I have been a soldier, a barrister, a civil servant, a solicitor, then a barrister again, a board room adviser, a High Sheriff, a Deputy Lieutenant, and then a parliamentary candidate (failed). It has been a career of changes and challenges, but it has been huge fun. Trying to rationalise the career strategy, one answer is that I never really like to know what I will be doing in ten years’ time. The career pattern as a soldier, a barrister or a solicitor is very predictable and I enjoy new challenges. The other rationale of course is the imposter syndrome and never staying anywhere long enough to be rumbled. You can decide which!

Having spent four and a half years on a short service commission with the Blues and Royals serving in Cyprus, Northern Ireland and then finishing as an ADC to the Governor of South Australia, I spent just two and a half academic years  learning the law, woefully inadequate to master the finer details of contract, tort  and civil procedure as I was later to learn on arrival at Norton Rose (as it was then) in 1990. On my call to the Bar in 1979 I joined criminal law chambers as a pupil in Kings Bench Walk (KBW) (now QEB Hollis Whiteman).  I also did a pupillage in Fountain Court but never fancied my chances of being taken on given my lack of familiarity with all things commercial and so ran back to KBW to defend and prosecute shoplifters, pickpockets and drug dealers. Happily, they offered me a tenancy.  By 1987 fearing the prospects of living off Criminal Legal Aid, I observed there was about to be a big change in the regulation of financial services. I well remember calling in at the public library in Hackney on the way back from Snaresbrook from yet another ‘non-effective listing’ to research the forthcoming bill. 

To advance this career move and to the astonishment of my fellow members of chambers, I applied for a job at the DTI and was interviewed before a formal civil service panel who were unimpressed by my knowledge of the Takeover Panel, (which I had never heard of), and that I was only offering a couple of years’ service before heading back to chambers. However, I managed to get myself seconded to the Serious Fraud Office via the CPS’s Fraud Investigation Group when it opened for business in 1988. I joined the team prosecuting Ernest Saunders and others in the Guinness trial. At the same time, I was advising the team investigating the Barlow Clowes debacle. In 1990 I planned to return to chambers in the expectation that serious fraud work would come my way, but I was ‘hijacked’ by Michael Lee at Norton Rose Fulbright. 

Given the direction in which the SFO was then going and the risk that the firm’s clients could be embroiled in fraud investigations, although not necessarily as defendants, the partners had decided they needed someone who understood the criminal process. I was pleased to accept the offer as I thought I would get a ‘company car’ but was quickly disabused of that idea by Christopher Dixon who chaired the interview panel with Mike Lee and Guy Sutton! Nonetheless I stayed for nearly twenty years, and ironically, we only ever had one client indicted, an Indian pharmaceutical company, we got them off in the House in Lords (now the Supreme Court) before a jury was ever empanelled. 

My practice was focussed on investigations and enforcement proceedings for clients or for the FSA (as it then was) or helping those being investigated by the regulator, usually banks, financial institutions or individuals. My last and highest matter was in relation to the Libor scandal. 

I had one or two other interesting distractions at the firm. I ran the defence in an extraordinary case being conducted in Bermuda over three years which was way outside my comfort zone although I got on very well with the clients. Lessons first learned in the army about choosing the best and most talented team to back one up, many times deployed thereafter, proved a life saver. On return from a sabbatical when I walked the thousand miles to Compostela, Peter Martyr asked me to run the Global Dispute Resolution practice. I spent two years of overseeing a multi-million-pound business as well trying to nurture and conduct my own practice; but it was in an area of the law where repeat business did not flow as easily. Clients tended to say, ‘Thank you James but I never want to see you again in my life!’.   After eighteen years it was time move on to new challenges. I stayed on for a while as a consultant, did an interesting leak enquiry for a bank, and supported a Secretary of State in a DTI enquiry. 

The Central Bank of Ireland hired me on as a consultant for three years to help clear up the mess after the financial crisis of 2008 and, at the same time, with Brian Quinn former deputy Governor at the Bank and Alison Gill a behavioural psychologist, we were developing a Board Review business. Clients assign us to conduct what was originally called a board evaluation, the true essence of which is more forward looking with a view to assisting a board operate more effectively. One prospective client expressed some reticence at the idea of being ‘evaluated’ by a psychologist and a lawyer! Notwithstanding this the business thrives albeit, as chair, I now take a less front-line role in the reviews themselves. 

Back in Norfolk I was privileged to be invited to be the High Sheriff in 2017/18 which was a unique opportunity to re-engage with the great county. I was also appointed a Deputy Lieutenant but resigned to run as an Independent candidate in the General Election for my constituency of SW Norfolk. 

After some six months campaigning supported by a splendid team of enthusiastic political amateurs - of which I am certainly one - and aided by the welcome and unexpected attendance of two former colleagues one from my SFO days, whom I had not seen for 35 years, and Charles Evans - formerly of Norton Rose Fulbright, a loyal and long-suffering canvasser - I did not get elected. However, I was pretty pleased with my six thousand votes (14%) and, in my opinion, a positive outcome for the constituency.  Mine has been a career of many changes and challenges, but I have thoroughly enjoyed them all.