Neil Sugarman, managing partner, GLP Solicitors, Bury

I was born and bred in Manchester, attending William Hulme’s Grammar School and Manchester University where I obtained my law degree. After an intensive six months of “slaving” I passed my professional examination finals (you get a year now!) and then undertook what were then called Articles of Clerkship (now called a training contract).

I was fortunate to obtain Articles with a prestigious Manchester practice called Alexander Tatham, later to become Eversheds. It was a very commercially based law practice but I was very lucky to work with a man called Bernard Englar, one of the first specialist personal injury lawyers in England. Bernard represented victims and families of the Paris Air crash in 1974, and went on to act for many victims of spinal cord injury.

It was then that I realised that rather than wanting to plough through commercial leases, conveyances, franchise agreements and the like, I wanted to use my legal training to help people and their families and to try to make some sort of difference for them.

Having represented many victims of accident, injury and assault over the past 34 years, I have learned how important it is to be sympathetic and to show empathy, never to be judgmental and to try to understand exactly what it must be like to be that person and the family and loved ones. It often occurs to me that those who are very quick to condemn a so-called “compensation culture” may have no real understanding whatsoever of how an injury can disrupt or shatter lives. There are times when it is necessary to make tough decisions.

Apart from being a lawyer, an understanding of how injury may affect someone in their bodily ability and the psychology of injury. A no-nonsense approach with insurance companies is often required, as is the ability to know when it is right to be reasonable. I enjoy many professional accreditations, but you are only ever as good as your last satisfied client.

A proud and privileged one was to receive a commendation in the UNICEF Child Rights Lawyer Awards for my work under the Criminal Injuries Compensation Scheme on behalf of shaken babies. But the funniest – trying to keep a straight face when interviewing a client who had been injured by a wasp flying out of a cake box when he told me that, to add insult to injury, the cake had been a cream hornet!