Work Life Quiz: Anthony Markham, Maitland

What was your first-ever job?
A paper round in Crediton, Devon.

What was your worst ­experience as a trainee?
Very early on, having to appear in open court on some minor application in the unexplained absence of my principal, acutely aware of having no rights of audience.

Where’s the best place to go if you want to find out what’s really going on in the office?
My PA knows everything.

What time do you usually leave the office?
About 7.30pm.

What do you do at weekends?
Spend as much time as I can with my children, walk, shoot, ride when I can, go to concerts and spend time with friends. Oh, and sometimes catch up with work.

What’s your favourite restaurant?
The Pot Kiln in rural ­Berkshire, where my son has a job this summer.

If you weren’t a lawyer what would you have been?
A philosopher.

What’s the best thing about your job?
Taking people’s projects and helping them to ­succeed, and taking their problems and helping to solve them.

What’s the toughest thing about your job?
Mastering yet another 300 pages overnight before advising on them in the morning.

What was your biggest work/career mistake and what did you learn from it?
Not bothering to ­understand some advice left on a voicemail for me, which later proved to be significant and crucial. I learned that if you don’t understand what you are doing completely, you act at your peril.

What car do you drive?
An Audi TT.

What book are you reading?
Having recently visited Dublin, I can truly claim to be in the last stage of ­completing Ulysses by James Joyce, a delight that I should have enjoyed years ago.

What’s on your iPod?
Mostly Mozart.

What’s your favourite children’s book?
We’re Going on a Bear Hunt by Michael Rosen and Helen Oxenbury.

What’s the most exciting deal you’ve worked on and why?
The taking of De Beers ­private in 2001 was a fantastic transaction, initiated at just the right moment.

If you were stranded on a desert island, what two ­luxury items would you take?
A computer with an ­internet connection and my piano.

What’s the worst partner conference location you’ve attended and why?
We went to La Clusaz, France, many years ago – there was no snow.

What’s the longest you’ve worked without sleep?
Probably about 20 hours but not recently. It’s when long hours are required for days that hard work takes its toll.

If a movie was being made about your life, which actor would play you and why?
Probably Hugh Grant, but I’m not sure why.

Who would you least like to be stuck in a lift with and why?
Anyone who has had a hand in drafting the 2008 UK Finance Act, which caused me such pain.

CV
Name: Anthony Markham
Firm: Maitland
Title: Partner
Lives: Douglas, Isle of Man
Education:
1974-77: Master of Arts, Balliol College, Oxford University
1980-83: Bachelor Procuriatus, University of South Africa
1979: Admitted as a solicitor, England & Wales
1983: Admitted as an attorney, South Africa
Work history:
1978-80: Trainee, Markby, London
1980-83: Solicitor/trainee attorney, Webber Wentzel , Johannesburg, South Africa
1983-86: Solicitor/attorney, Webber Wentzel Sarl, Luxembourg
1986-90: Partner, Maitland, Luxembourg
1990-2001: Partner, Maitland, Isle of Man & London
2001-05: Counsel, E Oppenheimer & Son (UK)
2005-09: Consultant, Maitland, London
2009-present: Partner, Maitland, Isle of Man