Kent County Council secretary Geoff Wild spotted a niche in the working relationship between in-house public sector lawyers and their private practice counterparts. He then went all-out to exploit it.

Wild recognised that, with an ever-increasing volume of legislation and the growing specialisms required in-house, many local authority legal teams were under enormous pressure. They were increasingly having to put work out at high cost and little added value to the local authority itself.

He realised that public sector lawyers instinctively tend to trust other public sector lawyers more than those in the private sector, and recognised the sense of local authorities using lawyers such as Wild’s when they were faced with resourcing issues. "It’s cheaper and they’re less wary of us than the City," Wild told The Lawyer.

The winner of the Public Sector Team of the Year Award at last year’s Lawyer Awards now has around 150 organisations that it counts as clients, which knock on Wild’s door when they are facing the pressures of peak work.