The Legal Rebel Who Took on Big Law & Built a Dynamic Litigation Powerhouse - James Oldnall - S10E12

0:00We had to learn so much when we started. We've got some tools at our disposal. We get to use those tools and that armory to try and make sure that wealth gets returned back to where it should be. And I think there's a huge societal benefit that comes from that. It should be something that's encouraged. You have to keep evolving. That was the process for establishing Milburg London. we had evolved. We reached a position where we could no longer do the work that was flowing towards us. And sometimes you feel it, you're in a big law firm and you feel like you're swimming upstream and it's really painful.

0:39And you jump out and you turn around and you go the other way. And when you're swimming with the current, it's just so much easier. On today's Legally Speaking podcast, I'm delighted to be joined by James Odnell. James is the managing partner of Millberg and is a commercial litigator. He has experience in disputes in the financial markets, private equity, data protection and fraud. James has worked on many UK high-profile commercial disputes appearing in the national press. In 2016, he had two cases named in the lawyer's top 20 cases of the year. James has also been ranked band two by Chambers in its 2024 guide for group litigation claimant.

1:16So a very big warm welcome to the show, James. Hi, Rob. Thanks for having me. Really excited to be here. Oh, excited to have you. And before we get into your illustrious career and all the great things you've achieved and been getting up to in and around the world of law, we do have a couple of serious icebreaker questions. What is your favorite beverage and what is your preferred choice of footwear on a typical workday? Well, unconventionally, my choice of beverage, if I had any one drink I could drink on a desert island for the rest of my life, would be a glass of cold, refreshing, whole fat milk.

1:50milk okay okay i like it good for you can't live without it i'm actually addicted to it but there you go slightly unconventional and then on the footwear front um because i could never have them as a kid growing up it's air jordans for me oh yes taking me back now as well like it good choice milk and jordans i'm with you and with that we can move swiftly on to talk all about you so to begin with james would you mind telling our listeners a bit about your background and career journey sure i started practicing in new zealand um i was a litigator i did my training there and then after a few years the bright lights of london uh lured me um across the world and then i i landed initially at fresh fields in 2006 and just as they were trying to gear up for they they could see that litigation was coming they were gearing up and they expanded the team But unfortunately, because of the nature of the economic downturn, they were conflicted out of all the interesting stuff to begin with because it was all anti-bank.

2:57So I flipped from there to Clyde & Co. and got straight into really crunchy banking litigation that kicked off because of the global financial crisis, which was a huge amount of fun. and then I flipped from there to Mishcon to get a partnership role and worked there as a partner for about seven or eight years I think and then got itchy feet decided that I couldn't do big law anymore I think that's probably a familiar theme in many of your podcasts I had a slight entrepreneurial itch needed to do something different. So founded Milberg in 2020. Love it. Love that you had the itch and then you took the action, that next step.

3:45And hopefully that'll inspire many others. And you've had rapid career progression. We'll dive into that a little bit in a moment. But what inspired you originally to pursue a career in the law? I was really argumentative as a kid, always taking a position. I imagine I was very annoying as a parent now. And I can see some of that DNA trickling through into my kids. And I'm like, man, my poor parents really must have suffered. So it was really the only place I could go with that argumentative streak. And so from a very young age, I had set my mind to being a lawyer. It was quite tunnel visioned in that way.

4:21Well, know thy strengths and play to them, which you did from a young age, I would say. So, yeah, and as you mentioned that as a parent to a four-year-old defiant daughter, I think she may pursue a career in the law based on what you're telling me. You mentioned before, you know, you've worked for some of the world's best firms, Freshfields, Clyde & Clown, Mishcon. Of course, you went to, you know, to start at Millberg with the entrepreneurial itch. But what was your experience like working in litigation at those firms? And what are some of the key skills you acquired that have helped you moving forward?

