E18: Stephen Ward | Reinventing Traditional Law

Speaker A: I think when you're in a very traditional business like we are, I think it's incredibly hard to be disruptive because there's snobbery and the traditionalists in the business don't share your vision, even getting staff that are willing to step outside the traditional way of working and work differently. So I think you get problems from every angle that come at you. So if you want to build a technology solution that's never been built before, you've got to really believe in what it is you trying to do and why.

Speaker B: Welcome to the Startup Huddle. I'm your host, Josef Maruczak M and I'm excited to introduce you to the current and upcoming leaders of the startup tech world. We'll discuss digital products and key takeaways for life and professional growth. So grab a coffee and let's huddle up. Hey everyone, and welcome to yet another episode of the Startup Huddle. Today we have a very special guest here, uh, Steven Ward, uh, one of the co founders and also currently the head of business development for the Barrister Group, which is uh, one of the largest, if not the largest barrister chamber in the UK and definitely the most innovative one. So thank you very much for joining us, Stephen.

Speaker A: Pleasure.

Speaker B: Can you tell us to start, um, can you tell us a little bit more about your background? Uh, you are uh, coming from the legal background, um, if I'm not mistaken. And um, uh, tell us a little bit more about your background and um, and how did you end up uh, setting up the business?

Speaker A: So my background is pretty uh, traditional. Um, every barrister's clerk in the country has a story about how they got into the business. Um, my story was I was 15, uh, and a half at the time. You were allowed to leave school, which I did. Um, I met uh, somebody through some work I was doing who suggested that I should go to London and work in the temple, which I thought was a religious establishment, but it turned out to be a place in London where lawyers work. So um, I went to uh, London aged 15 and a half and started pushing a trolley around, up and down the temple, as all sort of barristers, clerks, apprentices do. Um, and for the last 40 years I've worked my way up through the clerking, um, realms to become a senior clerk. And then, um, in 2001 we decided that we like to consider a new model of barristers chambers, uh, which was far more commercialized, uh, far more, um, entrepreneurial. And um, we established what was at the time the first ever barristers chambers that was run as a commercial business. Rather than a traditional chambers with a constitution. Sort of pretty much like a club really. So, and then yeah, 24 years on we're uh, we're leading the way as a tech based professional services working within law, particularly barristers chambers.

Speaker B: Can you tell us maybe a little bit more about the difference? What it actually is a barrister chamber because uh, we are, we have a lot of European and U.S. uh, based uh, listeners, most of them do not have legal background. And um, the particular setup legal uh, for the legal profession in the UK is quite specific. So if you can start by describing what does actually a barrister do and then the difference between barristers and solicitors.

Speaker A: Okay, so it's a really interesting point that I accept a lot of people um, don't understand the difference. I think a lot of people even in the UK don't understand the difference. Um, so we don't have what's called a fused profession in the uk. And uh, when I say the UK specifically I do mean England and Wales because Scotland and Ireland have different legal systems, again different regulatory regimes. So in England and Wales it's not a fused profession. Which means that the lawyers and the solicitors and the barristers don't uh, are separate professions. And therefore a solicitor might represent you dealing with the paperwork. And some solicitors have rights of audience to appear in the courts. But quite often a barrister's job is just to be the advocate. So the barrister tends to sort of top and tail a case. So the barrister will provide advice at the very beginning. Uh, the barrister doesn't tend to be involved in the litigation, the drafting, the communications, um, and then the barrister will go in at the end of the case if there's a court hearing to represent the client at court. So if you take other countries such as Germany where you have a wretch and welt, that is a fused profession, the wretched welt will deal with what we would say is the solicitor's and the barrister's job would deal with both of them. So that's really the difference in the profession, if that answers your question.

Speaker B: Yes, sure, sure. So in practice, uh, a typical um, person who needs legal services and uh, those legal services are somehow connected to the court. So there's a trial. Uh, they will always need to go through a solicitor at first or barrister at first, then solicitor, and then the barrister will actually represent them with that with are the weak uh, at the trial.

