David Parkin on a flamboyant swashbuckler

I’M not the quickest to respond to invitations to connect on Linkedin, mainly because when I do I get a message trying to sell me some random marketing service that is going to generate so much new business that it will transform my enterprise into a FTSE-100 company overnight.

But when I received an invitation from someone I had never met on Tuesday, something made me accept it straight away.

Within minutes I received a message, but not the type I expected.

My new connection, Ben Smart, said: “Hi David. Thanks for connecting so quickly.

“My dad is Peter Smart (of Walker Morris, way back when). He sadly died yesterday and we are keen to get something out into the Yorkshire business press fairly quickly, just to let people know.

“My dad always said you were at the centre of that Yorkshire business news community. So I was hoping you could introduce me to the best possible person to put that news out there today/tomorrow. Are you able to help?”

With a compliment like that from the late, great Peter Smart, how could I not help?

With information supplied by Ben and his family, I put together something that I sent out to the Yorkshire business press:

THE man credited with turning Yorkshire law firm Walker Morris into a leading national player and one of the country’s most profitable legal practices, has died.

Peter Smart, who had a four decade career at the Leeds firm, passed away on Monday after a short illness.

A straight-talking and flamboyant character, he joined the then relatively small practice of Walker Morris & Coles as a trainee solicitor in the 1970s, qualified in 1979 and became a partner a year later.

He went on to head the firm’s corporate department while also becoming managing partner, finance partner and marketing partner and then executive chairman for nine years until 2010 when he became a consultant to the firm.

During this period Walker Morris took on the pre-eminent and long-standing Leeds legal giants such as Simpson Curtis (now Pinsent Masons), Booth and Co (now Addleshaw Goddard), Hepworth and Chadwick (now Eversheds Sutherland) and Dibb Lupton & Co (now DLA Piper) and went on to compete with the so-called ‘Magic Circle’ London headquartered multinational law firms while remaining in one office in Leeds.

Mr Smart is survived by his wife Glenys, children Lauren, Tamsin and Ben and six grandchildren.

Unlike many of his contemporaries in the legal profession, he did not set out to be a lawyer and, aged 18, went off travelling to rock festivals around Europe before living in a cave in Greece for three months and then got a job as a roadie doing lighting for rock bands where he toured with The Rolling Stones, Joni Mitchell and Curved Air.

Paying tribute to Mr Smart, his family said: “Walker Morris became central to Peter’s identity. He took incredible pride in those phenomenal lawyers who, over time, helped to grow the firm themselves, or who dispersed across the globe and drove forward other top legal practices.

“Over his 40-year Walker Morris career Peter was often known as much for his beard and swept back hair as he was his place within the firm. He was, from time-to-time, known as ‘Aslan’, by junior Walker Morris staff!

“Peter was Executive Chairman for his last nine full time years at Walker Morris. He was named as one of the Top 100 Lawyers in the Lawyer Magazine and left behind a firm, a legacy and a family that he was so incredibly proud of.”

That was the formal version, but I have got many personal memories of Peter, who I last saw in 2023 at the funeral of Tim Wheldon, the former managing partner of rival firm Addleshaw Goddard, another “big beast” of the Yorkshire legal world who also fought tooth and nail for his clients and lived life to the full.

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PETER Smart once asked me if I could take his daughter Tamsin on work experience on the business desk of the Yorkshire Post as she was considering a career in journalism.

After a week in the organised chaos of a newspaper office, she departed back to university and Peter arranged to take me out to lunch to thank me.

We met at Sous le Nez and sat in his favourite alcove just behind the bar (perfect for conspiratorial conversations) and he ordered a bottle of Vina Ardanza Reserva Rioja from his private stash stored in the cellar of the restaurant.

Over lunch he told me somewhat apologetically that his daughter had decided against a career in journalism and was going to pursue one in the law.

Tammy was soon offered a role with a top London firm with a good starting salary and nice bonus that dwarfed what I was earning after 15 years in journalism.

I believe she went on to work internationally at a very high level in the legal world.

Whenever I saw Peter subsequently I always reminded him that he owed me a favour for all his daughter’s success.

Well, you’ve got to try and take credit where you can get it.

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WITH a close and loving family and a passion for sport, travel, food and drink, Peter Smart lived life outside work with great gusto.

I played golf with him a couple of times and he would roar into the car park of Pannal and Moortown in a Porsche, his mane of hair flowing in the wind as he seized his clubs and marched towards the clubhouse.

I once played with him at Moortown and he invited the then chairman of chocolate maker Thorntons to play.

As I struggled along the fairways, the pair strode ahead of me, clearly discussing some big deal that was in the offing.

My golf was the usual standard, pretty poor, until I hit a majestic approach shot on one hole that landed within a few feet of the flag on the green.

At last! I marched towards the hole ready to knock in my putt but when I got there couldn’t find my ball.

Scratching my head, I finally worked out that the Thorntons’ chairman had putted my ball into the hole.

I was annoyed, but decided not to mention it, given Peter’s business relationship with this corporate titan.

I always think you’ve got to rise above these petty challenges that life sometimes throws at you.

But I’ve never eaten a Thorntons chocolate since.

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A ROUND of golf with Peter Smart was an opportunity for me to listen to his fascinating stories of corporate derring do for the first nine holes and then get updates on his recent holidays, family weddings and sporting trips to the rugby and Royal Ascot during the back nine.

On one occasion he said he had decided that he and his wife Glenys were going to go to the Glastonbury Festival as part of his 60th birthday celebrations.

He told me that they were going to stay in glamping-style accommodation with food and wine supplied by an award-winning chef and transport by golf buggy via the artists and entertainers entrance to VIP areas near the stages.

“And we’ve paid £500 extra to have a flushing toilet in our tent,” Peter told me proudly.

When he revealed the cost of the whole trip he described it as “pretty reasonable” and I thought that rather than go to Glasto I could probably get a major extension built on my house instead.

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WHEN I shared the news of Peter’s death with those in the business journalism world in Yorkshire, their reaction was the same as mine - shock, thoughts for his family and a flood of good memories of a flamboyant, swashbuckling character.

Greg Wright at the Yorkshire Post, Mark Flanagan at TheBusinessDesk.com, Ian Leech at Insider and Andrew Palmer at the Yorkshire Times all planned to carry tributes to him.

Ian Leech said that Peter’s passing will be marked and his career celebrated at the upcoming Yorkshire Dealmakers Awards 2024 where hundreds of those in the Yorkshire corporate finance and business community will gather later this month.

And Ian recounted this nice story, which sums the man up so well:

“Peter famously received the Roger Powell Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2011 Yorkshire Dealmakers Awards. 

“He wasn't told in advance that he was to be the recipient so was pretty 'overserved' when he climbed the steps.

“The economy was just climbing out of the financial crisis but Peter made a rousing call to the dealmakers in the room saying: ‘Get off your arses, because there's some serious business to be done!’”

Have a great weekend.

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