4:54Good question. I mean, the first thing you learn in big law is politics. There's so much of it. there are a lot of sharp elbows there are a lot of talented people there a lot of good people and a few not so good people and it's navigating that scenario which is really difficult trying to make yourself stand out but not stand out so much that you become a target you know so i think the key thing i learned in all of those places was strength in a team you have to build the team you have to surround yourself with good people you have to learn to work with others and that's the way to build a practice you can't do it all by yourself you have to make sure that you've got leverage people doing stuff with you and for you otherwise you cannot uh you cannot climb that greasy pole yeah we talk about it a lot on the show and i say it time and time again we is greater than me if you can build those great people around you you can inspire them you can really get them to work to the common goal together you can achieve so much more um together okay in terms of your entrepreneurial hat then what did you see inside the elite city litigation practices you touched a bit on there but then convinced you there was room for disruption when you're going out on your entrepreneurial journey yeah well look coming coming back to the the team point you know in these big firms there's often a lot of people who are quite lost inside the machine because the machine is looking for a particular type of talent and not everyone has that.

6:31Different firms are looking for different talents, but you take somewhere like Clyde & Co. and Mishcon, they're looking for rainmakers. They're looking for people who can go out there and wear out the shoe leather and meet lots of people and and convert them into clients and and repeat clients that's not everyone's skill set and they the the firms are full of very very bright very talented people that don't necessarily have that skill set or or aren't born with it or haven't yet developed it and but they'll have other skills they will be incredible lawyers you know with huge talents um and you can harness that if you're someone who is gregarious and confident and naturally able to just talk to anyone, you should surround yourself with the people who aren't naturally like that because they'll recognize that skill in you and realize that they may not have it or need to develop it and can learn from you.

7:30And so then they're prepared to lean in and give you that additional support and become part of that team. And so the team needs to have these complementary and different skills um and so then when you've got a team around you and i had that at mishcon when we're looking to move we were being frustrated by bureaucracy that comes from a big firm um and you'll find that the bureaucracy increases the more senior you get despite how entrepreneurial or the firm will profess itself to be. It's really hard because you've got lots of different people with lots of different aspirations, and they're all pulling in different directions.

8:16So if you're naturally entrepreneurial, you're trying to grow your practice, and each step that you take, you're getting confronted with people who say, oh, you can't do that because of this regulatory reason or this is inconsistent with this other business line. and then you start to think well i'm not going to be able to achieve the growth that i want under this umbrella yeah and particularly in current times when there are so many changing and moving parts in you know just the the world of business and politics and everything else you need to be quite quite nimble you know i always say you know with the big law law firms it's like the oil tankers it's quite hard for them to to turn whereas i always say boutique is beautiful actually you can be nimble you can meet clients where they're at you can try things you can get decisions done you can take action all the points that you've you've just referenced there so to moving to actually founding Milberg then you know London at the time this is when litigation funding ATE insurance and group actions were becoming quite popular so what was the inspiration behind building Milberg London specifically?

9:20So we had done some group action work and some funded group action work at at Michcon we launched the Lloyd and Google data breach case that went all the way the supreme court um which became quite famous and so uh as a result we started attracting more and more of that type of work funders taking note insurers taking note um people who have ideas for claims taking note so that would come across my desk with an increased frequency but you couldn't always take those opportunities on within the confines of big law. So being free of that bureaucracy was attractive. We recognized that we were also going to be free of support when we went out on our own.

