Special Edition: The Best of Season 9 – Highlights from the Top 10 Episodes - S9E44

33:14And I'm trying to emanate that in the podcast media social world. But you were re-elected as a senior partner and you stated, I'm really grateful to Capsticks for allowing me to continue in the best job in the world. We have achieved a lot over the last nearly eight years and there's still loads more to do. Capsticks really wants to make an impact supporting. What legacy would you like those in the legal repression to remember you by? I was laughing this morning when I was at the gym. She made it out alive. Would that be an okay one? Absolutely. Yeah, that's raw and honest. Yeah, I'm not into the sort of legacies.

33:50I think that's quite old fashioned. I think it's about, I got the right people in the right place from the right backgrounds, the right social backgrounds, and demonstrated that anyone can be a lawyer where you come from. And I think that's really important to me, both from a firm and the profession. So I think if I have to have a legacy other than the being alive I think that would be it. You're lifting up others aren't you always say once you reach you teach and you support and you send that elevator back down and you know you're obviously doing a great job of that and I guess some of the the tools and skills that you've picked up along the way is obviously through the the wider qualifications you have as well so you are a CEDR qualified mediator what does that mean for those who may be less familiar?

34:35The CEDR is one of the places you can get qualified and it's a it's probably one of the most challenging courses I've ever been on. But I'm also keen to learn. And you get there day one, and you're surrounded by high court judges and KCs who are all panicking more than you. So it's a real leveler. But what it means is that rather than being a lawyer where I say, this is what I think we should do, you help the parties create what they think they should do. So it's much more of a coaching. So I resolve disputes. A big focus is about breakdown in relationships in the workplace. So I get groups of people together and create something for how they can work together going forward rather than someone leaving.

35:15And that's probably a bit of the job I like the most at the moment. Just that sort of that magic of saying, okay, well, that's the past. How do you create something positive for the future? And it's much better than going to litigation, she says, as a litigator. Yeah, very true. Very true. So let's talk about mediation a bit more details then what skills have you learned from that and what do you think it takes to be a successful mediator you have to learn to switch your brain from being a lawyer because you you don't give an opinion um actually people want they want your approval they want your opinion but that's not the job of the mediator you've got to be reflective i think you've got to ask the difficult questions but in a constructive way so i had one recently where the two parties were at each other for an hour about, you know, everyone's misdemeanors.

36:05And I thought, God, what am I going to do? And I just said, so why are you in business together? And that really changed the tone of the discussion. So you've got to ask those questions. You've got to observe what's really going on and what they're not really telling you. And I find that bit fascinating. You've got to be able to bang some heads together occasionally and be creative. You know, the law gives a structure. But if you go to court, a judge can only award certain things, whereas a mediation in private, you can be much more creative around this sort of stuff. So that's why it's really, really rewarding.

36:37Oh, and you've got to be human and bring humor. So people, it's really important that people trust the mediator, that they will help them find a way through this really difficult situation. Yeah. You've mentioned the word trust a few times. I'm just curious um what do you think it takes to to build trust and what do you look for when hiring promoting people within the the firm from that trust is it a value is it a trait yeah just want to get your thoughts on trust because it's something that i think very important to you it is values isn't it to start off with you can't make you interview someone and you don't really know them and then it's actions isn't it that your actions are aligned to those values so it's It's how you help your colleagues out.

37:26It's how you look after your clients. It's how you look after yourself, which is really important. That you are, you know, years ago, we all had to pretend to be robots as lawyers, didn't we? We didn't have emotions. We all wore the same suits. And now, thanks to COVID, we can all dress differently and be ourselves. And thanks to people like you for getting that sort of personal brand out there. So I think trust is, yeah, you have to earn it. but also you've got to trust the people that most people want to do a good job and sometimes things get in the way that stop them doing that and we've got to unlock that so yeah I think that that for me what it's about is what it's about yeah no really really well said and we absolutely support that and yeah obviously as a show we're trying to build that community we're trying to you know bring amazing voices like yourself to the show that you know are really leading not just the law firms now but of you know like you say you're getting them ready for the future, the next generation, supporting them, instilling new ways of working, new practices.

38:28Because, you know, the only constant in business is change, isn't it? And you have to evolve as a firm or as a senior leader. And it's really encouraging to see that you're proactive about that as well, rather than reactive. So let's talk a bit about the early stages, back to the early stages of your journey, then you touched on before you started life as a barrister. So you qualified as a barrister before becoming a solicitor. What influenced your decision to go from barrister to solicitor? I hated being a barrister. So I haven't wanted to be one. I got there and thought, what is this all about?

39:00I didn't, I think at that age, I didn't have any confidence. I was riddled with self-doubt. And I remember when I was leaving, a very famous female Casey said to me, why are you going? You're really good. And I said, because I don't think I can, I don't think I can do it. And she said, do you not think we all think like that? And I thought, gosh, if someone had said that to me at the beginning there may have been a different outcome so I think that's why it's important to show that we're all human and we've all got the same fears and doubts so yeah became a solicitor actually with the law firm that um was representing um in the court of appeal because that made that connection um and then realized that actually I really like people I really like teams I like the fact that some of my clients I've had for 28 years some of those connections and whereas a barrister, you're into one case and then you're on to the next one.

39:52You don't see the full story, do you? David Savage is a partner at HFW in London. With a wealth of experience in regulatory and white-collar crime matters, David advises on sanctions, fraud, corruption, money laundering, market manipulation, market abuse and insider trading. David is a recognised leader in his field by Legal 500 and Chambers as a next-generation partner. So a very big warm welcome to the show, David. Rob, it is lovely to be here. Thanks for having me. How are you doing? I'm doing very well and the pleasure is all ours to host you on the Legally Speaking podcast today. Before we get into what will be undoubtedly a fantastic show, we do have a customary question here on the Legally Speaking podcast, which is, on a scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of its reality of the law if you've seen it?

40:41I have never seen Suits, and I purposely try not to watch any legal shows because I always get very frustrated when I think that they're actually completely not linked to what the reality of a law firm is. So I'm going to give it a hot five. I'm going to give it a five out of ten. There we go. Diplomatic five. And with that, we'll move swiftly on to talk all about you. So to begin with, David, do you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? Absolutely. So I'm David. I was born in the 1980s to two parents in the Royal Air Force and then spent quite a bit of time in my kind of youth moving around East Anglia with my mum.

41:20She did a law degree when I was about 10 years old, which probably had some impact on my career decisions down the line, which I think we'll maybe talk about later on. She met my dad when I was 10. They got married and my dad adopted me when I was 11 years old, which was pretty cool. And then they had another couple of kids, my brother and sister, who I'm incredibly close to. We moved to Scotland when I was 12 and I was this little camp boy in a Scottish school, which had its own challenges. But I managed to soldier on, joined the Air Cadets for a number of years, which was fantastic. got to the rank of sergeant sergeant savage was my name which i thought was perfect uh and then when it came to figuring out what i wanted to do um i originally wanted to be a commercial airline pilot and just as i was figuring out whether i wanted to go to university or to commercial pilot school 9-11 happened and i realized that i wouldn't be able to afford to put myself through commercial pilot training so second choice law and i applied to a number of law degrees, universities and Newcastle gave me an unconditional offer which to my mind made my final year of high school much easier.

