Christopher Knudsen wins 2023 In-House Rising Star Award

An early-career solicitor for a company focused on reducing food waste has been awarded the Law Society of Scotland’s 2023 In-House Rising Star Award.

Christopher Knudsen – who has worked as Global Legal Counsel at Too Good To Go since December 2021 – was selected from a shortlist of four candidates to receive the prestigious award for Scottish-qualified solicitors with up to five years post-qualification experience.

The judging panel praised Christopher and his fellow finalists, Stephen Annis, Eilidh MacQuarrie and Kerri Montgomery for their impressive careers to date, while commenting on the strong standard across the nine entries received overall.

Law Society of Scotland President Sheila Webster announced the winner this morning, telling the Society’s In-House Annual Conference: "Many congratulations Christopher. All four judges agreed that you have achieved so much so early in your career.

"They were particularly impressed by the improvements and innovations you have introduced to your employer, including launching an intranet to allow internal stakeholders to access legal resources, creating self-serve contracts and conducting colleague training.

"On top of this, your extracurricular contributions are highly commendable, from working with community farmers in a developing country in order to better understand sustainable food production practices and completing your level three Japanese language exam to completing not one but three marathons in 2022 alone.

"Turning to our very worthy runners-up: Eilidh, Kerri and Stephen. – I’m assured it was an exceptionally close-run competition! You have clearly all proved yourselves to be invaluable to your own teams and achieved so much that you can be proud of."

Christopher Knudsen said: "Thank you so much to the panel and Law Society for this privilege. I’m extremely grateful to Too Good To Go for creating such a supportive environment where I can help contribute to saving food waste.

"I’ve been very lucky to work with such great lawyers over the years and this really feels like recognition of the challenges they have been patient enough to help me learn from and importantly to grow as both a lawyer and a person. I hope I can continue to help others in the legal profession in the same way as I’ve been supported in my career."