10:10So that bureaucracy is a result of having IT departments and HR departments and so on and so forth. And you give up that safety blanket. you no longer have someone doing accounts you no longer have someone making the coffee everything calls to you but as a result you've got this massive open greenfield site where you can go and be as innovative as you'd like because there's no one there telling you no you can't do that yeah it's sort of spotting that blue ocean opportunity and going for it and you know people don't like it but you know it's not how hard you work that determines your success is actually how much risk you take and there's a risk there like you said in terms of more risk you take the more success you know potentially comes your way in the sense of you know you could have stayed there you could have had the cups of coffee you could have had the infrastructure but you look at actually by not having that all of the upside and all of the opportunities from stepping out of that comfort zone that have you know led you on to huge success with what you're doing today with Milberg okay could you explain a bit about the process to maybe inspire others that might be sat on that big law environment or any legal environment right now and thinking you know James is inspirational I want to go and do this what's been the process for you building millberg london from the beginning to where it is today generally well the first thing to note is um you talk about the instability of of the world as it presently stands it's always been like that you know the global financial crisis was unstable the the dot-com boom uh the 1988 crash every single you know every few years there is this enormous impact socially which flows into legal work when i first started out as a as a trainee i was working on cases that had uh sprung out of the 1988 stock market crash where you know these things have a long gestation period they keep they keep going and you have to evolve you're constantly evolving say you follow you follow the work i think it's very easy as a lawyer to be fixed this is what i do i'm a you know very niche person in this niche market um but that that is a bit like uh being a buggy whip manufacturer eventually you know there's no more buggies and they don't need whips anymore and you might make the best buggy whip on the planet no one wants it so you have to keep evolving as as a lawyer particularly as a litigator you know now you see crypto disputes well i don't know anything about those but there's a whole there's a whole spectrum of younger lawyers coming up cutting their teeth on on crypto cases those that's the you know that's the latest currency pardon the pun and and that will that will carry on you know each epoch has this defining asset class or issue that gives rise to litigation so you have to keep evolving that was the process for establishing milburgh london was we had evolved we reached a position where we could no longer do the work that was flowing towards us.

13:11And sometimes, you know, you feel it, you're in a big law firm and you feel like you're swimming upstream and it's really painful and you jump out and you turn around and you go the other way. And when you're swimming with the current, oh my God, it's just so much easier. Cases that we were trying to launch in big law and i spent 18 months breaking my you know head against a brick wall in in six weeks we were up and running because you you know that you're you're in the right direction you're you're working with that's what everyone's demanding you you follow customer demand you follow client needs and it will take you in the right direction and you're staying exceptionally client-centric there and you know success does love speed and i love that you talk about the you know continually evolving you know talk a lot about people with their careers you know you grow as you go you know you're not going to continuously you know stay the same and to your point you know market shift and expectations shift so if you try to just stay here forever then you will become obsolete particularly believe it or not i haven't mentioned the words ai yet or technology but particularly in this world that we're living i think it's really important that we all stay curious we're all able to grow as we go along our journeys and keep meeting clients where where they're at and delivering and which absolutely you have hence all the huge success you've had with milburg and you know personally to date and all sounds great James all sounds absolutely bloody wonderful but it isn't so what have been some of the challenges for you whilst building Millburg London and what's helped you overcome them hang in there to have the huge success you've had we had to learn so much when we started um you just don't realize how much of a safety net is in place in in a big law environment um so we had to figure out how to do very basic things like you know creating an invoice and sending it out to clients i mean the first time we did that we all sort of looked at each other is this right does this work uh you know there is this uh there's this real imposter syndrome when you start your own firm um because all of a sudden you're like well how how who am i to say that I should be paid£10 ,000 for this work that I've done.

15:22And so that was a steep learning curve to just have the confidence that we are a thing and the legal work that we are doing is still valuable even though it doesn't have a Mishcon brand on the tax invoice, et cetera. So there was lots of that learning about the underlying nuts and bolts of law firms, you know, being VAT registered. When do you become VAT registered? How do you do your accounts? How do you do time recording? All of these things we had to figure out. Well, we basically were learning whilst flying the plane, which is, you know, suboptimal. And there was a lot of planning that went into it, but, you know, you never really appreciate what's involved until it comes time to do the thing.

16:11So that was a real struggle. But we enjoyed it and we learned a huge amount, which means that running our firm now five, nearly six years on, all of the partners know everything, every detail about the business, about how things work. So if something goes wrong, anyone can be the plumber or the electrician to fix it. So that has been a valuable lesson, but time-consuming and certainly hair raising at certain times. Absolutely. And thanks for sharing that. But the number of hats you have to wear and skills that you pick up suddenly as you do break out from big law, it's incredible. Like you say, the invoicing piece.