42:32So I took that one and had an absolutely stellar time at Newcastle reading law, a really fantastic city both to figure out a bit more about who I was and becoming more of an independent person and exploring my sexuality a bit more but also just a really good law school too and it was there that I kind of started thinking more seriously about a career in law and in my second year much like many students do I applied for some vacation schemes it was incredibly scattergun the approach but I was fortunate to get vacation schemes in in London with Richard Butler in Leeds with Walker Morris and in Bristol with Burgess Salmon because I wanted to see what kind of city I wanted to live in having never lived in London itself and I came down to London on the train to my first vacation scheme and I was still 19 years old at the time and I was just blown away with being in the city it just felt so freeing it felt so professional and I did my my two weeks at Rich's Butler and absolutely loved it and then got my offer of a training contract just before my 20th birthday so I was pretty young to get that that kind of in the bag.

43:44I did the other vacation schemes, but they didn't quite live up to the heavy heights of a London lawyer's life. So I accepted that. Went to York for my College of Law. Again, a really fun year. Travelled for six months after that. So did a bit of Asia, did a bit of Australia and New Zealand and really enjoyed that and found a lot more of my independent self there. And then started my training contract, had a really good time, did four seats all of them bar one were contentious i went on to comment to mtv because i thought i wanted to be a media lawyer and promptly discover that drafting contracts really wasn't my cup of tea but got to spend a lot of time with alpha beat and the ting tings and a little bit of girls allowed as well so that was my my small claim to fame they obviously don't remember me which is a shame because i could have got free tickets so i was allowed last year um and then i i qualified just as the financial crisis happened which was stressful and I qualified into the commodities team and kind of really got into the I guess the depths of being a proper lawyer.

44:46Much like many lawyers after a couple of years I wanted to see what else was out there so I moved to Eversheds again in the commodities team there and that's where I found my kind of real passion in law which was sanctions and financial crime and enjoyed six or so years there before deciding to move in-house for a couple of years as head of sanctions for a bank which was really really fascinating just to see the operational challenges that comes with fighting the good fight um but I then kind of got the call back to back to private practice that the lure kind of I couldn't resist it and I joined Stewart's as a partner in the financial crime team there and then very recently about a year ago HFW reached out they were looking for another sanctions partner uh HFW as you as you may know as a firm with a sectoral focus, so shipping, commodities, aerospace, insurance and reinsurance, construction, and company and commercial.

45:41And I just felt it married up my kind of passion for sanctions and financial crime with my legacy experience of being a commodities lawyer. And so I happily joined the firm, and it's been a stellar year or so. So that's a very brief overview of who I am and where I've come from. I think you did that fantastically well. And What a great journey. And thank you for being very open with that. It's always super helpful to understand how people get to these amazing positions that you're in today and where you started. So let's focus on the now then. HFW, partner in the London office. Tell us more about the area of law you specialize in for those who might be less familiar.

46:17And maybe just some simple examples of what things might look like for you. I'm happy to do so. So I focus mainly on international sanctions and export controls. And put simply, these are the various restrictions that the EU, the UK and the USA, as well as other governments, put in place to restrict certain trade and financial activity with regimes which they consider are engaging in activity which may be problematic. So a very good example, very topical at the moment is Russia. You'll be aware that over the last three years following the invasion of Ukraine, there has been a rapid increase in the kind of the level scope and nature of sanctions against Russia, ultimately designed to restrict flows of funds into Russia and to restrict Russia's ability to continue its war efforts.

47:07And what we do is we advise clients on how to comply with sanctions. we advise clients on when there may be a problem in terms of their compliance they may have in fact breached sanctions and we basically try and help them through that process so looking at the kind of life cycle of a sanctions matter we kind of help with identifying risks at the very beginning so how do you prevent these problems from happening and how do you mitigate those kind of exposures kind of go on to advice in relation to real life transactions as they're happening. So a vessel is about to take on a cargo. That cargo may have a link to a sanctioned country or a sanctioned company.

47:48And we basically analyze whether there is a problem or not on what the client can or can't do. When things go wrong, we investigate what's happened, how it happened. Is it one individual or is it a systemic problem with the company? And we try and help them figure out why it happened and then how to resolve it. And if there are major problems, we help them to self-report to regulators around the world. So in the UK, the Office of Financial Sanctions Implementation or the Office of Trade Sanctions Implementation, as well as other regulators, including HMRC and US regulators as well. So the DOJ, the FBI, I've worked with in the past, et cetera.

48:24And we also help in those investigations, just trying to make sure our clients, if they have made a mistake and if they have reported or are being investigated by those regulators, have as positive an outcome as possible, because the fines, if you do get it wrong can be in the magnitude of multiples of millions. There's also potential for criminal prosecution as well. So trying to manage that kind of dynamic. So it's a broad church of work. And we work for clients across every sector. So the traditional HFW ones, shipping commodities, all the way through to professional services. I've got some AI clients that I'm working with.

48:56So it's really fascinating because you're kind of advising on an area of law, which is quite novel in and of itself. But then you're getting to approach all these different clients and getting to learn about their businesses, which I actually really, really love. So it's a really fun job. It's quite heated at the times. There's a lot of stress that's involved with it. But I think, you know, for me, I kind of thrive in that. And it's very geopolitical, and I'm quite politically minded. So it's kind of just a joy to kind of help clients navigate these various international challenges. James Quornby, the partner and head of private wealth at Stevenson Harwood in London.

49:29He created the private wealth team in 2014, and since then has grown the team to over 50 lawyers across six jurisdictions. Having been described as a fount of all knowledge and legend of the private wealth space by Chambers, James has extensive experience advising on UK and international taxation, pensions, trust, asset protection, and HMRC disputes. He has also featured on BBC Breakfast, BBC News, Sky News, Bloomberg TV, LBC, and Times Radio. So a very big warm welcome, James. Thanks, Rob. Good to see you. Yeah, it's a pleasure to have you on the show. And before we dive into all the great work you've been getting up to, we do have a custom icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking podcast, which is, on the scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit series Suits in terms of its reality of the law if you've seen it?

50:22Well, I have to admit, I have not seen an entire episode of Suits. I probably watched one bit of one episode and metaphorically threw a brick at the television. So if I could give it a one. You can give it a one. And I think you've justified your answer very clearly. And with that, we'll move swiftly on to talk all about. Yeah, we'll talk all about you. So would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? So my career journey is perhaps slightly irregular. And, you know, most people that I see coming in to the firm have had the traditional trajectory of school, university, internships and traineeships.

51:08I didn't do any of that. Well, I did actually did go to school. Let me just get that out of the way. And I did go to actually I did. Yeah, I did go to university in the end. But what happened was that. But so my background is I come from a very working class part of Essex and in a single mother situation. So I needed to earn some money to help pay the household bills. So at 16, I left school and I went to work for the commercial cashiers department of British Telecom, North London District. There you go. Very glamorous. um and um bless i mean people do complain about bt and all these huge utilities but bless their hearts they saw something in me um because i started off opening envelopes if you can just imagine these are the days where you paid your bills by sending a check and a counter foil in an envelope to the appropriate uh so we would get literally like 12 sacks of mail every morning and that needed to be opened and reconciled.

