Not a household name, but Paul Jenkins, 53, is arguably the most powerful lawyer inside Whitehall. The Treasury Solicitor is the instructing solicitor in all government cases and his department an executive agency acting under the remit of the Attorney-General. He went to Harrow County School for Boys and Manchester University, then entered the Bar. In 1979 he switched to the Government Legal Service, dividing his time between public and competition law. From 1986 to 1990 he was a legal adviser to the Treasury before moving to the Monopolies and Mergers Commission in 1990. There are few departments he has not had a taste of: in 1992 he returned to TSols as the first legal adviser to the Department for Culture, Media and Sport. For six years until 2004 he was the legal adviser to the then Lord Chancellor's Department and then headed the legal-international group in the newly styled Department for Constitutional Affairs. Just before being appointed to the top job, he was solicitor to both the Department for Work and Pensions and Department of Health. He is a bencher at Middle Temple and on the board of Hampstead Theatre.

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