16:55And I think you use our sponsor, Clio, actually in terms of tech. So tech probably quite helpful and there's some great platforms there that can help with that. Okay, so let's get to the sort of present day then, sort of five, six years on. Milberg is doing fantastically well. What does a typical day look like for you as a managing partner of the firm? It's hectic in a short order. I mean, you learn, I think, that as the senior person in the firm, there are certain things that only you can do, and you have to do those. And they're not always the fun things. They're not always the pleasant ones, but it falls to you.

17:34I was reading recently Peter Thiel's book, and he was talking about sales. And if you are selling low-value items, then you can have a sales team. If you're selling very high-value items, you don't have a head of sales. You have a managing director. And that's my primary role, is head of sales. and so we'll do case origination we'll come up with group action ideas where they'll be presented to us and then I have to go and sell that to funders insurers barristers experts got to get all these people all the elements required for a for a large group action I've got to go and do the selling of that and you're selling ultimately you know the budgets that we put together on these cases are now 25 30 35 million pounds that's that's a big sale that you're making and there and you you can't hand that off to a to a sales executive or anyone else that that resides with me um so i spend a lot of time selling then the other thing that uh we're looking for is is some of the hard conversations sometimes the i'm the most experienced litigator in the firm sometimes the The case requires someone to be rolled out to have a difficult conversation with a client, with a funder, with the other side, etc.

19:02That's the less fun part. I'm much happier doing the sales stuff, but sometimes you have to crack some heads together from time to time. Today's Legally Speaking podcast episode is proudly sponsored by Clio. If your legal management software feels more frustrating than helpful, you're not alone. Many solicitors across the UK delay switching because moving client and case data sounds like a headache. Clio makes it simple. As the intelligent legal work platform, Clio combines context-aware AI with trusted legal research to power your practice. And when you switch, their dedicated migrations team supports you every step of the way, ensuring a smooth transfer of your data.

19:44You'll also get award-winning support 24-5 via live chat, phone, and email. So help is always there when you need it. Ready to leave frustration behind? Visit clio.com forward slash UK to learn more and discover why so many UK solicitors choose Clio. Now back to the show. So I know sometimes law and sales can sort of not necessarily have different connotations and different perspectives. But again, it's really important to educate and people to understand that if you're going to go out and you know build your own firm it is a core aspect of the the role because without that coming in you know at the end of the day you could be sat there twiddling your thumbs and not a lot happening so again for people that might be getting quite senior thinking oh wow maybe not i don't have as much sales skills or maybe i'm not doing as much business development is there anything you've done because obviously you've been able to get some credible cases that you think would help people maybe acquire these skills or learn these skills specifically on the sales side i i was really lucky as a as a teenager um i i was a commissioned salesperson in a stereo shop and so i learned very rudimentary skills about selling uh which um you know it would be it would be an overstatement to say i still rely on those today but but that's still the that's still the bedrock was just learning at a very early age these fundamentals of of of selling uh and seeing it as sales and it is a sales role.

