What was your first ever job?
Recycling ammunition boxes for a Ministry of Defence contractor during the 1970 summer school holidays. No health and safety controls there.
What was your worst experience as a trainee?
Returning from a completion with the money and the deeds.
Where’s the best place to go if you want to find out what’s really going on in the office?
The staff café – when it opens for month-end evening drinks.
What time do you usually leave the office?
Between 7pm and 7.30pm.
What do you do at weekends?
Try to be remembered as a father and husband.
What’s your favourite restaurant?
Rhodes 24 in London.
If you weren’t a lawyer, what would you have been?
Obviously an Arsenal winger or the resident pianist at the 606 Jazz Club.
Who was your mentor or role model?
My former senior partner Roger Alexander.
What’s the best thing about your job?
Working in trust with partners and colleagues whose company I also enjoy.
What’s the toughest thing about your job?
Having to say that a colleague is not going to make it with the firm.
What’s your biggest work/career mistake and what did you learn from it?
As a young lawyer, putting the wrong draft employment contract in the wrong envelope. I learnt that attention to detail is king and to delegate effectively.
What car(s) do you drive?
Audi A6 Quattro Estate 3.0 – and a Piaggio X9.
What book are you currently reading?
Tuesdays with Morrie: an Old Man, a Young Man and Life’s Greatest Lesson by Mitch Albom.
What’s on your CD player at the moment?
Esbjorn Svensson Trio’s Viaticum.
What’s your favourite children’s book?
Roald Dahl’s Matilda.
