Timing is all. It was only months ago that Shiner was made solicitor of the year in the Law Society awards and that helped to catapult him into our Top Ten. Disliked and regarded in equal measure, he has made his mark — some would say his crusade — in fighting the Ministry of Defence in a series of challenges for families of both Iraqi and British soldiers killed in the Iraqi conflict. Public Interest Lawyers, his Midlands-based firm, is rated highly both for human rights and public law work; he was recently in the House of Lords on behalf of two women whose sons were killed in Iraq and who tried unsuccessfully to obtain a public inquiry into the legality of the conflict. Utterly dedicated and determined, Shiner, 51, a committed Christian, is the ultimate old-fashioned lawyer ready to take on an unpopular cause and bring cases no one else wants. A passionate believer in social justice that he attributes to his Catholic upbringing, he says: “Socialism and Catholicism go hand in hand.”

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