52:11But BT saw something in me and I got promoted. I went and then worked in the accounts department dealing with customers or subscribers, we used to call them subs, which always made me feel like they were slightly subhuman. Oh, I've got a sub on the line. And then BT saw something in me and put me on fast track to management. So I then was put on, I was basically sent to business school. That's really what happened on a sort of day release basis for a period of four years. So in business school, I learned business finance economics. And there's law in there as well, which is quite interesting. Come back to that later.

52:55So for those people that follow me on LinkedIn, you'll see that I have I'm a bit of a tax policy geek. And the reason for that is that I've got economics and finance qualifications. So I do actually understand the underlying economics of tax. And so fast forward after going through all that, you know, I then left BT when I was 21 and I then went to university to do a law degree. And then when it came time to qualify, because I'm going to skip over my traineeship because the firm I was with are absolutely hated and I will not even mention their names. then I when I decided to qualify a tax job seemed absolutely perfect because if you've got an economics background and also I worked in a an accounts team and because I eventually became a quite senior manager in BT in the commercial cashiers team where we had to reconcile like eight million pounds of income every day moving into tax laws seemed quite a neat fit and so it's a bit of an experiment on my part you know am i any good at tax law well you won't know till you've tried um now am i any good at tax law now i don't know but i seem to be making a decent living so someone seems to think i'm so so that in as quickly as i can give you is how i got to um going into tax yeah absolutely and you know what uh thank you for being so open about your your journey as well because it's only going to help so many people from all walks of life who are thinking about careers and you know what they're what they're getting up to and showing everything is possible.

54:24So maybe let's fast forward then, because you've had a host of accolades throughout your legal career. And as I said in the intro, you know, described as a legend of the private wealth space. So I guess for, you know, we've got listeners from all sort of walks, those aspiring to get into the law, some sort of already currently practicing the law and elsewhere. So could we start just very simply by explaining what private wealth is, please, for our listeners? Yeah, it's a bit of a trendy name for private client. And I think, I'm not sure at what point this happens. But at some point in the, I'd say probably more the turn of the century, private client was seen as a little bit of a stuffy description for what we do.

54:59Because a lot of the outside world and the profession itself saw private client as boring little lawyers scratching away with wills and trusts and probate. And the private client world has become much more internationalized. So private wealth, which then encompasses taxation, because typically private client lawyers were not very good at tax. You know, your high street private client lawyer didn't need to be because the only tax they ever really encountered was inheritance tax. And as far as CGT was concerned, the only CGT was, well, actually, there's a tax free uplift on death, so we don't need to worry about it.

55:33So private wealth is an attempt to encapsulate So that traditional side of drafting and process with tax advice and then wider wealth advisory which is essentially what the big firms do now is that no we're not bankers and we're not asset asset but we do advise on wealth. So private wealth is essentially that shorthand when people talk to me in parties, I just say, look, I look after rich people. Yeah. That's the easiest way of describing it. But the skill set is completely different. And this is why, you know, we often have great problems recruiting people. Because just because someone's good at doing wills and trusts and probates and enduring powers of attorney does not mean they're any good for our practice because you need a completely different set of skills on top of that.

56:36You need all of those skills, plus you need to understand a lot more about finance, a lot more about holding structures, be they trust, partnerships, companies, the interaction between the two. You need a lot of tax knowledge. So it's actually quite hard finding people. It's not boring, but I would say that if If you're not very good at it or you're learning, it can be quite stressful. Yeah. And just obviously from any of my own legal recruiting business and knowing how certain other firms are structured and, you know, getting that level of experience across the board to what would obviously be required to join a great firm like Stevenson-Harwood, I fully appreciate what you're saying.

57:13Let's get more into your day-to-day then, because obviously, you know, you've risen quickly. A typical day as a partner for you and head of a private wealth practice, what sort of stuff do you get up to? What are some of your responsibilities? Um... Well, I'm very conscious when I wake up, I've probably only got about 14 hours of time to eat, travel, do work and all the rest of it. So I think I think time management is is absolutely crucial. And my job is a constant battle to find time to do things that are important. And pushing away things that are not important or I don't want to do. One of the lovely things about getting older and more important and being named as a legend of the private client space and all that is you can say no.

58:04And it's one of the best words in the English language. So if there's stuff I don't want to do, I'll just say no, thanks. I really don't fancy that. Whereas when you're younger and you don't want to say no because you think someone's going to get annoyed with me or they're not going to ask me again and all the rest of it. So really, it's just managing that. We've got a team in London of 12 or 13 associates doing the core private wealth stuff that I've described. And I've got pretty much work with all of them. So I'm not necessarily managing their lives because we've actually got other partners in the team that do the sort of, if you like, the pastoral management.

58:44I'm not terribly interested in that. It's not my skill set. so I would be managing the cases, supervising them. But my main role, I'd say, is outreach. And that's why I decided to be more active on LinkedIn. Most lawyers don't go anywhere near their LinkedIn. They only do anything where there's some kind of anniversary or they've won an award. So there'll be a bit of humble bragging on LinkedIn and then they won't go near it. But when you get more engaged with LinkedIn, you can't really stop. And the more you put on, the more engagement you get. And some people thought it was a sort of vanity project on my part to sort of just get my name out more.

59:24And it wasn't actually because I just enjoy broadcasting information in a certain way. And I wasn't expecting to get work out of it. But as it happens, as the way that LinkedIn algorithms work is that the more you post, the more engagement you get, the more engagement you get. It's kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. I actually get quite a lot of work out of it now. So I can do a post and it reaches 20, 30, 40 ,000 people. The last post I put on has already got up to 130 ,000. It would take me an awfully long time to have 130 ,000 meetings. So just going back to my original point, I don't have any time.

1:00:05So if I can push out some information or review and it engages 40, 50 ,000 people, Some of those people, I mean, most of those people are not going to be useful to me. Some of those people will be quite useful people and they will turn into clients. And that is what has actually happened. So now I don't spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. Despite my profile, it's probably about 10 or 15 minutes a day, but it's very well spent. The other side is the traditional face-to-face meetings to pitch to clients. And the reason the clients are coming to me is because they've been recommended by the usual range of existing clients, intermediaries, or they've just heard of me or read about me in a directory, or they've seen me on media of various kinds.

1:00:55So I'd say probably half my time is developing business and bringing business in, and the other half is doing the business and then pushing away stuff I don't like. today's episode is brought to you by clio are you frustrated with your current legal management software you're not alone and thousands of solicitors across the uk feel your pain however the hassle of moving all their existing client and case data holds most back from switching prolonging the frustration clio is here to help their dedicated migration team will be with you every step of the way while you transfer your information and if you have any questions you'll get award-winning support available 24-5 by live chat, phone and email.

1:01:39So help is always there when you need it most. It's no wonder Clio is consistently receiving five-star ratings with ease of use and top-notch service. If you're ready to leave frustration behind, visit clio.com forward slash UK to learn more and see why Clio continues to be the go-to choice for solicitors across the UK. Now back to the show. Martin O'Malley is the CEO of Walters Kluwer, legal and regulatory division. He has more than 20 years of experience in operations, sales, customer support, product development, and marketing. Martin has led businesses across Europe, the US, Asia Pacific, and has extensive international experience.