Speaker A: So 99% of cases will go, somebody will go to a solicitor and they will ask the solicitor for the advice. The solicitor may or may not choose to take advice from a barrister, depending on the level of complexity. And then the relationship is very much between the client and the solicitor. Um, and then if the case goes to court, the solicitor could have rights of audience themselves, they could possibly represent you. But a lot of the time that's the role of the barrister. They put their wig and gown on and they go into court and they then represent you. So we have quite a disjointed system because the client at the end of the day is talking to the solicitor, who's talking to the barrister's clerk, who's talking to the barrister, who's then talking to the judge. And we end up with a little bit of a disconnect, uh, across the um, system. I'm not saying that's, that's the case in every case, but that's, that can be what happens.

Speaker B: But it also has to mean necessarily that it's more expensive for the end client, right, because there are like at least two parties to get paid. Uh, and uh, as you said, a lot of, uh, how to call it, um, um, inefficiency, uh, in the process that also has to be paid.

Speaker A: I mean the traditional system has potential duplication of cost because if a solicitor has spent all the time going through a case with a client and then refers it to a barrister, the barrister is going to want to read all the papers again themselves. Um, quite rightly if a barrister is involved. So you end up in a position where the, the cost can be duplicated. Um, a lot of solicitors, you know, in this current environment are ah, very live to that and they try to be as efficient as possible and will, um, involve the barrister in the case, you know, a lot more. It really depends on the size of the case, level of complexity. Um, I'm not saying it's all bad, I'm just saying in a lot of cases there is duplication, uh, which, which can be avoided in various different ways. That could be the solicitor doesn't involve the barrister, or it could be the barrister does more of the work for the solicitor.

Speaker B: Makes sense. And so looking back at your journey and uh, I remember when we first met, it might have been like maybe even eight, nine years ago, uh, back at Cambridge when you were already, uh, a disruptor, you were then working on a different thing and you were thinking about all the possible ways, how to make the actual user experience better for the end user. So for a client who needs legal services, tell us a little bit about how you became a businessman and a very successful Businessman, uh, from, uh, being

Speaker A: a clerk, the journey is really quite straightforward. Actually. I was a clerk in a traditional chambers and a traditional chambers is run by committee. It's very similar to a social club. So if you imagine a village hall that has a social, you know, has a constitution that runs it because nobody really owns it, it's a constitution that somebody is responsible for something and therefore you end up with committees. So you have a building management committee, you have a, you know, you end up with committees all around. And the problem is that can be quite difficult. And a lot of the people giving up their time to run a traditional chambers are giving up their own personal time. Uh, you know, they're not being paid for it. So I'm not being critical in the slightest. It's just if you understand how the system works, it's quite inefficient. But what it does do is it gives people control over their destiny. If you want control over your destiny, you've got to understand what that destiny looks like and you've got to understand what the vision is and why you want to get there. And the problem is, if you're in a Chambers with 40 or 50 barristers, it's very often the case that that vision, that destiny is not shared. So I was sitting in chambers one night listening to a chambers committee meeting and I just basically decided there has to be a better way of doing this. The chambers are employing professional people to run their business, but they're not letting them run the business because they won't control themselves. And these are not people. Barristers are incredibly bright, incredibly great people, incredible in court and so on. But they don't tend to be businessmen or managers or people managers. And so you end up with normal problems in a chambers where decisions can't get made. Um, decisions are slow to make. Um, you've got to keep obviously hold of the finances. But traditional chambers isn't minded to make any profit, to reinvest in the future. So if you're an employee of a chambers, you're traditionally considered to be an expense. Whereas I look at it as all my staff are, uh, an investment, say my staff. Obviously it's our staff nowadays. But, um, so I looked at the whole business model with my colleague Harry and we just said there is a better way to do this if we could allow the business to run more professionally with decisions being made with much more of an investment point of view and a long term point of view. Um, and of course at the time, it was 25 years ago, and the Internet was just moving to what I call always on Internet, which may not be that relevant to a lot of people these days. But pretty pre this time it was very expensive to dial up and connect a computer at home into an office or a server. And once, as I say, I call it always on Internet. Once you've got ADSL, which suddenly became you paying £20amonth and it just permanently works, we realized that you could just connect the server in the office to the Internet and your home to the Internet. And if you can do that, you suddenly have a much more flexible way of working and you suddenly have the ability to travel as long as you can travel somewhere with Internet. And I think for the last sort of 25 years, that philosophy of having a system that's always on, always available, and disconnecting you from a physical place of work is really what's driven us forward. And obviously it wasn't long before we made the decision to move all of the equipment out of the office and put it in the cloud. But that was 20 years ago still. Um, so we still hear chambers today saying they're making a decision whether to have it on premise or in the cloud. Well, you know, that's fine, but as I say, we've been pushing on with that for many, many years.

