In the third in an occasional slot, The Diary brings you top tips from leading legal thinkers on how to manage your law firm.

3. Pleasing the client

People often say to me: 'David – the key to success is keeping the clients happy'.

Quite right too. But you do not get to be the fifth-most successful firm in the magic circle by letting clients walk all over you. Dear me, no. Which is why I was so pleased to see Allen & Overy's brave boys and gals from finance win the recent BMW City Sailing Challenge at Royal Victoria Dock.

Thanks to the firm hand on the tiller of banking partner and team skipper Julia Salt, our team – which we hilariously named 'A&Eau' after a six-week consultation period with the firm's 14-member humour/entendre oversight committee – stormed past the cream of the City banking community to seal a famous victory.

"The trick was only having one captain," one of Salt's seadogs remarked at the time, in what I hope was not a cunningly-veiled dig at our high-profile senior partner. "After that we steered clear of all US vessels and it was plain sailing [from there in]."

I cannot say I approve of avoiding the Yanks in these times of consolidation, but there you go. It's horses for courses, David, I hear you say.

Anyway, the team wins a trip to watch the BMW ORACLE Racing yacht contest the America's Cup in Valencia next year.

And even as spectators, I am entirely confident we will win that as well. You see if we don't.