One of the few QCs successfully to have combined two careers — the law and academia — it’s not for nothing that Michael Beloff has been dubbed the Bar’s Renaissance Man. It is a label he would like: priding himself on a hefty workload, he is still busy having retired after ten years as President of Trinity College, Oxford. Beloff, 66, is back to full-time practice as a top public and sports lawyer, appeal judge (in Guernsey and Jersey) and on various sporting bodies such as the Court of Arbitration for Sport. If not personally active in politics, Beloff nonetheless has enviable contacts across the political parties — both Jeffrey (Lord) Archer and Cherie Booth, QC, are friends, as are many senior judges. Beloff, of course, could have been a judge himself but he says he hasn’t the attention span. Clever and learned, he is still among the highest paid silks in his field: clients have included Mohamed Al Fayed, Alan Sugar, Nicholas van Hoogstraten and the actress Gillian Taylforth. What next, a peerage?

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