21:14You're selling yourself, you're selling your services, you're selling a concept often, you're selling credibility and you're having to try and build a relationship with someone you might not know very well. And there are loads of books that can be read. It's worth doing that. There are skills, there are rudimentary skills that can be deployed and I see so many talented lawyers who really don't know what they're doing when it comes to selling and making basic mistakes and I cringe and I wince when I see it when I see it happening I mean I hesitate to give to give tips but you know two things that occur to me all the time is lawyers do too much talking they should really be doing what you're doing Rob which is asking questions to get the information out first and thinking and reacting and responding whilst the person whilst the client's talking let them talk ask them more questions ask them that third the fourth question ask them the question you think gee this is a bit cheeky you're going to ask the cheeky question to get the heart of the issue and try and find out what their objectives truly are um i think that's true of any brand of law that you're doing you know the the law is a crude instrument you can't always give the client what they want or what they're trying to achieve you got to find out what that objective is and before you start telling them all about how great you are and all the things you can do so yeah your tip number one ask more stuff get more information step number two is know when to shut up and so there's too much there's too much talking both at the start and at the end so you've got to gather all the information understand what the objective the client has and then let your recommendation hang in the air there's this temptation to do an over explanation because you're lacking confidence you're worried that they haven't understood what you're saying you're trying to fill the space because you've got some imposter syndrome etc etc sometimes the most powerful thing is to say very quickly here are my thoughts and reaction to what you've just said boom boom boom i think you should do this and let it hang and that pause can be really quite powerful and it is hence my pause but it's so true the power of silence is is important and we have two ears and one mouth and we should use them in that proportion and i always say to people if they want better information they need to learn how to ask better questions and really be curious and understand the power of why and really get into the dna and meat and potatoes of what you're trying to do because you can be such a better consultant or advisor or lawyer or whatever it is that you're trying to do but i also think it always has to start from a piece of being genuinely curious you really need to understand what is what are we trying to achieve here what are we trying to get to and every question you're asking is of benefit to them so you can get the information so you can be that high ticket lawyer which clearly you are today and the huge successes and cases we had so let's talk about some of those cases let's roll back the clock to 2016 you had two cases named in lawyers top 20 cases of the year one claim which was worth more than two billion against Citibank what was the case about ultimately and what was the outcome as much as you can share well I mean that's rolling back the clock isn't it 10 years ago gosh um um we were I was acting for Guy Hands who is the godfather of private equity investing and godfather gosh he'd like that uh of private equity investing in in the UK hugely successful uh financier uh and entrepreneur and he had a private equity firm that he'd spun out from Nomura which was called Terra Firma and he had purchased EMI records in 2007 arguably at the top of the market but his claim the allegation that he made was that the Citibank who was selling the company had given the impression that there was another bidder in place for the company.

25:39So a classic real estate agent kind of situation where someone says, oh, you've got to increase your bid for this house because, you know, Johnny down the road is going to pay so much more for it. And so you set your price based on that. So that was the allegation. The case rumbled on for almost nine years, over nine years, almost 10. and what was interesting about it was that Guy decided that he wanted to have the case heard in New York in front of a jury and because it was Citibank and they were headquartered in New York we were able to achieve jurisdiction against them. Bizarrely they fought they fought jurisdiction and said it should be hers in the uk so we went to new york and in car you know i had was involved in uh it was governed by english law in front of a new york jury uh so it was just like being on tv it was fantastic yeah um all the characters and and all of the um entertainment value that you would expect from a jury trial where you're trying to reduce very very complex private equity transaction down to something that you know a retired school janitor can can pass and make sense of um so not surprisingly we lost in the uh in front of the jury but the judge had misdirected the jury on english law and he decided that he didn't need expert testimony on english law because he had spent a summer in oxford as a student and knew everything he needed to know about English law.

27:25So we appealed, and I think it was the Second Circuit Court of Appeal decided that he had indeed misdirected the jury as to the test for, or reliance, test of reliance, in the misrep case. And they ordered the trial to be re-heard from scratch. And at that point, Guy decided he didn't fancy going in front of the New York jury anymore. so we approached city bank and said hey you wanted it to be done in england last time how about you know we do that now and they said all right fine so we shifted the whole um traveling circus back from new york to london and had a had a second crack at it love it thank you for sharing that fascinating stuff and i can just imagine yes some of the uh some of the characters um during that time and some of the the sort of lessons you took from that the other case that you named um was a claim against barclays acting on behalf of a small business owner missold a product so as a result you were named the times lawyer of the week in the high profile litigation how do you feel acting for small business owners in comparison to the large financial institutions yeah it's fun isn't it um so i've i've acted for you know billionaires and high net worths and private equity funds and hedge funds and i really love working with those guys because they are so inspirational you learn so much about business You learn so much about how the city works and how decisions are made at this high level.

