James Lingard, educated at Dulwich College and University College London, became a leading City of London solicitor who specialized in banking law and insolvency.
 
A former Council Member of the Association of Business Recovery Professionals and the European Association of Insolvency Practitioners, he became a Judicial Chairman of the Insolvency Practitioners Tribunal.
 
He is the founding President of the Insolvency Lawyers Association. He became Chairman of the Joint Insolvency Examination Board as well as the Banking Law and the Insolvency Law Sub Committees of the City of London Law Society.
He is the original author of Lingard's Bank Security Documents (LexisNexis Butterworths) now in its 7th edition and a number of other legal books. More recently he has written Britain at War 1939 to 1945 and The Girl Who Disappeared (a fact-based historical romance set around World War II).