Speaker B: Makes sense. So you've seen, uh, you were working in a chamber in London, um, and you've seen quite a few inefficiencies and then decided that there is a better way to run the business. So um, can you tell us a little bit more? So one of the inefficiencies that you mentioned is that a traditional chamber is not looking at itself as a business. So there's no investment into the future. Uh, and the decision making is very long. Right. Uh, can you tell us about any other differences or inefficiencies that you've seen?

Speaker A: Inefficiency sort of sounds like it's implying, um, criticism, but it's not intended in that way. I use, um, inefficiency or streamlining of the business from the context of when you look at a process and a procedure from a business point of view, you're always trying to look at the easiest path you can take. So in a traditional chambers, the, the thinking, uh, from my point of view is very much that the barristers, the clerks are employed to in the main look after the barristers, which is very inward facing. So we have a philosophy that you provide a better service for the barristers if you're actually outward facing and you're looking at the clients. And you're thinking about what the client journey is, because at the end of the day, everybody is actually aligned in this process. The client wants to get a good service. We as a clerk earn, uh, our income from the barristers receiving the fees and being paid. So everybody wants the barrister to succeed and the client wants a good service. But it's very often not looked or wasn't, certainly wasn't in the past. It's getting better, but it's not looked at like that. It's looked at that the barristers are the company, the company is employing the staff to look after the barristers. And therefore the clients are very much having to do battle sometimes with the clerks as well as the chambers, the barristers. And all we are trying to do is use technology, modern business practices. So it might be technology as in software, it might be technology as in AI. Um, it's all focused on the real end result, which is access to justice, where if somebody has a legal issue, we can try to use our systems, processes, services, resources, technology to try to find a solution. And I think that was the conversation when we did very first meet, because we were talking about Billy Bot and things like that. Well, we just don't want the client, the end client to be really having to worry too much about what the system, what the process. We want them to be able to ask the question and then for them to be given a solution. And, uh, that's quite hard to do when you're not efficient, not process driven, if that, if that makes sense.

Speaker B: Certainly. Um, again, it might be quite hard for the listeners to imagine how exactly those, uh, barrister chambers worked, uh, work, uh, right now. But tell us a little bit more about. So what did you exactly set up? What's your business, how large is the business and how does it work? How do you solve all those, uh, let's call it, how do you provide a better service, uh, to the, to the end users.

Speaker A: So just, just to go back very slightly to what you just said, the. At the end of the day, I have a philosophy that the client doesn't need to worry about this and doesn't need to know about it, so they don't really need to understand it. I think if you go back to the. The issue that people face is it's something like 70% of legal need in the UK is unmet because people either perceive it to be too expensive or they don't know how to go about it. So because we have a system where you can go to a solicitor or you can Go to a barrister for a legal service and most people don't know the difference. Which is really strange because if you showed somebody a photograph of a man in a suit with a, with a briefcase or, uh, somebody stood there in a wig and gown and you asked them, do you know which one's the barrister? They would be able to point that out, but they wouldn't know what the difference is or how to approach them. So we take the view that you don't need to do that and you don't need to worry about it. And what we've done is we've grown, um, our business by being, as far as we are concerned, very accessible. So, for instance, the difference between us and a lot of chambers is we're open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Um, a lot of chambers are not really very interested in dealing with members of the public. Um, it's perceived as a, ah, different type of work that a lot of barristers, a lot of chambers don't really want to engage in. Um, we don't mind who our, uh, customer is, so we don't create any barristers, any barriers whatsoever for, uh, accessing our service. If somebody has a legal need, we will triage to find out are they a member of the public or are they a legal professional? Um, legal professionals can be other lawyers, they can be in house lawyers in law firms, they can be insurance companies, can be from a corporate company, all sorts. But at the end of the day, we don't put up barriers to stop people asking us the question. And then we've grown the business. We're now 300 people in the business. Um, that's 250 barristers, lawyers and uh, 50 members of staff looking after them. Um, and it's literally open 24 7. We listen to what people want and we try to find a solution. And I think we just think differently about the access to justice point, because if somebody comes onto us and they're not really our customer, a lot of chambers or law firms will try to basically put the customer off or create a barrier or tell them that they can't help them. Whereas we do our very best to try to find a solution, whatever that is. We're not always successful. We've got to keep growing and we've got to keep investing so that we can do more of this, which is really where we want to go.