28:53It's fantastic. Then I also love working for consumers and for SMEs and small businesses because the similarities between billionaires and Johnny down the road are really considerable. People frequently underestimate consumers and small business owners. and they shouldn't because they're they're switched on and and have all sorts of life lessons to give as as well and i've learned a huge amount from acting for those those kind of clients uh and we're doing you know we increasingly we do more of that and have tilted towards consumers but that's the fun thing right we're doing the same work and deploying the same skills it's a bit like an iphone you know jeff bezos has the same iphone as i do you know there is this uh ubiquity at certain levels and we're trying to bring the same high quality of legal advice that we used for billionaires and hedge fund managers and so on for the man in the street that's that's the objective that's our our goal um whether we achieve that well we'll we'll have to see but that's certainly what we're trying to achieve.

30:07And working very hard and, you know, I'd say doing a very good job thus far, that's for sure. You referenced it before, but I just want to ask a couple of follow-up questions because it was so significant. In 2021, your data protection claim, Lloyd versus Google, went to the Supreme Court. Give us a bit more of an overview of the case and some of your personal lessons whilst on that case going to the Supreme Court that you think might be valuable for our listeners to know. Sure. Well, that case was really innovative. I was approached by a gentleman. Actually, it came out of that Barclays case because that was high profile.

30:47I was approached by someone who said, hey, I represent tens of thousands of iPhone users who have had their phone hacked by Google. I want to bring a DLO against them for a data breach. And I think there was at that point four or five months before the limitation period expired. And the number of people who were affected were in the millions. And he said, hey, why don't we go and build this enormous book of people, get everyone signed up? There's just no chance. It's completely impossible. so necessity being the mother of invention we scoured around for some other idea and found buried in the in the cpr well it was buried to me i think it's probably other people knew about it and it seemed like quite a nugget at the time to find what was cpr 19.6 now 19.8 representative action which actually stems back from the middle ages when uh one serf could turn up to the lord of the manor on behalf of all the serfs and say oi you know can you let us plow that field please and the uh and the lord of the manor would uh you know consider it and so that has mapped all the way forward and i really liked the concept that in 2017 i think when we launched it um we were using this 500 year old regime for something as modern as side loading or side hacking an iPhone, the most modern representation of modernity.

32:23So that was a really fun thing to do. But it hadn't really been done at that scale or in that way before. So we were making things up as we went along. Borrowing heavily, to be fair, borrowing heavily from things that had gone immediately before us. So the Walter Merrick's case against MasterCard, we based a lot of our approach on that and that seemed to go down well with the court they they liked procedurally what we were trying to do but ultimately the supreme court didn't like legally what we were trying to achieve that does help a little bit let's stick with the uh the google case um you know because the financial times i think it was said as part of economic reckoning of personal data you described it um what did you mean specifically by that So at the time, and it seems ancient history now, but data was seen as the new gold rush, the new oil.

33:24And everyone was, you know, the GDPR was coming into force. All of the big tech platforms were using data and harvesting data in new ways. And I think societally we were adjusting to that. and no one really understood it, particularly the people and the man in the street. I think we've become more accustomed to this now and more educated, but at the time it seemed like a frontier. And there's a huge amount of money being made as a result of this data used by the tech platforms, by all of them, all the household names, which we take for granted now. But at the time it was all very new. and it was a there was a time when it thought there was a thought that perhaps you know the value should be flipping from the from the tech company back into the hands of the consumer you know if you're not paying for something then you're the product and we were the product we are the product of google we are the product of facebook getting all of their great services for free but we don't we don't necessarily recognize what the cost is what what you know what money is being made from our data so that case was an attempt to try and value that that data to try and show that using it didn't come for free these companies are making enormous profits well shouldn't we have a share of that if we are you know the baseline ingredient um it wasn't to be unfortunately and it's still not um but that was that was the ambition at the time and i love it and i think you know the ambition is is well spirited as well and well meaning absolutely um we've touched on a little bit about uk versus us um from some of the cases you've referenced but what if anything do you think the uk has learned from us style class actions and are we behind the us when it comes to the likes of commercial litigation in your your opinion we're so far behind.

