Identifying the subject of last week's mystery portrait did not prove hard for our readers judging from the record number of competition entries. However, opinions were divided on the likeness between the portrait of former Simmons & Simmons senior partner Bill Knight, by the fashionable artist Mike Silva, and the great man himself.

"The picture is supposed to be of Bill Knight," was the most withering response. Macfarlanes partner and Equitable Life chairman Vanni Treves didn't mince his words either. "The portrait is a flattering but unmistakable caricature of Bill Knight," he told us.

John James, the director of the College of Law in Birmingham, went further. "It is my old flat mate from Bristol University. We were there together from 1963 to 1966 and judging from the portrait it must have been done around that time."

Others were slightly more circumspect. "Unless my memory fails me (senior partners are prone to 'senior moments')," says Struan Robertson, of Sinclair Roche & Temperley, "the picture is of Bill Knight. But where are his trademark round glasses? Perhaps forgotten in another senior moment?"

The winner, though, is Gartmore legal manager Simon Martin, who was the first person to come up with the correct answer. He pinged his winning e-mail to The Diary's Charterhouse Street bunker at 8.59am last Thursday morning three minutes ahead of runner up, Speechly Bircham corporate partner Andrew Collins.

Should readers have any more interesting portraits or photographs of leading legal lights then e-mail us at [email protected]