Recruitment expert

The hunt for a 'clean skin' to investigate the appointment of Richard Sharp as BBC Chairman has delivered Adam J Heppinstall, KC, of Hendersons Chambers. 

Adam's career route was set in Year 9 in school in Leeds. A lesson with stalls was laid out alphabetically, so he sauntered past 'architect' to 'barrister', and, as the file suggested, he wrote to the Chairman of the Bar Council. Work experience at a magistrates' court followed, as did a First Class Law Degree, from Balliol College, University of Oxford.

Thence an Astbury Scholarship (only open to applicants from Oxford and Cambridge Universities) to the Middle Temple, and pupillage at Hendersons. 

Is he likely to have crossed paths with Mr Sharp ? Not at Tulse Hill Juniors FC, or holidays in the Yorkshire Dales and Cyprus.  He's moved off Twitter, but has a slight over-order of floor tiles for sale on Facebook. At work, he's defended the MoD in the class actions on nuclear testing, GSK on Seroxat, and is part of a Kingspan team at the Grenfell Inquiry. Recent cases include acting for Barking and Dagenham against Argos over selling knives. 

He knows about tough recruitment processes, in charge of picking pupils for the chambers.  A 2.1 degree is essential, then it's on to the application portal. “Once they make their applications through the portal, the link will take them to a website provided by Rare where they’ll be asked a range of socioeconomic questions. For example, if their academic performance was particularly high compared to the average grade at their school, they’ll get additional marks. This is done to ensure socioeconomic diversity.”

Once in, pupils spend time in the Turks and Caicos Islands on secondment. “We try not to make it sound like a four-week Caribbean holiday,” says Adam, “They do have to do some work”