Calunius Capital

Life for Calunius Capital founding partner Mick Smith (pictured) has come full circle.

Having quit the law in 1996, one year after qualifying as an associate at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer, Smith is now at the helm of the first broker of third-party litigation funding to gain approval from the Financial Services Authority (FSA).

As such, he is back in regular contact with a range of law firms, including Herbert Smith, Norton Rose and his old firm Freshfields.

“Freshfields taught me attention to detail and gave me a professional approach,” says Smith. “The relationships I made there are still important and they’re my first port of call.”

Smith explains that he originally decided to leave the law after “falling out of love”. The thief of his heart? Derivatives.

A maths and law graduate, Smith decided that going full-time into that area “would be a better utilisation of my skills”.

He ended up at investment bank Dresdner Kleinwort, after a stint at Chase Manhattan, and it was at Dresdner that he met Mark Wells, his business partner in Calunius, which was established at the beginning of the year.