, I might not have taken it on at all."

Qualification by the old method of serving articles of clerkship is no longer available and Cambridge is the only university to offer the relevant academic qualification.

Mr Ollis added: "Clearly one of the objectives of the changes to the training is to enhance the recognition and reputation of the profession, particularly outside England and Wales, to levels already accorded to the 'Notaire, the 'Notar' and the 'Notario' in mainland Europe's civil law jurisdictions, where being a public notary has always held greater prestige."

A notary public is sometimes defined as "a public officer constituted by law to serve the public in non-contentious matters usually concerned with estates, deeds, powers-of-attorney, and foreign and international business". Notarial services generally include the attestation, authentication or verification of documents, facts and events, most often in circumstances involving a foreign legal element.

Notaries hold an office which can trace its origins back to ancient Rome, when they were called "scribae"or "notarii".

Modern day notaries are easily the oldest continuing branch of the legal profession worldwide.