Data-Driven Law: Scale Faster and Deliver Smarter with YPOG’s Iain Cockburn & Ben Williams - S10E13

0:00Ben Williams:We do not want to remove the human legal expert from this process.

0:05Iain Cockburn:We have huge amounts of data we have to review and analyse and assess and report on a daily basis. And we now have this tool that can actually do that. Then you've got to think about, well, how can we best use that? You can use it to improve the way you've done things already, but you can also actually embed it into your culture and where you work. That's when you start to see bigger changes in the way you're delivering these services and hopefully the experience the client is getting.

0:27Ben Williams:Tech companies often look to remove the human element and use software, processes and technology. That's not what we want to do. We want to empower our subject matter experts and combine that level of expertise and encode that knowledge into systems that can operate far more effectively, far more efficiently than a human alone ever could. On today's Legally Speaking podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by Ben Williams and Ian Cockburn. Ben and Ian are both founding partners of YPOG's new UK team. This is one of Europe's fastest growing tech-focused law firms. Ben, a former partner at Withers Tech, is an IP, IT and data protection specialist.

1:08Ben Williams:He has experience advising high-growth, IP-driven clients who are often VC-backed or science-led. Ian was a partner at Withers Tech, recognised for his work in venture capital by Legal 500. He advises investors and founders across Europe. He is passionate about how technology can reshape legal service delivery. So a very big warm welcome to the show both. Well, thanks, Rob. Really good to be here. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you both. And before we get into today's discussion, I do have a mini icebreaker question or two for you both. Ben, I'll come to you first. What is your favorite beverage and what is your preferred choice of footwear on a typical workday?

1:47Ben Williams:We're starting with all the hard questions, of course. um favorite beverage i'm gonna go with a very fashionable kombucha nice and favorite footwear i think it depends whether it's winter or summer i'm commuting in from the countryside so if it's winter probably a sturdy boot of some kind and if it's the summer then comfortable trainers comfortable trainers ian your moment has arrived for the tough questions favorite beverage and

2:14Iain Cockburn:prefer choice of footwear on a work day oh good same question then well favorite beverage i think probably just a pint of traditional ale actually is what I tend to go with. We've got a nice local brewery around here which makes some great ale so probably that. And for footwear actually my Cahu trainers, I've got unusually wide feet so they're the only trainers that seem to fit me so I've got a sort of selection of those that I tend to wear.

2:40Ben Williams:Good stuff, okay well now we've got the hard stuff out the way we can move to the easy stuff and talk a bit about some legal and some backgrounds and journeys. So to begin with, would you mind telling us a bit about your background and career journey? Ben, you go first and then I'll flip to you, Ian. Yeah, sure. So for me, it started in about 2011 when I joined the London office of a US law firm based in Mayfair as a trainee. And that was really the first time that I became exposed to the venture capital and emerging companies sector, which I found super interesting because whilst the other teams that I was working with, seemed to be doing things that were more well-established.

3:23Ben Williams:In the VC sector, you had these new emerging disruptive players that wanted to do things differently with new business models, and they were rubbing up against these pieces of outdated legislation. So it was a really great foundation for me to cut my teeth and to get involved in a high-pace area that I'm still in now and I found really interesting. So that was really where it started. And the partners at that time that I was working with, they spun out and started a boutique focused in that space called Jaggeral Baker. So I joined them as their first employee in the IP commercial team. And together, I was an associate at the time, but we grew that business over a period of five or so years to become the leading emerging company and venture capital practice in the UK.

4:17Ben Williams:And we were doing great deals for great clients. And it was an awesome place to be. You think at that time it was the emergence of the fintech revolution and London was really gaining traction as a tech hub. So that took us to about 2018. And at that point, what we realized is that our clients were growing super quickly and therefore we needed to grow to match their level of ambition. So we planned to have international offices and the additional practice areas that we needed. but that's quite a difficult thing to do overnight. What we were able to do overnight though is to take that business and merge it into a tier one international law firm which gave us all of those additional practice areas and the international footprint.

5:08Ben Williams:So that's what we did in 2018 and Ian and I we built that business together with our partners and everyone else involved in the firm over a period of about seven years. And that takes us up to last year when we started looking again at ourselves and our practice area and thinking, you know what, I think the time is right to be disrupting again from the inside of our industry. And that's what we plan to do. Last year, we planned to launch our own disruptive tech native law firm. And I quit a good job as a partner at a good law firm because I believed so strongly in this. And we were just about to do that when Ypod came along and said, hang on a second, before you do, we feel very similar.

5:53Ben Williams:And rather than doing it by yourself, if we can combine forces and disrupt on a bigger European scale, how does that sound? And that's where we are now. Super exciting. And thanks for sharing the journey and congratulations on all you've achieved. And I love the word disruptive. Ian, we'd love to come to you and learn a bit more about your background and story.