1:02:16So a very big warm welcome to the show, Martin. Thank you, Rob. Thanks for having me. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the show today. And before we dive into all the great work that you are doing we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking podcast which is on the scale of one to ten with ten being very real what would you rate the hit tv series suits in terms of its reality of the law if you've seen it yeah I have to say I do confess to having seen some of the earlier episodes um but I'm not a lawyer by background so I haven't really been looking at you with that lens but I asked my wife and she said she would give Harvey a nine.

1:02:54There we go. Well, that's very high praise for Harvey. Very high praise for Harvey. He's a real skill, of course. Absolutely. Absolutely. So let's get back to you then, as we move swiftly on. Would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? Yeah. So I grew up in the West of Ireland. So I've spent exactly half my life, I realized, in the West of Ireland. I studied engineering and I started my career at Relics, at the L-Sphere piece of Relics. First in operations, but I've been very fortunate to kind of move through different functions in the company, so operations, product management, marketing and sales, through to unit leadership.

1:03:35And I started at that very interesting point, which was the whole printed digital migration. It seems like a long time ago. And in addition to the fact that I had multiple functions, I've also been very lucky that I started in Ireland, I worked in the UK, moved to Amsterdam and from there I was sent to both Singapore and the US so I kind of got international exposure I moved to Waterloo in 2017 and I started out as the MD for the Benelux for legal and regulatory in May of 2020 in the middle of COVID I actually became the CEO and I currently run the division it's about 950 million euros turnover we operate in multiple countries across Europe, the US, China and India.

1:04:21And I was really drawn to it because of its purpose, what's core purpose, which is to get back on what matters most. And it's this idea that we help our clients to be impactful, but also that we also indirectly have an impact in the societies we operate in. So that was a very powerful thing and it still motivates me today. Yeah, absolutely. And we love having those voices on the show that really are inspired to make a real impact. Just thinking back to James Thornsson, who's one of the leading climate change legal professionals in the world, and some great conversations we've had. But congratulations on becoming the CEO, and I know you're doing some fantastic work from your side.

1:04:57Could you perhaps give us a bit of a day in the life of a CEO at Walters Crewer? Yeah, I mean, it's, you know, if you run a division at Walters Crewer, we kind of work on a certain cadence, and if you zoom out, it's like a three-year plan which gets translated into your yearly budget. And then it's basically, you know, monthly reporting where you're kind of looking at it from an internal perspective, how is the business developing? But a big part of that is also looking at what we're doing with our customers. And what is due as this mission, which is focused on what we call basically transforming our business towards expert solutions, where we combine our expertise or the main knowledge of certain segments, in my case, legal and registry.

1:05:39So the legal professionals with technology, with content and data, to help our customers be more effective. So I would say in all of our internal meetings, there's always kind of an element of what we're doing for customers. We spend a long time looking at things like net promoter scores, but also how that's translating into business results. So you're always kind of toggling between those two. And sandwiched between that, obviously, is focused on employees. We have a very strong focus on culture. And culture is really, you know, I translate that into how good do we feel as employees at Water's Clure.

1:06:15So, you know, we measure our engagement scores every year because I have a very strong belief in happy customer. Happy employees translates into happy customers. And that's a kind of your financial results are an outcome of the two things you do for one of your employees and secondly for your customers. So they're outcomes rather than just an objective in itself. And I love that. And I always say to people with my legal recruiting hat on, don't just hire people for a job. You know, get people to really buy into the mission and feel they contribute to the mission. They have a real purpose as part of that rather than just coming to the do night five every day and just have a job.

1:06:49And obviously, you're doing a great job of that. Now, you didn't think we could get away with this podcast without talking about that little thing called AI, did you, Martin? Yeah. So, you know, we've got listeners of all sorts of levels of AI, you know, some very, very, very highly advanced. some obviously just dipping their toe in and some curious. So let's start at sort of the simple level to begin with. What's your definition of Gen AI? And with obviously a number of months since its arrival, what's the current state of adoption for the legal market for 2025 in your view? Yeah, I think there's probably a few different pieces to that.

1:07:21So let's break it out. I think Gen AI obviously has had a huge impact in a relatively short period of time of just kind of getting the general interest in AI. You know, if I sit at the table with my kids, I talk about AI to the point of where they say it's boring. But I think if you kind of zoom out and you look at AI from a work-to-work perspective, you know, we've been deploying AI for multiple years before Gen AI came along, and we've got multiple solutions in the market that actually uses AI. I think about 50 % of our revenue have some AI built in. But for us, the driver has been really, when we look at AI, we look at how can it help demonstrably impact customers.

1:08:05And there are principles we apply there, which are really focused on delivering the highest level of accuracy for our customers, where we're taking up two things we look at. One is how we combine human expertise and validated content with AI capabilities to ensure that you can deliver something that's of a high quality level. and quality translates into it does what customers expect, but it also operates in a secure and private manner. I think those are things that are important for us as a company, but also for our customers. And at the same time, provides the transparency to our clients that the results they see, they can trace them and that they're validated.

1:08:47So I think that's a very important piece. Now, if you look at where we are today in that journey, there is huge interest. So I just came back from a trip from China last week where I met law firms. I was talking to corporate lawyers, but also at government level. And the conversations I was having there were some conversations I had in the Netherlands or in any of the markets we operate in. And they typically hinge around things like, you know, what can I do to help improve my productivity? How can I do it in a safe way? How can I be sure that quality is confirmed? And I think they're looking to parties like Walter Stewart to actually deliver on that.

1:09:28So it's a very exciting time because it's not just about the technology. AI at the end of the day is just the technology of others. Gen AI or other forms of technology, they are only a means to an end. And the end is, I think, for our customers is how can we help the customers be more productive? So I think that is really the key focus. And that's where, frankly, the way we look at it across our business, it's part of our expert solution strategy, which is domain knowledge combined with technology to ultimately help our customers be more productive. Professor Katie Atkinson is the Associate Pro Vice Chancellor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Sustainability Research at the University of Liverpool.

1:10:11A professor in computer science, she has been conducting foundational and interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence for over 20 years, publishing over 150 articles. Katie was appointed to the Artificial Intelligence Advisory Board for the European Commission for Efficiency and is one of five members appointed across Europe. Since 2020, Katie has served as a member of the LawTech UK panel, a government-backed initiative to help transform the UK sector through technology. So, a very big warm welcome to the show, Katie. Good morning. Thank you very much for having me here to join you today.

1:10:45Oh, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the Legally Speaking podcast. And before we dive into all the amazing work that you're getting up to in and around the legal community, we do have an icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking podcast, which is, on the scale of 1 to 10, 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of its reality of the law on the scale of 1 to 10, if you've seen it? I don't watch it, so I can't give a very informed decision on that, but I'd probably go in middle of the road and say a five. Yep, and that's what I've given it before. And with that, we can move very swiftly on to talk all about you.

