Always ready to jump off the cliff in the hope the parachute opens

James Osborne has declared a truce with the media. After several years of shunning publicity he has decided to adopt a new policy of openness (maybe even transparency).

His many bruising encounters on Irish boards and his time spent at the elbow of leading business people have made him the subject of some interest. However, for several years he has declined to discuss his business life.

While he says he currently "has no job, desk or phone" (he retired as managing partner of A&L Goodbody several years ago aged 45), the 10 boards he sits on keep him comfortably occupied.

In terms of describing his past career, he says he had no strategy but knew he "didn't want to be a lawyer all my life". He says his approach has always been to "jump off the cliff and hope the parachute opens". Others have described his career in more controversial and colourful terms. He claims previous encounters with the media were unsatisfactory and he was misquoted.

A comment he made in 1993 about small rural legal practices and the way they handled their clients' funds landed him in hot water. This may have fuelled his later belief that going public on the issues of the day only generates trouble.

Speaking in the Dublin offices of A&L Goodbody in Earlsfort Terrace, he admits his present life is not without its pleasures, which include sailing his 46-foot yacht Hibernia to the Azores and regular attendance at Punchestown Racecourse, of which he is chairman.

As a former partner of A&L Goodbody and a fully paid-up member of the racing community, he has been able to make contacts at the top level of Irish business. Dermot Desmond, Tony Ryan, Michael O'Leary and Larry Goodman are some of those he has done business with.

His comfortable Protestant upbringing in Milford, Co Donegal, has given him a natural confidence and he is known to be impatient with other people, including fellow board members, when he believes they are incapable of achieving results.

His father was a solicitor in the town and was not anxious for his son to follow in his footsteps, at least not in Milford. After his education at Campbell College, Belfast he studied law at Trinity College where initially he knew "absolutely no one".

He was offered his first job in 1971 while attending a race meeting and admits it was not the last time an important event in his life occurred in that context. Eventually he was taken on by Goodbodys which he says at that time was "male and Protestant".

After settling in for a few years he persuaded the senior partners they should open an office in New York. To his surprise, they agreed and Mr Osborne (then aged 28) set off for Manhattan "with one-quarter of the firm's profits in a suitcase", to be invested in the new venture.

He says he "rattled a few bushes" and was given "total freedom" by the partners back in Dublin. After initial failure, important business was built up and clients names started appearing on the books. However, the partners asked him to return to Dublin and he spent the next 10 years building up the practice at home.

He says it was always ranked in the top three in Dublin, but the "top three were very small".

He drummed up business for the firm by "going out there and searching out clients", whereas the traditional approach in A&L Goodbody had been to sit back and wait for the business to come in the door.

The new approach often meant "going through a beauty parade", but it was the first time partners in the firm realised they were involved "in a service industry".

Eventually he became managing partner at the tender age of 32, a position he held for the next 13 years. He is no longer a partner, although he still undertakes work for the firm on a consultancy basis.

His says his passion is for horses and he has overseen the £10.5 million (€13.33 million) investment programme at Punchestown, using his contacts to garner sponsorship deals for races at the venue from the likes of BMW, Heineken and IAWS.

He enjoys the work involved in the post (which carries no salary) and often unwinds by taking long walks around the course.

He says the extension of the Punchestown festival (which now carries prize money of almost £1 million) from three days to four was the fulfilment of a long-held ambition.

Those in the horse world can sometimes have "sharp tongues", he says, but they have been supportive of the re-development of the track, even though it involved knocking down some older buildings. Despite his interest in the sport Mr Osborne says he never has a flutter, preferring to just watch races.

His first board involvement was with a company called Fieldcrest Ireland, which made towels and similar products in Kilkenny.

The company never made a profit and lasted less than five years, before closing down in 1982 with the loss of 500 jobs. PJ Carroll, the tobacco company, and Bank of Ireland lost out badly, having put in some £11 million in preference and ordinary shares. It was an inauspicious start to Mr Osborne's career in theboardroom, although his role was confined to that of a non-executive director.

In the mid 1980s he joined the board of PJ Carroll and claims he had a "severe disagreement" with Don Carroll, the chairman. Because of this and subsequent boardroom wrangles he developed a ruthless image in the eyes of some. He rejects the description and says his disagreements with the chairman were over Mr Carroll's diversification policy, which saw the company making investments in aquaculture and direct marketing.

"I admit I went to war with him," he says. "He didn't like me, but I told him I was doing my job as a director," he adds. Eventually Mr Carroll resigned and was replaced by accountant Laurence Crowley.

He then joined a division of Bank of Ireland - the Bank of Ireland Management Company - and says he enjoyed his five years there. He added another directorship to his bow at Murphy's Brewery around the time it was taken over by Heineken. However, it was not long before he was involved in another discordant boardroom dispute, this time at Golden Vale.

As a director of the co-op, Mr Osborne occupied a central role in the removal of chief executive Jim O'Mahony in July 1996. When asked if he was one of the central characters advocating Mr O'Mahony's departure, he says this is "fair comment".

Not only did Mr Osborne propose the motion to remove Mr O'Mahony but he was vocal in organising support among the board members to have Mr O'Mahony removed.

When asked about the reasons for Mr O'Mahony's removal, Mr Osborne simply replies that it was "plc business". Whatever the underlying issues, the episode sealed his reputation with some observers as a shadowy figure who was prepared to play for keeps.

He admits the farmer shareholders at Golden Vale are sometime suspicious of the "city slickers" that make up the rest of the board. "I know nothing about agriculture, but I know something about finance, so it is about getting a balance among people who know about both," he says.

He says the current chief executive, Jim Murphy, is doing a good job but that all coops are finding the going tough - trying to increase profits while still paying good prices to farmers.

Another significant role he undertook was in 1997 when he advised Ryanair on its flotation. His consultancy to the company was sweetened considerably when he was allowed to buy 625,000 Ryanair shares at 4p each or £25,000 in total. He later sold these shares for approximately £1 million and remains a board member.

He works closely with chairman David Bonderman, ("the most decisive man I've ever met") and chief executive Michael O'Leary ("he certainly does shoots from the hip").

"Mr Bonderman is always rushing somewhere and tends to want decisions made in about 48 hours. He is a great fan of one-line faxes," he says.

Not surprisingly he is an avid admirer of the chief executive, Mr O'Leary.

"I have seen him give a presentation to hard-bitten analysts and fund managers in New York and when it ends they are out in the hotel lobby buying the stock," he states.

His directorships have expanded into the world of high-tech companies and he is a director and equity holder in four of them. One is Blackstar.com, a video sales company which he says is about to step into the "major leagues" either through organic growth or because it will be purchased by a larger rival.

Mr Osborne is also in a company called Transcom, based in Swords, Co Dublin, which he says has the potential to take a Nasdaq listing. The other two firms he has an involvement with are Webstat and Slendertone, which produces a fat reduction product.