What was your first ever job?
Assistant on a ‘Test Your Weight’ machine at Southport fair.
What was your worst experience as a trainee?
Mistaking the shredder for a photocopier and destroying a root settlement deed.
Where’s the best place to go if you want to find out what’s really going on in the office?
Our ‘Proms’ – departmental after-work drinks.
What time do you usually leave the office?
Before 6.30pm – I do arrive at 7.30 in the morning.
What do you do at weekends?
Go to village pubs, visit ancient monuments in Somerset, go to church. I have the time to put on a wet suit, but not the inclination.
What’s your favourite restaurant?
Il Buco in Rome, which is fortunately very easy to get to from Bristol these days.
If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you have been?
A penniless archaeologist.
Who was your mentor or role model?
Depends on what area of life. In work, Richard Johnson, a former outstanding Burges Salmon senior partner.
What’s the best thing about your job?
The excellence of my colleagues and the pride that working with them inspires.
What’s the toughest thing about your job?
Nothing that patience, diplomacy, and hard work can’t resolve.
What’s your biggest work/career mistake and what did you learn from it?
Moving to a small Bristol firm from Withers, before my move to Burges Salmon, as it was a real culture shock, although it gave me a commercial focus that I had not previously had or realised I needed.
What car(s) do you drive?
Mercedes E Class saloon.
What book are you currently reading?
I have three on the go: The Pickwick Papers; The Virgin Mary in the life and writings of John Henry Newman; Iris Murdoch’s The Bell.
What’s on your CD player at the moment?
Petrarch’s sonnets set to the music of Monteverdi.
What’s your favourite children’s book?
The Coral Island by RM Ballantyne.