1:11:20So to begin with, Katie, would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? Yes, I'm a professor of computer science at the University of Liverpool, and I conduct academic research on foundations of AI, but specifically AI for law. So I've been doing this for about 20 years now since I finished my PhD and I've been working very much on the academic side. But in the last 10 years or so, I've started working a lot more with industry and with professional bodies. And as the legal tech field has flourished over the last decade, I've been doing a lot more of what you would call the translational work, taking the outputs from the academic community and translating them into real world solutions with law firms.

1:12:01Yeah, and that's why we're so keen to have you on today because it's so relevant for the now. But I guess I want to take your mind back to sort of earlier on. Where did your interest in computer science start originally and what made you decide to pursue a career focusing on that area? So I've got an undergraduate degree in computer science. And when I finished that, I wasn't sure whether I wanted to move into industry or really what my dream job would be at the end of it. But then it was suggested to me to do a PhD in computer science. I was really interested in the modules that I'd taken at university on the topic of artificial intelligence.

1:12:37So I decided to do a deep dive into that. And in my PhD, I was studying core aspects of AI. And one of the specific application areas I looked at in my PhD was law. I published a research paper on that, went along to a conference, and then I just got more interested in the legal application side and started focusing my energies on that and then that was the path that I followed in the rest of my research career after my PhD. Yeah and absolutely the right path to follow given the world that we're in now and super interesting. So I guess as the Associate Pro Vice Chancellor and Director of the Interdisciplinary Centre for Sustainability Research at the University of Liverpool what does your role actually involve?

1:13:19Tell people a little bit more about what you get up to. So my professor of computer science role is only 50 % of my role. My other role is this role that you mentioned as director of our new interdisciplinary centre for sustainability research. And that's recognising the importance of doing interdisciplinary research, not just in law. I do interdisciplinary research across other boundaries as well. And we want to get more people involved in this. Traditionally, in universities, people sit within their own disciplines, but now there's definitely a recognition that different skill sets are needed, different expert knowledge is needed to be able to tackle some of the big real world problems that we see.

1:13:58and they're very much articulated in the UN Sustainable Development Goals. So the focus of the centre that I'm now director of is getting together interdisciplinary teams to be able to tackle some projects that make tangible progress with UN Sustainable Development Goals. Yeah, absolutely. And we fully support that here on the Legally Speaking podcast. And something else that we try to do is to try and simplify things and reduce the overwhelm, particularly with complex things or advanced things that are going on in the world. And, you know, you're conducting, I understand, foundational and as you mentioned that interdisciplinary research on artificial intelligence and doing so for over 20 years.

1:14:35Would you mind explaining to our listeners the difference between foundational and perhaps interdisciplinary research on AI specifically? Sure. So foundational research is very much on what do we need to do to advance the field of AI, not necessarily with a specific application in mind. So you might say a lot of the work on natural language processing that you can see nowadays in the chat pots that we have in the generative AI models, that's what you would call foundational research. How do we develop new techniques, new methods, new algorithms that will drive forward the capabilities of AI? That's rather different to starting from an interdisciplinary perspective.

1:15:18With law, if you want to start by building an AI tool specifically for law, you have to understand the challenges that are specific to law. And that's why collaboration is really important. We talk a lot about co-creation. if you want to build an interdisciplinary application you have to have the people who are the domain experts in the room at the start being able to give their expert knowledge and then you can combine to to tackle that together yeah and I always say collaboration is domination and you reference that there and I think it's so important I mean but the areas of research you're doing are fascinating so obviously that includes again I understand sort of computational models of argument AI and law so you know with those models of argument how do they connect with how do they connect AI and law?

1:16:04Tell us a bit more, go a bit deeper. So you're right. I do research on what's called computational models of argument. That's the academic label, if you like, that we put on this field. How I explain it to a more generalist audience is really what we call explainable AI now. So it's building AI tools where if the AI software gives you an output or a recommendation, it can explain the reasoning that was undertaken in order to reach that conclusion or that recommendation. Now, I work on argumentation, which is looking at how people engage in debates, how they exchange arguments, how they try to persuade one another about what to believe or what the best course of action is.

1:16:44And obviously, a lot of that happens in the legal field. There's a lot of situations where there are debates and there are arguments going on. So I'm interested in how we can develop computational models of those so that we can build AI programs that can engage in the automated exchange of arguments. And then when a conclusion is reached by the AI system, it can explain why it accepted one line of reasoning and not some other line of reasoning. Fascinating stuff. I'm really kind of enjoying this because this is definitely where the puck is going. And, you know, we've got a whole range of listeners from those entering the law.

1:17:20Obviously, those have been in the profession for a long time and you know I'm sure this will be raising a few eyebrows in a good way and from a sort of educational and as I say where that puck is going which is where we always want to have the conversations on the show. I want to talk about Law Tech UK now because since 2020 you've served as a member of the Law Tech UK panel, a government-backed initiative. So for those who are unfamiliar could you explain more about Law Tech UK's mission? So Law Tech UK was set up to really They turbocharged the law tech ecosystem in the UK. It's backed by the UK Ministry of Justice, and it's meant to provide some strategic oversight to the UK to help the startup community, to help founders who are looking to find their way through unfamiliar territory to support and to scale up as well, to provide education programs and to bring together the collaboration piece and mentoring as well.

1:18:14So people who've done this before so that they can support others on that startup journey and we can benefit the Law Tech UK system in the whole of the UK. I can absolutely vouch for Law Tech UK. I sit on the board of a couple of legal techs, one being Case Guru, and had some really good experiences with all the great work that's being done there. So from, again, I think it's April 2023, Law Tech UK has been managed by Codebase and LegalGeek on behalf of the Ministry of Justice, as you sort of briefly referenced. So as a member of the panel, then, can you share some of the initiatives you're currently working on or excited to be working on?

1:18:46So there's a really big education program and it's aimed at startups who are on different stages of the journey. We've got the startup education, the scale up that I mentioned. So mentorship is really important. I think we're now a tally of 89 startups who have been supported. We have a mentor pool that's got over 60 people in it and they come from a range of different backgrounds. Founders of unicorn firms, successful founders who've either grown their business or exited the market, people working in law firms, people in the investment landscape. So we want to give mentorship to people. We want to give education programs and ultimately we want to help with adoption as well.

1:19:27I'm delighted to be joined by Chris Bogart and David Perler. Chris is the CEO, Director, and Co-Founder of Burford Capital. Under his leadership, Burford Capital has become the leading global provider of legal finance with a group-wide portfolio of nearly$7.5 billion and a force in the global market. David is the Vice Chair at Burford Capital and oversees marketing, public policy, industry affairs, and public relations. An entrepreneur and legal industry leader, David was named a top 50 innovator of the last 50 years by the American lawyer. So a very big warm welcome to the show, Chris and David.

1:20:03Thank you, Rob. Thanks, Rob. Great to be here. It's an absolute pleasure to have you both on the show today. But before we get into all the amazing work and experiences you've both had over the years, we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 10, 10 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series suits in terms of its reality of the law if you've seen it? Coming to you first, Chris. So I haven't seen it, but from what I understand, the rating should be something like a two. Mostly because I gather everything happens, everything wraps up in the space of one single episode, which, you know, it would be lovely if law worked like that, but it doesn't.