6:13Iain Cockburn:Yeah, sure. To be honest with you, Ben's kindly covered much of my career, because I think from about 2013 onwards, Ben sort of covered that period.

6:22Ben Williams:We've worked together for a long time, haven't we?

6:23Iain Cockburn:Yeah, yeah. But no, I mean, going right back, I mean, I was actually a languages student at university, went to Edinburgh University, sort of typical languages, arts student, came out, realised I probably needed to do something else, so converted to do law. It was one of these things that, you know, when you're growing up, people always say things like, oh, you would be good at this, you'd be good at that. People always said I should be a lawyer, so it was always there as a bit of an itch. And so I went and I converted at the College of Law in Guildford, which is sadly no longer. But and then I trained, I'm originally Scottish, even though my accent doesn't give me away when I trained at a Scottish firm called Maclay Murray and Spens which was one of the what they used to call the big four back then they've all also been swallowed up by other other firms since so I trained there for two years worked for a short period for a US firm and then was put in touch actually with with James Shaw who's one of the co-founders of Jags Shabake that Ben was talking about with whom we still work one of also the co-founders of Webox UK office I was put in touch with him by one of the partners I used to work with at Maclay's and it was an area I was really interested in.

7:39Iain Cockburn:James was setting this up on the back of the financial crisis. There's a lot of innovation and new businesses starting up in the UK. And so we went from there, really, and Ben's covered that in great detail. So I won't repeat that.

7:53Ben Williams:No, absolutely. And thanks both again for sharing that. And it's great that you've worked together for so long and still together and in the same firm and doing exciting things because you're both founding partners of, obviously, YPOG's new UK team. So Ian, sticking with you, what type of law firm is WIPOG that you want people to understand and what services do you typically offer?

8:12Iain Cockburn:Well, WIPOG, I mean, I suppose the first thing to understand about WIPOG is it's quite a young firm, young-ish. I mean, it's been around now for about a decade in Germany. Its beginnings are very similar to our own beginnings in the UK with Jarosha Baker. YPOG is fundamentally a law firm that is focused on emerging companies in sort of technology, life sciences, innovation, IP rich companies. And it's got a really clear focus on that type of client. In terms of the, well, before I go into the services, just to give a picture of the firm and where it sits. So there are four offices in Germany, there's Berlin and Hamburg, Cologne and Munich and now in the UK we're based in London and we also have a Cambridge office as well.

9:01Iain Cockburn:The services are sort of split across three core groups I would say in Germany. There's the funds group, sort of private equity, venture capital funds, others. There's the transactions group which focuses on the sort of corporate commercial work that's where Ben and I sit. Ben is an IP commercial lawyer i'm a corporate lawyer and then there's also the tax group um which is really important when you're when you're acting for funds and in this area alongside that we've there are other sort of specialist groups such as fintech and finreg um corporate crime and things like that but the but the general the one thing i think people need to understand about waypog is i think yes it's this focus on on sort of technology and innovation in europe that's very much what we're about.

9:48Ben Williams:Yeah, and it's a hugely exciting area where I'm sat today. I get very excited about tech innovation. I'm pro it for all sorts of reasons. And, you know, WIPOG has a very strong reputation, doesn't it, Ben? It's quickly built this reputation, particularly in European tech and the VC sort of ecosystem. So what makes WIPOG different to the traditional law firms out there? They have built a really strong brand in a really short period of time, certainly in the region from which they have grown. So Germany, Austria, Switzerland, that kind of DAC base. But to be honest, I think they probably did so through a fairly typical structure and model, but they recruited good people.

10:30Ben Williams:They were deeply, deeply integrated into the tech sector, which really helped. And they were very forward thinking and created a very nice place to work. So actually, I think the more interesting question is how will WIPOG differ going forward? Because that's part the reason we joined this firm. We were helping them to internationalize and pivot away from this traditional law firm structure into one that uses data and technology far more effectively and combines that with the legal and tax expertise that they have to meet client needs in a different way. So that's the interesting piece for me.

11:13Ben Williams:It's really looking at how a law firm currently is, very people heavy, that's its core asset, and moving it or rather combining tech and data as another core asset and using that to unlock new means of scalability. Very exciting and very powerful if you get it right. And Ian, flipping to you on UK expansion, because, you know, YPOC has recently obviously expanded in the UK market and doing very well. What were the motivations behind that specifically with the move, sort of building what Ben was touching on. How does it support WIPOG's broader pan-European ambitions?

11:47Iain Cockburn:There's two answers to that question. There was our motivation as the UK team and what we were doing. And there's obviously WIPOG's broader ambitions around international expansion and what they want to do. Ben's touched on what we were looking to do. And we had a good platform where we were previously. We were getting supported, but we were very ambitious and wanted to kind of accelerate this and move this faster. and YPOG, when we started speaking with them, felt very much the same way and it seemed to make a lot of sense. So there was a huge alignment in terms of approach to technology, how to use technology, how to develop technology in order to improve our services and expand our services.

