Can you tell us a little about your journey into a legal career?
I suppose it starts with figuring out what I wanted to do after school. I was one of those kids who had no idea what I wanted to do - I was okay at most things, but not excellent at anything. It was actually my English teacher, who was always an inspiration to me, who sat me down when I was about 16 and said, “I think you'd make a good lawyer.” It’d never even crossed my mind, and had never been my aspiration to do something like that. I was the first generation in our family to go to university, my dad left school at 14, and we certainly didn't know any lawyers! I ended up studying law at Manchester University, and it just mushroomed from there.
After graduation I started looking for jobs in Birmingham because I was skint, and my parents lived in the area so I could go and live with them for a few years while I did my articles (these days known as a training contract). I didn’t really know where to start, so went to the library (this was in the pre-internet days), found a book with a list of law firms, counted the number of partners in each firm, and applied to the 10 biggest. I ended up joining what is now Squire Patton Boggs (then known as Edge Ellison) and absolutely loved it - it's one of those periods of my life that I look back on with huge amounts of affection. I met some fantastic people, some of whom are still close friends after nearly 40 years. After qualifying into corporate I spent the next ten years working in the booming corporate market of the 80s and 90s. We were never short of work, I can tell you that!