1:20:49I think that's very fair. But before saying more, I'll come to you, David, for your response. So I'll give it a three. And here's why I'll just add one extra. So three reasons it gets a three. Number one, they are zealous advocates for their clients. So they get one point for that. Number two, the way the associates and partners interact and play off each other is somewhat realistic, if caustic. But the third, the reason they get a three is there is no shortage of colorful characters in great law firms around the world, and Suits gets that part right. So they get an extra point for the colorful characters.

1:21:26The rest is tremendously entertaining fiction, as Chris said. I think that's one of the best detailed answers per point. So I think you win that accolade, David, but let's get into it more seriously. Chris, would you mind telling us a bit about your background and career journey and then David? Sure. Very briefly, I was a banker for a couple of years before law school. I went to law school. I had a pretty traditional early legal career. I'm Canadian, and so I clerked for a Canadian court, the chief judge of the the Ontario Appellate Court after law school. And then I went and became an associate at one of the big New York firms, Kravath Swain and Noor.

1:22:11Where it became less typical after that is that I was fortunate at Kravath to have a really active litigation practice. Unlike lots of big firm associate journeys, I got to do real on my feet litigation from a very, very early stage. And so I developed quite a trial practice. And I had some big clients, even as an associate, one of which was Time Warner, the no longer giant entertainment firm, entertainment and media firm. And they asked me just before I was going to be a partner, they asked me instead to leave Cravath and come and be their general counsel. So I did that. That was an extraordinary opportunity at a young age.

1:22:55I did that. I then inside Time Warner pivoted after a while to a business job and ran the advanced technology business. And then I branched out on my own and ran a technology media venture capital business. The litigation finance thing that we do now came about sort of as an accident. We can talk a little bit more about how that came to be. But I've been now running Burford for the last 15 or 16 years. Yeah, and what a phenomenal journey. And thanks for sharing that. And David, we'd love to come to you to learn more about your background. Sure. So mine started off like Chris's traditional. I was a corporate lawyer at a large firm in New York City.

1:23:35But I also had a lot of emerging technology clients. It was the 1990s, mid to late 1990s, in what we call Internet 1.0. And I was then hired to go in-house at the parent company of Monster.com, which was a very fast-growing internet company and ended up as their head of legal and business affairs, relocating from New York to Boston. So that was 10 years. As part of that journey, somewhat like Chris's, you meet people along the way and they influence you. I met a tremendous number of entrepreneurs whose companies we bought who encouraged me to start a company, to do something entrepreneurial. And in 04, together with my best friend from law school, We started a business in India to provide English language legal work for large companies like the legal departments we'd run.

1:24:25And we grew that, ultimately selling it to Thomson Reuters, growing it to about a thousand people before we left in 2012. So that was an eight-year journey. I thought I would be an entrepreneur and then was recruited to become president of Bloomberg Law. Did that through the end of 2016. Again, thought I would be an entrepreneur. And then I got a call and was introduced to Chris. We had lunch twice, and that was seven-plus years ago. And Chris persuaded me that I really wanted to be a Burford, which I did. And litigation, this was really my first stint since law school, really knee-deep in litigation, which I think what we do is a terrific value, and we think it's innovative and entrepreneurial.

1:25:10And that appealed to me. but also I'd had the large company experience from Thompson Reuters and from Bloomberg. So it was a nice fit. Yeah, absolutely. So was it the conversation or was it just a really nice lunch that sealed the deal? It was both. If you know Chris, it was the red wine most likely. Good stuff. Well, let's get into a sort of typical day. Chris, coming back to you, what does your role involve and what does a typical day look like? And then back to you, David, afterwards. So I don't have very many typical days because I have a great job and my job has several different components to it.

1:25:50Burford, obviously, as the world's biggest leading litigation finance firm, we spend a lot of our time looking at potential litigation finance investments. So really interesting legal cases and putting them through our diligence and underwriting process and ultimately making decisions about them. And then once we invest in them, be involved in what happens to the cases as they go through the process. And so I spend some of my time doing that, thinking about cases before we invest in them and be involved in big, significant litigation matters after we've invested in them, especially at sort of a strategic level.

1:26:28So that's the fun part of the litigation end of the job. I also spend a fair bit of my time just running the business and also doing the public-facing side of it. So I spend a fair bit of my time meeting with investors, talking to potential investors, and doing the other things that come with having a multi-billion dollar public company around you. So, you know, on any given day or week, the mix of those things will be different. But those are the key components of it. Yeah, no, super interesting. And David, we'd love to come to you for what a typical day or no typical day, perhaps, from your side as well.

1:27:05Like Chris, typical is different every day. My role has progressed over the seven years of Burford, which is part of the joy of a place like Burford is. If you were with us for any amount of time, your role will expand and change in interesting and fascinating ways. So most recently, I became vice chair in the early fall, which my day job, as it were, is to oversee our public-facing activities. So marketing, public relations, policy, and industry relations. So it might involve a podcast. It might involve reviewing materials or working on incredibly important global policy issues. So like everyone at Burford, the role is global in nature.

1:27:55We're all over the world. But in different variations, I worked on the front end of the business, underwriting, origination, worked on the operation, technology. I spent a lot of time because of my background also working on things like innovation, artificial intelligence, things we might do as the industry and technology evolves. Yeah, and evolves at a pace. And one thing I'm getting loud and clear and while I'm so excited for today is the passion I can hear from both yourself and Chris, what you do. So I guess, Chris, coming back to you, what motivates you in the work that you do? Well, this is just for me the best combination of the things that I've done in the past, right?

1:28:35I love law and litigation, although there are elements of litigation that I don't particularly love, and I get not to do those in this job. So I don't need to do document production and deposition discovery and so on. I get to do litigation strategy without having to pay the price of actually being in the trenches doing the cases. So I get a great deal of enjoyment out of just being involved over and over and over again in a large number of really significant global pieces of litigation. You know, I get to see because because the way because law is so time intensive, if you're the lead partner at a law firm working on a big case, you know, you're only going to be able to do a few big cases at a time because because they each take so much of your of your day.

1:29:27Because I don't have that work component, that discovery and fighting the trenches component, then I can do at any given time many more cases than a law firm partner can. And that really I find incredibly enjoyable. And I also really enjoy the fact that we have developed and built this industry and talking about what we do in the industry to people around the world. Emma Mack is a solicitor advocate and until recently was a senior associate at Clifford Chance. She has nearly a decade of experience in big law, corporate and commercial disputes, litigation, arbitration, mediation, expert termination and settlement negotiations.

1:30:08Emma also specialised in obtaining interim relief and enforcing judgements inside and outside of the English jurisdiction. Remarkably, she has never lost a case. Emma has increasingly been active on LinkedIn since 2024, encouraging those in the legal profession to share their journeys and words of wisdom. She was also made a finalist in the Solicitor of the Year 2024 Awards, run by the 100 Years Project, which was founded by Dana Denise Smith OBE, which seeks to promote female participation in the legal industry. So a very big walk. Welcome to the show, Emma. Thank you very much. Thank you for inviting me on the show.

1:30:43I'm conscious I'm sitting alongside some very impressive previous guests. So thank you for giving me a seat at the table. Oh, it's our absolute pleasure. And before we dive into all the amazing work you have done for the legal industry and no doubt will continue to do so, we do have a custom icebreaker question here on the Legally Speaking podcast, which is on a scale of one to ten, ten being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of its reality of the law if you've seen it? Okay, so this is where I have to admit that I haven't seen it, but I'm going to turn the question around and ask you what do you think the answer is?