12:26Iain Cockburn:On your second point there, I think you sort of asked how this fitted in with YPOG's sort of wider strategy. I think, I mean, YPOG in Germany has built such a strong position. They really are seen as one of the go-to, if not the go-to firms. I think they sort of always top the tables in HitchBook and others within that region and, you know, and all sorts there. And the natural sort of development for them is to look internationally, but primarily in Europe. And, you know, the UK and Germany are the two largest markets. London was always an obvious point of expansion for them. So, you know, I think the ambition within London is absolutely to sort of replicate in London the sort of services and the offering that is there in Germany.

13:09Iain Cockburn:But I think YPOG, you know, we don't just sort of look at ourselves as UK and Germany, we also see ourselves as really an entry point for Europe more widely. And while we don't yet have offices across all major jurisdictions in Europe, we do have a phenomenal network. And what we're able to do is if a client in the US or elsewhere wants to come into Europe and maybe it's jurisdiction they're not familiar with, we're very good at coordinating and managing that. So this is really, I think, part of a bigger vision, a bigger ambition for YPOG to be really at the centre of the European tech industry and venture capital and all the ancillary items there.

13:51Ben Williams:And very exciting times, I have to say, particularly where we are today and just what I'm seeing across some industries when it comes to all things tech. So Ben, flipping back to you, we're seeing this rise in very high specialised tech-focused law firms across Europe. What is driving this shift? What are you seeing? And how is it changing the legal market? Well, I think there's two really important components here. You've got the maturing level of technology that's now available, part one. And part two is being driven really by client demand. But what I would say is that if I were to put myself in a client's position and ask whether they're really feeling the difference of AI and technology from most law firms, I'm not convinced they are.

14:37Ben Williams:I think we're probably observing the beginnings of change, though. And in myself and Ian and other lawyers that are starting to leave established law firms and set up by themselves. I think there's this entrepreneurial mindset that they perhaps don't believe that they can trigger change in existing structures because they're bound by what has been before. So, I mean, certainly I can answer from my perspective, I absolutely wanted to seize this opportunity with AI in order to meet this client needs more effectively. And I felt the best way to do that initially was to set up by ourselves, but actually it turns out that YPOG was the perfect platform for us to do that together.

15:26Ben Williams:Yeah, there's power in the pivot, isn't there, for sure, and clearly it's been a great success story for both of you and really enjoying the discussion. Ian, coming to you, can you share some of the development we're witnessing in tech specialist legal practices, specifically in Europe, to give our audience some further education?

15:44Iain Cockburn:Yeah. So with that question, I suppose if I take it in terms of who are the practices and who is serving these clients at the moment in the UK and Europe, it's been quite an interesting picture in the last decade or so. I think that the big story, and it reflects the wider story within the legal market, is US firms coming into the UK market. And certainly many of the lawyers with whom we've worked over the years are still there. but a lot of them have moved into US firms and US practices and these firms obviously are very highly regarded, invest a huge amount into this area and broadly I think it's been a positive for the clients.

16:26Iain Cockburn:And I would say that picture has persisted. One of the things that we were discussing was when we were talking about what should we do next, what should our next move be and we were considering sort of setting up, one of the things we were considering was setting up at the boutique was one of the things we're not seeing a huge amount of in the market is our boutique setting up which i maybe would have expected to see and and um i think um it will be interesting to see as as some of these you know developments that we've been sort of loosely talking about around sort of tech and how that might change legal services as that develops whether that opens the doors to other providers to come in maybe we might see some more boutiques coming in um challenging maybe the traditional welfare model but i would say that the landscape for tech clients and life sciences clients in terms of their legal support is you know it's evolving but it's not radically changed in the last sort of five years or so

17:19Ben Williams:yeah and it's interesting point on boutiques isn't it obviously when i you know i agree when i set up my own legal recruiting business i wanted to catch the trend of u.s firms coming in wanting to extract uk talent from the the magic circle firms you know it was a good commercial play for me as well as spotting that trend and then also on boutiques and seeing the rise of the litigation disputes boutiques bloom in the UK market as well. That's been a really interesting trend. And I agree, it's going to be interesting to see. I've always said boutiques are beautiful. I think you could be pivoting.

17:47Ben Williams:I think you can match your clients. You don't have the oil tanker. You don't have certain things you're trying to turn around. And yes, I'm a big advocate for them. But also, I appreciate there's places and spaces for everyone to operate as long as they can meet their clients where they're at. Ben, I want to shift to science-led innovation now, if I may, because you both work closely with science-led and, indeed, tech startups. How are these types of companies changing the legal landscape? And give us some insights. We're seeing more and more science-led companies. So there's a really interesting pre-question there, which is, why are you seeing more science-led companies?

