Roger Lane-Smith was born in 1945 at Adlington Hall in Cheshire, England.
He qualified as a lawyer in 1969 and in 1977 started his own single-partner law firm in Manchester, intent on creating from scratch the world's largest law firm. Thirty-three years later he achieved this ambition with the firm of DLA Piper, now the world's largest with in excess of 4,500 fee-earners across 87 offices in 32 countries with revenues of 1.5bn.
Roger has been married for 45 years to Pamela and they live in Cheshire and in Provence. They have two adult children, Zo and Jonathan, and a grandson, Logan. Roger's passions outside the law include golf, shooting and fine wine.|