1:31:16That's a very good way to lawyer on me. I've said in previous shows, I sort of sit between a sort of five and six. I think there are some elements of it that could potentially be realistic, but a large part of it is showbiz. That's kind of where I sit. So with that, we can agree. Yeah, I think some of the nice suits, some of the offices, I think the actual lawyering part is very off the mark. So I think a lot of the lawyers that have been on and given it a rating of sort of one or zero. I think there's some validness on that where Harvey can sort of be a corporate lawyer one minute, then he's in court, then he's a litigator, then he's doing these closing deals in seconds.

1:31:56I think all of that is probably a little bit far stretched. but I love the show, I love the entertaining factor and I love how you managed to make me answer to that question, you were the first guest to do that. So well done, very good lawyering skills. So let's get back to you though, so to begin with would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? Yeah, so I thought it'd be interesting to start with my parents and grandparents and the role education played but I'm conscious that's going quite far back so obviously do just cut in if you feel like I'm going off topic at some point.

1:32:27um so I am from Birmingham born and raised which is where my parents moved in the 80s for work and had me and my dad's side of the family is from the east end of London they had a corner shop in Bethnal Green and my mum's side of the family is from Yorkshire um my dad went to uni uh but I don't think my mum did I think she went to art college and then taught textiles at a local polytechnic. And my grandma, who I've written about fairly extensively on LinkedIn, was born in 1914 and really saw that first cusp of women staying in education for longer and getting careers and all of the big questions around whether you can stay in work once you're married and or have children.

1:33:16But that kind of, in a nutshell, education is really transformative in terms of my family's history and also really informed my childhood. And so that kind of takes me into school, which is I wasn't necessarily that stellar at school initially. I have written a little bit about having dyslexia in my earlier years and being taken out of the classroom for special classes. But then sort of as time went on, my grades were kind of improving. And by the time I got to the end of secondary school, I was looking at studying Italian language and literature at Oxford University, which was a tough degree, but I enjoyed it a lot and came out with a double first and went on to do an Italian master's.

1:34:05And I think that that's a kind of an interesting point in which to break because that was 2010-2011, which is post-financial crisis. And I was seeing a lot of my friends who had done three-year degrees, be in the sort of job market with a solid degree in a STEM subject, and there was this huge bottleneck because you had kind of a few years of graduates coming out of uni and not getting into the workplace. So I was watching all of that going, dear Lord. And then there was also the fact that the government of the day was slashing funding and further education. So the arts and humanities were taking the bigger hit of that slashed funding and a PhD wasn't necessarily looking like the most bright future that one could go through.

1:34:53So I think it was really at that point that I started investigating careers fairs and obviously it's quite a well-trodden path from humanities into law. No one in my family is a lawyer though so it's not as if it kind of came from home or anything like that. and I did all of the traditional stuff that people do when they're thinking about a law conversion so lots of applications for vacation schemes lots and lots of rejections I got rejected from every single law firm I applied to but one and that was Clifford Chance and I attended a winter workshop that they put on for postgrads from a non-law background in winter of I want to say yeah 2011 maybe something like those lines and that was really invaluable that for me was the turning point and I think it is for so many people about then being able to speak quite cogently at interview about your understanding of what a training contract involves and therefore securing a training contract job offer so you know just fast forwarding over the usual stuff went back to uni to do a law conversion and the LPC in order to specialize into being a solicitor.

1:36:06And I did my two-year training contract at CC, choosing to qualify into litigation and dispute resolution, where I went on to practice for nine years. And as you know, I left the firm recently. At the moment, I'm at a bit of a career's crossroads thinking about next steps. But that's sort of my career journey to date. yeah and thank you for for sharing that and i'm a big advocate actually for you know starting at the beginning i talk a lot about my late grandfather who ran his own law firm and that was an inspiration for why i wanted to kind of continue doing work in in this space and leave a legacy in in legal i love that you talk about your grandma you write about her and that sort of inspiration and then some of those family values and a fellow midlands i'm a leicester man so birmingham leicester miles away but you had a fantastic um you know time and you did some great work at CC you mentioned there obviously specializing across commercial disputes litigation arbitration mediation you know a whole host of different pieces of work um just tell us a bit about that as much as you would you would like to in terms of some of those areas and and any tips maybe people thinking about getting experience in those areas that you think would be helpful yeah so I'd say my client base was principally corporates or individuals within corporate organizations.

1:37:17And the way I think of corporates in a very broad sense is a non-financial institution. So I sort of divide the world up into that sort of lens. And the reason why they would come to a firm like Clifford Chance is because of high risk or bet the business disputes that they need advice or representation on. And as you say, those disputes could be in the courts, they could be in arbitration, they could be in expert determination. And the forum really depends on the relevant contract that underpins the legal relationship between the parties. So the first thing that we would do would look at the governing law and the jurisdiction clause to see, you know, where are we talking about here?

1:38:00And then we'd really be acting for them with a view to try and resolve the dispute, whether that's through settlement kind of commercial outcome, or whether it's sort of going to the very end of a dispute and getting the outcome that you were hoping for, really. So the kinds of disputes we're talking about, and I'm going to talk about these in slightly sort of layman's terms, because that's part of how I think about them, and I think it makes it more digestible, is one aspect of that is what I call business divorce. So you have business partners who fall out, and they no longer want to work together, they no longer want to run or own the business together, but they've not been able to amicably work out how they're going to do that and so they bring in lawyers to try and work out how is this all going to get carved up I guess a bit like with a divorce and so that's some of the work that I would do would be for say one owner of a joint venture and one of my cases on that was a Blackpool football club case where there were two owners who were looking to separate and we were seeking a a buyout order essentially from the court for a certain sum of money.

1:39:08Another kind of case that I came up against a few times were completion account disputes. And that's a kind of growing area at the moment where buyers and sellers wrangle over the price they've paid for an acquisition of a target company or that they're due to pay. So you'd be looking at the completion account disputes in the SBA, the SBA being the share purchase agreement that kind of governs the value, how it gets quantified and what kinds of things are legitimate to raise for triggering that dispute. Jeremy Dean Casey is one of the most highly regarded defence counsel in the country, specialising in serious offences including murder, terrorism and organised crime.

1:39:51He has dealt with multiple high profile cases which have gained significant media attention. As described by Chambers and Partners, Jeremy is a fighter and no case is too complex for him. He works tirelessly to ensure the right outcome. So a very big warm welcome to the show, Jeremy. Thank you very much, Rob. I'm very happy to be here. Oh, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on the Legally Speaking podcast. Very excited to get into today's discussion. Before we dive into your incredible career, we do have an icebreaker question for you, Jeremy. On the scale of one to 10, with 10 being very real, What would you rate the hit TV series Suits in terms of its reality of the law if you've seen it?

