What car do you drive?
What Jeremy Clarkson refers to as a Beetle or something much more rude – a 911.

Nabarro” />What was your first-ever job?
Carrying out personal completions for my family law firm as soon as I could drive. Loved every journey.

What was your worst experience as a trainee?
Trying to get writs issued by the witches and warlocks at the Royal Courts of Justice. I was just going to say “witches” but that would be discriminatory and we can’t have that.

Where’s the best place to go if you want to find out what’s really going on in the office?
Anywhere where two or more are gathered for a moan and a gossip.

What time do you usually leave the office?
Completely variable.

What do you do at weekends?
Sleep, wash cars, eat and generally be with my family.

What’s your favourite restaurant?
Noma in Copenhagen.

If you weren’t a lawyer what would you have been?
World Motor Racing champion many times over – certainly more than the German chap – and the drummer in Pink Floyd.

Who’s your hero and why?
John Surtees. He took a school chum and myself for what was then a completely legal blast well into three figures down the Purley Way in a then new E-type.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Working with young lawyers and, hopefully, being able to encourage and support them.

What’s the toughest thing about your job?
Turning up in the morning.

What’s your biggest work/career mistake and what did you learn from it?
Becoming a surveyor – I learned that I should have done something else.

What car do you drive?
What Jeremy Clarkson refers to as a Beetle or something much more rude – a 911.

What book are you reading?
24-16, the biography of Norbert Singer (senior motor sport engineer at Porsche).

What’s on your iPod at the moment?
I don’t have one but in the car I listen to Van Morrison’s A Night in San Francisco.

What’s your favourite children’s book?
The Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Grahame or A Pattern of Islands by Sir Arthur Grimble.

What’s the most exciting deal you’ve worked on and why?
Acting for Powergen on the acquisition of large parts of TXU in 2002. Powergen put together a bid in a matter of days; the bid was accepted over a Friday night and over the weekend we completed in less than 48 hours.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what two luxury items would you take?
The 911 and a huge quantity of petrol.

What’s the worst partner conference location you’ve attended and why?
Hard to know which is worst – though it’s not the location that’s usually the problem.

What’s the longest you’ve worked without sleep?
I’ve worked more than 48 hours on several occasions.

If a movie was made about your life, which actor would play you and why?
Someone incredibly handsome and I would want several body doubles.

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with and why?
Probably someone who took up too much space would be a bit of an issue.

Name: James George
Title: Partner, real estate
Firm: Nabarro
Lives: Beaconsfield, Buckinghamshire
Education: The College of Estate Management/Reading University, The College of Law, CPE and Law Finals
Work history:
1982-88: Articled clerk and assistant, George & George
1988-91: Associate, Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer
1991-2002: Partner, Freshfields
2003-present: Partner, Nabarro