As head of legal services at the London Borough of Waltham Forest, Satish Mistry was one of the key architects of London's first-ever tri-borough legal panel, joining forces with neighbouring boroughs Newham and Tower Hamlets to procure jointly.

The panel secured efficiencies of scale, but more too. The selected firms - Mills & Reeve, Sharpe Pritchard and Trowers & Hamlins - not only offer attractive fee rates, they also provide shadowing arrangements for council staff to accompany the firms' lawyers to project meetings with other public sector players. In addition, there is access to the firms' researchers, legal libraries and meeting rooms, along with joint training and seminars.

All three firms have also given and received secondees.

The past year has also seen Mistry's team hammer out a settlement with the trade unions on the thorny issue of equal pay; work with the police to shutdown both a crackhouse and a £2.5m pirate DVD racket; establish a new framework for corporate governance; and introduce a new process for dealing with member complaints that has slashed the number referred to the Standards Board.