While in-house lawyer at The People, Rachel Welsh was involved in many of last year’s high-profile libel stories. They included Robbie Williams’ gay allegations and David and Victoria Beckham’s alleged telephone hate campaign against their former nanny.

Although she has a wide range of responsibilities as a newspaper in-house lawyer, libel is really Welsh’s game. The Liverpudlian cut her teeth at Schillings and then, via Orchard, made her way to Davenport Lyons in 2000, where she learnt her trade under the formidable trio of Kevin Bays, Robin Shaw and Philip Conway. She left the firm in 2003 for the Mirror Group.

Welsh is an accomplished technician with a sound commercial understanding of her industry. Those skills on her still-young shoulders make for a gutsy and able member of a legal team. Her talent was recognised at the end of 2005 when she was headhunted to join Express Newspapers early in 2006 as number two to Steven Bacon.