Life During Law: Freshfields’ London head Mark Sansom

I nearly drowned in a river in Wales when I was four. It had been raining a lot and the boulder my brother and I were standing on beside the river toppled into the water. I fell into the river and was held under by a waterfall. My mother, father and a passerby all dived in and managed to find me and bring me to the surface. I learnt to swim right after that and now I still swim several times a week and it’s an important part of my fitness.

I always had a sense at high school that I wanted to do law but I’m not entirely sure why. Ridiculously, it was probably partly watching things like Perry Mason and LA Law on TV as a child. I didn’t know any lawyers; I was the first person in my family to go to university on either side.

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