Speaker B: Understood. Um, so this essentially means that you are able to serve, um, a larger market in essence, because you are dealing with, uh, I mean, of course it helps A lot the society, because you are helping people that otherwise wouldn't, uh, be able to find help. But it also brings you customers that other, other, uh, chambers are not tapping into at all. Right.

Speaker A: There's two sides to what you've just said. The first side is the person making an inquiry who has a legal problem, whether it's perceived or not. Because a lot of people don't even know what a legal problem is. There is a technical definition of a legal problem, but again, we don't want people to worry about that, so we want somebody to tell us what they believe the problem is and then we will try to find them an outcome. So the first side of it is not putting up a barrier to, uh, try to find the advice. And secondly is, can we provide them with an outcome, even if the outcome is not using our service? Because I just don't believe that many businesses apart from the Citizens Advice Bureau, um, really provide many outcomes other than using their services. It's quite a fundamental different change in thinking.

Speaker B: And so what those, if you can't help those people, what would then be, uh, what you call the outcome?

Speaker A: In this case, I think you can always help people. So it's not a question of saying you can't help them, it's a question of can you provide an outcome? So, for instance, if somebody telephoned and said, I've just purchased this car, let's say, and it's faulty and the garage is refusing to take it back, so you can say, they say, you know, I want to instruct a lawyer or a barrister to help me with it, and the best advice you can give them might be, well, that's ridiculous, they've got to take it back. You're well within your rights under the Consumer Rights act or whatever is the appropriate advice. It may be that traditionally you would say, we're not going to earn any money from this inquiry, that the client hasn't got enough money. There's whole loads of reasons why you wouldn't help. But my view is, well, we've invested in our marketing because the person that's calling you or inquiring of you is only coming from some marketing. It's unlikely that they've come unless you've done that. So you've invested some money in some marketing, uh, a potential customer has come along, you've invested the time in triaging that call and you've reached a situation where you've decided you don't really want them to be a customer. Now, ah, at that point, 99.9% of people were just businesses, people would just get rid of that person and say, sorry, we can't help. But my view is, hold on a minute. If we're using the technology and the resources we've got available to us, whether it's AI, whether it's technology or even people, we've already gone through a journey that's cost us quite a lot of money to get to that point. Why don't we just give them an outcome? And the outcome might be, well this is really silly. This is what you need to quote. You could find a draft letter here, uh, we can email you a draft template for a letter. We can point you to the right place within the law. Uh, if you go and quote that and you still don't get anywhere, then you might need to see a solicitor or a barrister might be able to help you. But really having a bit of confidence in going back and saying this is really the solution you want, whether or not you become a customer of ours. And I just believe that if you do that, not only is it good for access to justice, but that person is highly likely to recommend you. So you will win some business. So I'm uh, not, you know, I am looking at it with a commercial hat but you've gone that far down the route, you might as well if you've got a really simple slick way of producing the answer, uh, is to provide that answer.

Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, that definitely makes sense and it shows how completely different mindset and approach you have to customers. Uh, completely different uh, compared to most of the businesses actually. Um, now of course people don't just approach now the barrister group, uh, because um, of the way how you treat them and because of the fact that they always get the outcome. But what are the other things that you can provide to them because you are using the technology compared to other chambers. So um, yeah, if you can elaborate on that and what that technology is.

