McLean's success boils down to the nurturing of a culture within RBS's legal team that might best be summed up as sleeves rolled up, heads down, and action stations. All the time.

In a way, it couldn't be anything else at the place that gobbled up NatWest for breakfast and has since fed off a diet of audacious global acquisition.

McLean dines at the top table. He is one of a series of elite general counsel who, by dint of their successes, require a reassessment of business relationship management by the more astute private practice lawyers.

No longer can in-housers simply be charmed, golfed, and charged.

The status and fulfilment of executing successful corporate risk-taking is a buzz that more and more private practitioners, beset by tired management at their own once-grand institutions, are minded to respect.

McLean is featured in the Legal Business GC50, our first survey of Europe's 50 most influential general counsel.

One day, you might be too.

Tom Freeman, Editor