I own a small vineyard in Somerset and working there at the weekends helps blow away the cobwebs from a week of international fraud litigation and often gives me time to ponder on the right strategy for a case.

Producing wine does not pay the bills, so it is lucky that I always wanted to be a lawyer and a litigator at that.

In my career at Withers, I soon became drawn to large scale international disputes, mostly involving allegations of fraud or dishonesty. When clients are affected by a fraud or drawn into ‘bet the farm’ litigation in several countries, you have to treat the matter like a game of three dimensional chess and plan each move in each jurisdiction accordingly. I love this challenge of my specialist area.

In the run up to a big trial I tend to be tee-total, which is challenging when you own a vineyard and frustrating given that I have regularly been involved in some of the largest fraud trials in the English Courts over the last decade.