Speaker A: Okay, so again there's two answers to this, I'm sorry, there's two answers to most questions. But the reason there's two answers is one, if it's a professional client, if it's a solicitor or an in house lawyer, um, the biggest uh, gain that they're getting from using our services is the technology allows us to be far more streamlined and to process matters. So we do about 2,000 final court cases every month at the moment. And it takes us when somebody wants a barrister for a case they, you know, I know I get into trouble for keeping everything really simple all the time, but it is really simple if you're looking for a barrister, there's a certain set of criteria. Uh, you want to know that they're available. Uh, you want to know the price, you want to know they have the expertise. Um, you want to know what happens next. So, you know, when somebody is calling, you know my opinion, there's only really three things they're asking. Can you help me? When can you help me? How much is it going to cost? And if you can keep it that simple. For professional users of our service, which as, uh, I say is about 2,000 per month, the average saving in time, and bearing in mind lawyers, time is the most expensive thing is around about 20 minutes per transaction. So, uh, if we say to a large law firm or a large user, like BT or British Gas or EasyJet, how many cases do you instruct barristers per year? And they say, this many thousand. And you say, well, what if you save 20 minutes per instruction? They bite your hand off. So, you know, that's where we provide the efficiency. But when it's a member of the public, it's sort of almost the opposite. The member of the public needs more investment in time from the staff. They need to be able to talk, understand, and we use the technology to basically sift through the information they're giving us to find the solution. So, for instance, if a member of the public calls our, uh, Clarksroom Direct or Barrister Connect helpline, it's all being put into the system while they're talking. Calls are recorded. We can pick up on keywords we can pick up. The system is building a picture on the screen in front of the operator already to tell them what sort of person we need, as I said earlier, what level of skill, blah, blah, blah. If they've got a budget, and then it needs to check all 250 diaries to look at availability. And what we're doing is we're using the technology in a very different way with a member of the public. And the answer to the whole problem appears on the screen before the operator, before they've even finished a call. So you don't end up with, uh, oh, well, I need to get some options and some prices and talk to people. We say, well, the most ideal person, as far as we can see at the moment, is Mr. X or Mrs. Y. Um, they are available. I believe they would do it within the budget that you've got. Um, would you like me to put that in writing, send you a profile to look at, so you're moving the whole process on very smoothly. Um, so there is A huge opportunity to use more AI with members of the public, I think, rather than professional users just purely because of the slowness of adoption.

Speaker B: So on one hand you are uh, making the process both for. No, uh, you're making the process quicker. Uh, of course like the typical members of the public will not be able even to like many uh, times, uh, access service like that. But generally speaking, because you are using streamlined processes and technology, um, you are able to like make certain processes quicker. But also you mentioned uh, an interesting point about the price and the availability, uh, which uh, brings me to transparency in the whole process. So how does it normally work? Like if you, if you were to approach a chamber as uh, a legal professional, uh, it would take them far, uh, longer time to get back to you. But also you will not be able to um, sort of asserting the budget.

Speaker A: The trick here is actually that it appears very complicated but it's not really. At the end of the day the nub of the problem lies with who has authority to actually quote a fee, um, to offer a fee. So the difference between us and other chambers is very much that we have like pre authority on what we can quote. So we say to our barristers that we want to be able to quote fees at the very beginning of the journey, not at the end. So if somebody calls us, um, if you think about it, there's only two ways that you can get to an agreement on a fee. One is either saying, this is my budget, can you find me a solution within my budget? Uh, and the other is to say, can you please provide me with a written quote that I can agree or disagree? I would say you're almost always going to get a cheaper service if you have a budget. Um, you know, you can, it's not particularly difficult to gauge what fees are going to be. Um, you know, if you've got a, you know, we've got 25 years of history in our database of quoting fees, so, so the system can pick up pretty easily. Uh, what size of paperwork is there? Two ring binders of papers or four? Um, how long is the case listed for? If it's a five day hearing in a tribunal, there's an average amount of preparation. If it's five days, you're probably talking about a, ah, day's preparation. So there's all sorts of things that you've got within your current data that you know. And then when you factor in the seniority, expertise of the lawyer, you know, at the end of the day I would guess most clients would want the most, uh, you know, the best, uh, the most experienced barrister for a case, um, at the best price. So you know, if you go out and you ask for a quote, you're inviting um, a lot of ambiguity. I don't know if that makes sense or not. I'm happy to elaborate a little bit more. But it's something that appears very complicated, is in fact very simple because the variables are very few.

Speaker B: So then why are. And that brings me to another topic of disruption and how the current uh, legal space uh, uh, works. Uh, as you said you can probably predict the price or understand the price if you have enough data points, which you have and most of the chambers have. You can also understand which lawyer should be the best for the job if you understand their preferences. And then also if you have other data points from the past cases, um, uh, it just shows that you are very tech and data driven. So why are um, those seem to be quite simple solutions. So why are other chambers uh, not investing into tech or um, tackling the problem in a similar manner?