1:40:31I'm afraid I haven't seen it. And that is all I can say about it. And with that, you can give it a zero and we can move swiftly on to talking all about you. So to begin with, Jeremy, would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey? Rob, I'm I've been at the criminal bar now since 1983. I was called to the bar in 1982, so a very, very, very long time ago, although it genuinely feels like yesterday. I was born in East London, believe it or not, because I know I don't sound like it. I'm a Cockney. I was born literally a few yards away from the Bow Bells in Bow Hospital.

1:41:09My father was as Cockney a character as you could ever come across with the thickest Cockney accent you could imagine. And my mum, too. And I grew up in East London. I went to a state school, went to Queen Mary College in the East End, although I didn't actually live at home perversely. Don't ask me why I did that, but that's what happened. I couldn't really prise myself away from my beloved East End and went to the bar. I was called in 1982, as I've said, and I've been on my journey incredibly now for four and a bit decades. and that's a very bare outline of my career path. And it's been such a successful career path and we're really honoured to have you on the show.

1:41:54And so getting into a bit more detail then, from sort of the old Bailey to the BBC, how do you actually balance the demands of being this top-tier criminal, Casey, I might add, within your role as well as a legal educator, if I can get my words out, and media commentator? Because it's a lot of work. Thanks for those comments, Rob. I don't really see myself that way, actually. I see myself still as a little kid from sort of sitting on the stairs trying to find out how West Ham were doing in the days when there was no TV football. So it's been an incredible journey. And, you know, in situations like this, really is the only time I reflect upon it.

1:42:36Otherwise, you just get on with your daily life. I mean, it has been action packed and it remains action packed. And that's the way I want it to be. And I think the answer is a lot to do with good fortune in the sense that, you know, I've got a wife who's incredibly free spirited. So, you know, I've got a lot of independence. She's very encouraging. I thrive on pressure. It's a bit of a love-hate relationship. but, you know, with all the things that are going on, they just keep me exhilarated and they keep my sense of, you know, ambition and momentum. So I kind of just balance them out, really.

1:43:18And I think, you know, for me, excitement and challenge are the food of life. So that's how I've kept it going. And, you know, at the moment, it's still the same level it's ever been. I'm sure there'll come a time in the not too distant future when I'll have to calm it down a bit. but that that point hasn't come yet and i don't want it to come yet for you just just yet so for us here on the show and you're right you know the famous quote pressure is a privilege and you know i remember a mentor said to me very early on you know new level new devil as you keep going up or keep getting involved there's going to be new things new challenges new things you need to overcome and it's part of your growth isn't it i think it is yeah i think it is yeah and you've defended in some of the most high profile uk criminal trials so what's been the most challenging case if you can share and what did it teach you most about justice?

1:44:07I mean I think every case is challenging because if you take it seriously which most criminal defence barristers do then what happens is that when you're in a trial it takes over your life it really does and it becomes the focal point of your life for that period of time especially obviously when you're doing very serious cases but I do think that the most challenging situation professionally was the Talisa case, who was an X-Factor judge and lead singer in N-dubs, who was subject to the Sun on Sunday sting at the hands of the Sun on Sunday and Mazel Mahmood, the fake sheikh, because that case was very serious.

1:44:48She was at risk of going to prison for a significant period of time. She was set up by the Sun on Sunday and by Mazel Mahmood. The evidence against her was difficult to counteract but morally and in terms of justice it would have been a real travesty if she'd been convicted and there was just incredible pressure on me in that case because her whole professional life her reputation her personal life were at stake and so that case stands out to me as being one where which was exceptionally stressful and challenging and that leads nicely on to a question I was going to ask, link to your mindset, values and resilience.

1:45:31And before I do that, I do remember that case. And our listeners will know the Legally Speaking podcast also has our own event with the high risk, the great big legal offsite. And we actually had the MC, Peter Dixon, of the voice of the X Factor in Britain, Scott Tallon. It was a fantastic event. So I'd encourage our listeners to go and check out that on the Legally Speaking podcast website to learn more about that event. But in terms of yourself, Jeremy, you've mentioned that case, you're a fearless advocate, obviously known for, you know, unwavering, if I can say, moral conviction. How do you actually stay grounded while defending clients in a very emotional and perhaps very ethically charged case?

1:46:07That's a very good question. I think what you do is you just commit yourself totally to the case and you know that you are the person that is standing between the state and the individual. that is a very, very important role. I never lose sight of the significance of that role. And you just fight the case as hard as you can. And in a way, there isn't any room for emotion or sympathy or anger or frustration. You're so all consumed with the challenge that you face that you just get on with it. And I'm very proud to be a criminal defence barrister. When I'm doing my cases, even now after, you know, so long, I know this is going to sound a bit cringy, but it's genuinely how I feel.

1:47:00I just feel very privileged to have been able to do a job, if that's the right word, which has such importance and which, you know, fulfills a major role in a free society. And whatever the verdict is, so be it. You know, that's not my responsibility. So I stay grounded by just getting on with it, doing what I'm there to do, doing the best of my ability and, you know, grappling with the challenges that confront me. And there is no time or space to kind of get anything else at the time you're doing these cases. Yeah. And you're exceptionally passionate and dedicated to what you do, hence the amount of accolades and market recognition you've had.

1:47:41And stemming, steaming from that, then I'm just thinking about misconceptions maybe the public has still about criminal defence work. And how do you hope maybe your media work and extra things that you've done is changing that and maybe changing some of those misconceptions? OK, well, I think, again, Rob, that's a very, very good and important issue you've raised and one that's very precious to me, because I regard the role of criminal defence lawyers in this country. I can't speak much about, you know, other countries, but I regard the work of defence lawyers in this country as so valuable. And honestly, if the public knew, if the public knew how hard we worked and the way we worked and the ethical standards we adhere to and the commitment we show and the role we play in society, I think they would take a very, very different view.

1:48:39And also, you know, especially for the lower echelons of the profession, the fees are not, you know, particularly good at all. And yet people get on and do such a fantastic job. So what my media opportunities have done is, I hope, enabled me to get that message across because there is nothing for criminal defence lawyers in this country to be maligned about. We do, you know, I'm very fortunate. I'm at the top of the profession. So, you know, I have time and space between my cases. I know what my diary is in the future. But the foot soldiers, they run around all over the country, day in, day out.

1:49:17They very often don't know what case they're going to be doing tomorrow, whether they go from Bristol to Manchester to Exeter. They get their briefs sometimes at 6pm at night because somebody else can't do the case. So they do an incredible job. And, you know, someone like me today, and I'm grateful to you for giving the opportunity, and in terms of my immediate opportunities generally, facilitate the message going out. Please, you know, recognize the fantastic work that we do. So I'm really happy that I have that opportunity. and I do value the opportunity to send out the message that it is possible to to follow your dream because because you know I have done it in circumstances where you know it was against the odds so it's great to be able to tell people do it because you know it can happen and you know so I'm really grateful to you for giving me that opportunity we're honored to have you and feel the fear and do it anyway right it's been an absolute joy hosting you genuinely jeremy really enjoyed it on the legally speaking podcast sponsored by cleo wishing you lots of continued success sounds bizarre saying that given everything you've already achieved but no doubt you'll continue to do more um for now from all of us over and out thank you for listening to this week's episode if you like the content here why not check out our world leading content and collaboration of the Legally Speaking Club over on Discord.

1:50:44Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com. There's a link to join our community there. Over and out.