Keith Schilling is the lawyer behind many big privacy actions in the past decade, with a reputation as a ruthless rottweiler. He deploys “no win, no fee” deals to powerful effect, holding newspapers to ransom with the threat that they will pay his hugely enhanced success fees should they lose. Admired by celebritites who want tighter privacy laws his cases include the landmark law lords’ ruling (by three to two) in favour of his client Naomi Campbell against the Daily Mirror, leaving Piers Morgan, then editor, with costs of £1.5 million plus £3,500 damages. The group failed to challenge his success fees in a second crucial law lords’ ruling. Clients include footballer Wayne Rooney, J. K. Rowling, Angus Deayton and the film director Roman Polanski. Schilling, who left school at 15, trades on the tabloid diet of kiss-and-tells: he has a 24-hour hotline so he can swiftly obtain injunctions to stop stories about clients’ private lives. In perhaps the ultimate accolade, he has even been instructed by the Law Society and England and Wales.

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