18:23Ben Williams:And I think my answer to that would be, well, the easy wins in this industry, if you like, have already been achieved. we've seen the last decade where money, venture capital money, was pumped into often software-only marketplace type companies. And they've largely been funded, you know, that market is kind of saturated. So then the question is, what comes next? And my view is that venture capitalists and technologists generally are just diving deeper into particular niches. And so that's why we are observing more science-based companies. And that's where the next decade is heading, if you like.

19:06Ben Williams:You also ask how that is changing the legal landscape. And that's a really interesting question. And Ian might have some interesting thoughts here. But more capital is generally required when you're talking about science because it's unproven nature. you're often operating also in more highly regulated domains you know think ai gene therapies quantum computing you know these sort of things they require more um more sophistication if you like and that sophistication in science i think translates into more sophistication in their legal affairs right from the very beginning super interesting and ian is there anything you would like to build on there?

19:50Iain Cockburn:I mean, I suppose only to say that, you know, if you take that, you know, direction of travel, I think in terms of, you know, what impact that has on the legal market, I think it's, you know, it's harder to be a sort of generalist tech practice or a generalist corporate practice and look after these types of clients when they have such specialist needs. And I think, you know, increasingly we see sort of hyper specialist groups or practices in the market with quite a narrow focus on, you know, sort of deep knowledge in a much narrower sort of vertical, I guess. And I think we're seeing that and we'll probably continue to see that.

20:29Ben Williams:Yeah, and again, thanks both for sharing such interesting insights about what's going on because this is such a fast-moving place as well and space. Ian, sticking with you, you know, I speak to a lot of lawyers from their careers that want to get involved in cross-border complex multi-jurisdictional transactions. it's where the great stuff happens you know and YPOG is obviously known for that kind of complex cross-border work what are some of the key challenges clients face when trying to scale internationally and how do you help them navigate through that and I appreciate it maybe on a case

20:59Iain Cockburn:by case basis so more generally yeah no that's fine I mean I think if I answer that within the European context I suppose to link it back to one of the earlier questions you know one of the challenges in scaling into Europe is pretty obvious. I mean, so many different territories, countries, different languages, different legal systems, you know, civil law systems and, you know, different regulatory regimes. It's incredibly difficult both for businesses and for investors to, you know, the flow of private capital within Europe is really inhibited by all of these obstacles. And, you know, and as I was saying earlier, I think one of the things that we've always tried to do, even before we joined forces with the German team in WIPOG, we developed very, very strong networks across Europe in all of the key jurisdictions.

21:51Iain Cockburn:And I think what we try to do to help clients as they expand into Europe or seek capital across Europe is use that network to make sure that, because I mean, the key is, I mean, so when we say, why is that difficult to go into a different country, different legal system? Well, it's difficult because you need different advisors you can't you know you can't just have in the us they're kind of blessed in many ways that you can you can have a sort of an advisor who kind of quarterbacks the whole thing and looks after everything as people expand across the us and yes you will need some local support but it's not quite the same whereas in europe you do actually need far more local expertise and what we do through our network is we manage that expertise because it's incredibly daunting for any business or individual to go into that without any support, without any knowledge.

22:39Ben Williams:I'm going to jump in off the back of that, if that's okay. There's a wider geopolitical theme of play here. We'll see a lot in the news about sovereignty and how Europe needs to build on its own sovereignty so it's not reliant on these other actors geopolitically. And I think that's right, But one of the points of friction that stops that from happening is exactly what Ian has just outlined, where you've got 28 plus different jurisdictions, and that can make it very difficult. But ultimately, you can reduce that down to the expense and ease of doing business in the European continent. And ultimately, if that's too difficult, that will harm the European tech sector.

23:24Ben Williams:You know, if you've got a VC based in London who has seen a great company in, I don't know, Italy, but they find it too difficult and expensive to deploy that capital in Italy, well, ultimately, it reduces the pool of capital that's available and is harmful to the European tech industry in a way that doesn't happen in the US. Yes, fascinating stuff. And sticking with you, Ben, let's talk about sort of redefining the tech sector, because, you know, YPOG is, by reading here, what legal support looks like in the technology sector, whether that be for funds, venture capitalists, fintechs, growth stage companies and corporate ventures.

24:06Ben Williams:So how is YPOG going about redefining legal support in the tech industry? Ben, to you and then Ian, anything you'd like to add? Well, I think that's a really astute question, actually. If you look at the market of legal tech tools that are available now, there's some great options out there. But I have one particular issue with all of them. And my observation here is that they're great at increasing the efficiency in the way that lawyers have always worked. But is that the most effective way? Well, I'd argue perhaps not. And actually, can we sit down almost with a blank piece of paper, redefine what is best for our clients?