Speaker A: Two very straightforward reasons. Um, going back to the structure of a traditional chambers, um, all of our tech we are investing in for the future. Um, we've invested over 3 million recently. Um, if you ask a traditional chambers what are you investing in and why they, it's just not a, you know, they'll invest in their premises, they'll invest in their staff, I'm sure. But they don't from what I gather. And obviously I can't speak for every chambers, but there's no, there is no drive to want to do it. So it always comes down to why would somebody want to do this? And we are doing it because we want to invest in our future. We take a commercial approach to it. If we invest in our systems we can do more with the same resources and therefore we become more profitable. But that's not a conversation that would sit very comfortably with a lot of chambers because it's just not what they're created for.

Speaker B: It's still kind of very strange to me because the better those chambers are, uh, the more they earn. So is the problem really the stranger structure that they, you know, there's not a, uh, let's call it a um, leader, um, with the decision making power, uh, or if you can a little bit elaborate on that because it's still kind of, I cannot wrap my head around it.

Speaker A: The point is, you're absolutely right and this is the reason why we created the business 25 years ago. Because it's the thinking and the fact that you can't get your head around it. If you, if you think about a traditional chambers that may be doing very well, may earn a lot of fees, they charge, uh, a percentage. It's a sharing of expenses model. There is no desire whatsoever to make a profit because there's no such thing as profit. It's like if you go back to my village hall analogy, which I really do think is absolutely spot on, if the village hall did some amazing fundraising event and raised a million pounds, and they only actually were trying to raise half a million to put a new roof on, what do they do with the other half million? So it can sit in the bank, you can't give it back to the people who gave it to you. So you're thinking, well, what should we do with this money? And unless you think, well, we could extend the village hall and then we could do more functions and get more groups in the hall and we'd make more money. But then nobody thinks like that because that's not what the function is. It's not to drive more revenue, more growth, more business. So, you know, it's just this whole concept, you know, I don't know if this is interesting to you or not, but you have to go back to 1550, when the first barrister was ever called to the bar and the first barrister, and it's literally in 1550, was called to the bar, when the first ever inn was created, first barrister was called. And in my opinion, and I jokingly say, and I do say this jokingly, that the problem started when the second barrister was called to the bar because the second barrister decided, well, I'm not going to rent another office next door to you and compete with you. Why don't we rent the office together, share our expenses and this is fact, employ a butler to share between us. So what you had born there is a chambers. If you look in the Oxford English Dictionary, the definition of a word chambers is rooms shared commonly by lawyers. So you've got a definition of chambers, you've got a definition of a clerk, which was originally a butler. So you can see how the relationship shaping up and it's never changed since 1550.

Speaker B: So it seems like for you, this is a, this is a very particular industry which does not want and even maybe can't, uh, by the nature of the setup, to innovate. So it seems like you can get, um, very soon, probably the whole market, right, because not probably you, but it is really ripe for disruption. Why are other players not going into that space? Uh, it seems again, very counterintuitive so there had to be quite a few hurdles that you had to overcome.

Speaker A: You have to come over a lot of hurdles. There's, there's snobbery in the marketplace. M. We just to deal with your first point, I don't think we will ever, um, mop up the entire market, so to speak. That's not, not very, uh, eloquent language. But there's a lot of people who really enjoy being in a traditional chambers with other people they can have a cup of tea with in the afternoon and be in the beautiful surroundings of the temple and whatever. And I don't have a problem with that at all. Um, if that's what people want, that's what they want and that maybe is why they came to the bar. But a lot of people that I speak to and I've dealt with over the last however many years, they, they consider their job as a barrister to be a job that they do. They go home to their families. If we can allow them to work from home. They have no politics. Um, they know that the business is driven for the greater good. Uh, they accept that it's driven profitably. But that means we have to provide excellent services that they want to buy. So we don't take anything for granted. And I believe that there is a large proportion of the bar that really, as the younger people come through as well and working from home is completely normal. Um, you've got the flexibility to travel. Um, we don't pressurize our barristers into how much they work. So if they wanted to work three, four days a week, that's entirely up to them. So we see ourselves as a tech platform that enables barristers to do what they want, where they want with complete professional support. And that's a mixture of the tech and people. So we're not one or the other, we're ah, a blend of all of that. So we're a tech business within the legal profession, barristers, that is professional services and that's, you know, we succeed by making sure the service we provide is good. But that's, it's not a sales pitch. It's, it's never going to be what everybody wants in our profession. Um, some barristers will want control of their own destinies and will want to make decisions and rent their own offices. Um, but I think you'll see a growth in the bigger chambers. The bigger chambers will get bigger and the smaller chambers, so the middle sized chambers will probably be the ones that slowly dissolve because you'll end up with smaller niche chambers. Or even barristers just completely practicing on their own. Um, or bigger chambers where you have bigger pooled resources.

