Featured Member
Christopher Garwood
How did you first become involved in the world of restructuring and insolvency?
When still an articled clerk ("trainee" - for the younger generation) a very well respected local IP began to instruct me, even though I told him I knew nothing of insolvency. I soon realised however it was because we had a substantial debt collection practice and he wanted us to obtain and use proxies for his appointment.
What is the best part of your job?
The infinite variety of people and circumstances and the wide range of legal knowledge required to deal with them.
What is the most challenging aspect of your job?
Achieving a better outcome for most or all of the very wide range of those affected by insolvency.
What character from a novel or film best describes your style of practice?
Don Quixote.
What is your favourite reported insolvency law case (you can only pick one)?
Brumark. Not entertaining (like Cabletel) but the beginning of the end of the ludicrous concept of a fixed charge over book debts, which regrettably UK insolvency lawyers had not dared to challenge.
If you had not been a lawyer what other job would you have done, would you have enjoyed that job better and would you have been any good at it?
After leaving school and whilst at University I was a successful ice cream salesman. I have never contemplated any career other than as a lawyer from when I first began to study law.
What is your most memorable career moment?
Achieving acceptance amongst IPs from other backgrounds that insolvency lawyers can be Insolvency Practitioners also. Put another way - not being, as John Verrill once described most authorised solicitors (including himself), one of the "eunuchs" of the insolvency profession.
What do you think are the greatest challenges / changes in our profession in the next 10 years?
The insolvency profession has to address the corrupting influence on it of the ways in which IPs are appointed.
What is your favourite novel, film and piece of music?
Catch 22, The Way We Were and Jerusalem.
If you were able to repeal or change one insolvency rule or principle, which one would it be and why?
Abolition of the requirement to give notice to the holder of a qualifying floating charge of intended administration.
What do you do in your 'down time'?
Not sure what "down time" .
Jam or marmite?
Neither.
If you were able (and could afford) to retire tomorrow, what would you do?
Carry on with some or all of my current roles as insolvency lawyer, insolvency practitioner and Deputy Registrar, whilst making more time to pass on to others such knowledge as I have learnt in them.
What prompted you to join the ILA and what benefit of membership would you most recommend to someone who is thinking of joining?
I never joined. Rather I was one of the small number of those by which the ILA was first established, as an association for solicitors who were authorised to act as IPs and which welcomed other insolvency lawyers as associate members. Through it we hoped to encourage other solicitors to become authorised and use their authorisation for the only purpose for which it was required. The subsequent removal of the authorisation requirement as a condition of membership has limited what has been achieved in both respects but with the compensating benefit of more active involvement of a greater number of other solicitors, barristers and academics. The more we are, the more we can do to help develop and promote the expertise of our members.
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