Movers and shakers Thrill seeker Derek Millard-Smith, partner at JMW and creator of BPA Lawline, is a familiar face to most of us, regularly advising on regulation and compliance. But his career very nearly took a different turn, as Louise Parfitt discovers spent three years dissecting dead people. Derek Millard-Smith never intended to be a lawyer he thought his calling lay in the medical profession. I studied anatomy and physiology at university, with a view to doing medicine, he says. However, a work-experience placement, overseeing legal documents at a practice looking at clinical negligence cases, sparked his interest in law and changed the course of his career. I decided to be a solicitor because Ive always been a people person and wanted to fix their problems, says MillardSmith, who took a conversion to law postgraduate degree, and then completed his legal practice course. There were, however, several other points when he almost took a different route. I got a job at a legal practice after my postgrad, but there was the usual two-year waiting list that most law firms have, he explains. In that time, I did several other jobs, including a year as a medical sales rep. I I really enjoyed it; I learned so much about dealing with people and I was well paid. It was hard to take a considerable pay cut to join a law firm as a junior. Im glad I did it now, but it was a long game. Snow and sky Millard-Smith joined the Territorial Army (TA) when he was an undergraduate, and spent 11 years with the organisation. I was a ski instructor. I competed in Combined Services ski competitions, learned how to sky dive you name it, we did it, and I loved it, he says. But trying to balance it with work and the demands of a young family was getting more difficult, so I decided to leave to concentrate on my law career. The leadership skills he learned in the TA served him well, however. One of the first cases he worked on was assisting on the defence for former royal butler Paul Burrell. Then, after a move a year later to another law firm, the Harold Shipman inquest after the doctors suicide in What is fascinating with parking is how intricate it is 14 britishparking.co.uk PN Apr20 pp14-15 Movers and Shakers.indd 14 24/03/2020 12:10