Speaker B: How do you see your place on the market? Uh, so are you going to. Do you expect further growth? Uh, that brings me to the fact that, uh, you also, as the only chamber in the uk, if I'm not mistaken, please correct me if I'm wrong, took a private equity investment recently. So can you tell us a little bit about your further plans, why you took the investment? Uh, what does it change?

Speaker A: I reached stage, um, where I was, uh, so five years ago, I was 50, so I'm 55 now. Um, we started to look at exit strategies and plans and realized that it was going to be quite hard. Um, at the size we were at, uh, we needed to really grow a little bit bigger to be able to employ, uh, more of a management team. Because from my point of view, the most important thing for me is this project that I've been on for 25 years now with my business partner Harry, is the legacy behind what we're doing. So, on a personal note, the legacy is changing the way that the bar works, the disruption that we're causing, seeing that through and making sure it becomes the norm. And secondly, uh, for the way barristers are trained. So before they come to chambers in pupillage, um, my own personal legacy is to see the pupillage regime, uh, um, modernized, uh, professionalized even more. Um, and so we just decided that we had limited options as to what to do to actually move the business on and for me to retire. Um, and we started talking to private equity firms and to be honest with you, we weren't really very pleased with what we found out because none of the people that we spoke to really understood what we were trying to do from a professional and legacy point of view. Um, and we almost gave up, actually, um, two years ago and we got approached by ldc, which is part of Lloyd's Banking Group, um, Lloyds Development Capital, ldc. They approached us and said, can we have a look at the business? And they were, in my opinion, just completely different to the rest. They got the whole thing. They totally understood what we were trying to do. They thought it was interesting. Uh, they wanted to invest. They could see the vision for continuing the disruption and continuing to invest in the tech. Um, at the end of the day, there's, uh, an enormous amount of barristers out there and we only have 250. So we might be one of the largest chambers in the uk, certainly for, uh, civil what we do, but the marketplace is quite Huge. And so all we need to do is continue to do what we're doing and continue to be quite aggressive about our growth. But that's totally down to providing a good service and we can do that with better investment in tech and so on. So, you know, obviously any private investor is coming in, um, with their eye on the profit margin. But as I said earlier, everything is really well aligned because from the investor's point of view, from the company's point of view, from the, uh, the original owners to the members, uh, of chambers, the barristers, everybody wins in this situation because we're just getting bigger, investing better services, providing better services, winning more work. The barristers earn more money, they pay the commission to the chambers and it goes back through. Everybody's happy. So this is what we really liked about the private equity and particularly ldc, because it was very aligned with what we wanted to do. And we're now, uh, on a three to five year path to, uh, of growth and investment. Which goes right back to the original conversation about that's the problem in a traditional chambers. You're not seeing the investment well, now we've got the ability to invest even more, even faster. So it's really exciting from that point of view.

Speaker B: Definitely. I'm looking forward to seeing, uh, where you all will be, uh, in the next three or five years, uh, with the additional support of the investor. Let's maybe talk about, uh, uh, one or two more points. The first one would be what were all the hurdles you had to go through, um, because you were in such a traditional industry done? Um, in a way, yeah. I mean we could talk probably for hours about the, and I know the space well as well about how the legal services work in the uk. So how is it to disrupt such an industry? What were the hurdles?

