From private practice to public office

Bill Knight, the last-but-two senior partner of Simmons & Simmons, is keeping himself busy. Not only is he Senior Warden of the City of London Solicitors Company – soon to be Master – but he holds no less than three other roles.

He is chairman of the Financial Reporting Review Panel, deputy chairman of council at Lloyd’s of London and a gambling commissioner. Indeed, Knight is taking it upon himself to launch a personal crusade to persuade more senior lawyers to spread their wings by taking on senior non-executive positions in the big wide non-legal world.

While former Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer chief executive Alan Peck was lucky enough to have an entirely new vocation to turn to on his retirement (training Labradors), most senior lawyers fret over how they are going to spend their time once they retire.

The stereotypical view is that lawyers in private practice spend so much time sitting on the fence they are totally ill-suited to taking on a role where they actually have to make decisions. There is certainly an element of truth to this. There are, nevertheless, a number of lawyers who say they have learned new skills by biting the bullet and taking on outside roles.

Stephenson Harwood chief executive Sunil Gadhia, for example, thoroughly enjoys his work as a member of the Advertising Standards Authority’s council while Knight says he learned a great deal during practise from being a state school governor.

Earlier this year, Janet Gaymer - another former Simmons senior partner - penned an article in Legal Week urging more lawyers to take up public appointments (Janet Gaymer: time for lawyers to spread their wings).

In this Thursday’s issue of Legal Week, Knight will take up the baton with an article of his own in which he will outline the thinking behind his campaign. He has already started visiting leading City firms in an effort to get them onside and says he has been met with a favourable response.

“There is strong interest from senior partners and not just for the sake of their firms,” he says. “I think it was the Duke of Edinburgh who said, ‘If you want to motivate a man, press the button marked ‘self-interest’.”

john.malpas@legalweek.com