Speaker A: I think when you're in a very traditional business, um, like we are, I think it's incredibly hard to be disruptive because there's snobbery and the traditionalists in the business, uh, don't share your vision, um, even getting staff that are willing to step outside the traditional way of working and work differently. So I think you get problems from every angle that come at you. So if you want to build a technology solution that's never been built before, you've got to, you've got to really believe in what it is you're trying to do and why you've got to get. It's obviously harder with vendors because they've not done it before, quite rightly. So you're having to be really clear about what it is that you're trying to do. Um, getting your own staff to adopt the technology and move forwards and be, uh, innovative in their thinking and being able to change their way of working is a problem. Recruiting barristers who want to work differently, it's not difficult now, but in the early days, uh, it was just seen as something that was a bit odd. Um, and then all of a sudden, after sort of 10 years, people say, oh, well, that's obviously the way to do things now. So. And you sort of think, well, what happened in the middle somewhere? You know, there must have been some time in the middle. Um, you know, I quite often get people now saying to me, well, you know, we watched what you were doing to start with and now you're too big to compete with. And it's like, well, what happened in the middle? You know? So I think the answer is that, you know, it's really hard. I'm not the sort of person to sit here and say, oh, well, it was so simple and so easy and we just did this, this, this, and I'm brilliant. That's not the case at all. Um, you work with really good people around you. All of my staff over the years have been great. You have to get them on board, but that's by showing sort of leadership and vision. Um, we've built a great tech team around us. We've got now a really great marketing team and finance team. And it's because all those people work together and provide the service that then it spirals because the barristers want to join. So, you know, yes, I can claim a bit of, uh, credit for the leadership and the vision at the outset with my, um, partner, Harry. But, you know, it's been a difficult journey for over a long period of time that a lot of people have helped with. So the sort of, the takeaway, if you like, is it's really difficult.

Speaker B: Yeah, I can imagine that you almost had to educate the market on, um, every aspect of what you're trying to change, and then also, uh, most of the players on the market as well. Um, so maybe to finish the podcast, um, could you share some key learnings that you've learned as an entrepreneur? It's been a long journey. It was a hard journey. Something that comes to your mind that could enrich the listeners.

Speaker A: That's quite a difficult one because there's just so many things you learn. Um, I think the first thing to really, the first thing that you sort of have to just be, is honest and upfront and transparent about Everything. Um, I get into trouble for being so honest and transparent because people say, oh, you shouldn't be sharing that information. I say, well, what are they going to do with it? They're not going to compete with us, are they? You've already made it clear they're not going to. So I think being honest and open and upfront, I think, um, talking to people, sharing problems is critical. Uh, I've had a business coach for many years and I've been taught to share problems straight away. Um, I think realizing that you don't know the answer to a problem, sometimes when you go about something, you know, quite often I'll say to my team who come to me and say, oh, most people just naturally want to come to you with a problem and a potential solution, but that's not always necessary. And I'll certainly approach, uh, you know, in the early days, Harry, or the board now, and say, well, this is the problem that we've got. This is the problem we need to solve. But I don't know the answer. And I think it takes a particularly brave, confident person to do that. And I wouldn't say I'm naturally those. So you have to learn to just be truthful to yourself and really face up to the problems that you find along the route. And one of the other key things I think is really critical to certainly when it comes to software is just understand when you've got it wrong because there's no point in pursuing a path. It's really hard sometimes, if it's really not working, to decide to just cut your losses and go another route. And, um, one of the talks that I've given on a few occasions is what are the mistakes I've made? And people find that far more interesting than they do about success. And I think that that's really, really crucial is just understanding where you're going. Measure everything. As you said earlier. What data points have you got? Um, be honest, be open. Uh, have a really good high moral compass. Um, you know, if you always treat people well, um, and if you say you're going to do something, do it. And if you can't do it, explain why. And it's because you're on a long journey and a lot of people are going to come with you on that journey if you're going to be disruptive and they're putting their careers on the line as well. So just treat that with respect and be honest with people.

Speaker B: Thank you very much, Stephen. That was a very interesting summary of the aggregate summary of the experiences that you've been through, and I'm sure it will be very useful for the listeners. So thanks again very much, uh, for coming, um, and, uh, hopefully see you soon, Stephen.

Speaker A: Well, I hope we don't leave it so long next time.

Speaker B: And that's it for today's episode of the Startup Huddle. Thank you very much for listening. Make sure to catch all episodes on thestartuphuddle.com and follow me on LinkedIn and Twitter for more insights and updates on the world of startups. Thanks again, again for tuning in.