35:33There's this, I think, a common misconception in the UK and Europe that we prefer regulation to solve the ills of the world. But if you look to America, they actually find, their regulators are actually stronger than the UK and Europe. There's this misconception that it's a wild west out there, and therefore you need litigation to keep people honest. It's just not true the reality is that the number of the value of the fines levied in the uk are 10 of what's have done in the in the us and that's adjusting for the relative size of the economies we just don't have regulation in this country what we have is a very effective myth that we have and as a result we don't have as much litigation either because you need the regulators to to to break some rocks that you can't do as someone who's representing consumers.

36:29You need the regulator to find some of these wrongs to investigate it. So then in America, you also have far greater litigation and it's off the back of the strength of that regulation. And for many, many years, of course, there's been this concept, well, you don't want that litigation that's going to be bad for the economy well as we've seen over the last 10 15 20 years the u.s economy is taking off and the european economy is is moribund um it obviously is probably it's only a correlation not causation but one you can't say is that more litigation leads to to poorer outcomes because that has not been the case in america you need regulators you need litigators to keep these large companies in check or they will just you know chase down every last dollar and is seeking seeking profits that's what they're designed to do that's what their objective is it's not a criticism that's you know you can't criticize a lion for breeding a gazelle that's what it's born to do right that's what happens um but you need people on the other side to try and keep that keep that in check yeah no well well said and again thanks for for sharing openly on that and it's clear that you You have ambition, you take a view, you know, you're confident, you're successful.

37:44And as a result of that, you've achieved a significant amount before the age of 40. This year I turned 40, actually. How have you stayed ambitious and resilient during your highly successful legal career? Well, it's a word you've used a lot, which is curiosity. And just keep wanting to learn and keep trying to figure out how things are done. and as you move from one industry to the next, one of the great things about being a litigator is every case is different and every person's business is different whether you're acting for a consumer or an SME or a billionaire. It gives you an opportunity to see inside how the sausage is made and get a real handle on it, which is great fun.

38:29So I think curiosity is key. Then I guess there's this sort of Robin Hood type uh aspect to what we do right you identify someone who is taking money from the population unlawfully like the sheriff of nottingham was doing uh and you get your band of i'm really stretching the metaphor now but you get your band of merry men together uh and there's it is david versus goliath you've got a small group against an enormous institution who is systematically basically overcharging their consumer base the consumer base is powerless to do anything about it individually um and we've got some tools at our disposal litigation funding uh procedural mechanisms and we get to use those tools and that armory to try and make sure that that wealth gets returned back to where it should be and i think there's a huge societal benefit that comes from that and it should be something that's encouraged this again small myth making in this country where you know ambulance chases uh you know there's this concept that it's just for the benefit of the lawyers and the funders etc etc uh and i'm motivated to try and shift that impression to shift that understanding to make people appreciate that the laws are there for a reason everyone's playing is on the same playing field the rules are there the referee is asleep right we don't have one of those in this country they're not doing their job so you've got these small number of activists who can get together use the tools that are available and try and move that wealth back into the into the hands of the consumer and the sme owner and that's a better place for that money to be right that money can then be spent into the into the economy with businesses who are playing by the rules and and the whole economy and society will benefit from that yeah you would see it as a positive win-win situation if you know if that can all be achieved okay i want to talk now about something i'm sure if anyone's got a smartphone or social media or watched a tv advert they've probably heard something about which is emissions so you've been acting on behalf of tens of thousands of motorists in various emissions groups claims so could you tell us a bit more about these claims as much as you can yeah of course um but all springs out of volkswagen diesel gate uh which now again is quite is quite ancient uh and it actually springs out of america and it springs out of a regulator so the epa in california identified something was a bit wonky with volkswagen vehicles that got an EA 189 engine in them and they identified that these were spurting out way too much diesel particulate and nitrous oxide gases given that they're very stringent rules and regulations about what those emissions are permitted to be and then an academic as I understand it cracked open the engine control unit and noticed that they had these very special algorithms in there to turn off the diesel emission cleaning systems whenever the car was not in a test environment so effectively whenever you're testing the car it sits on a rolling road it's in a process in a laboratory set at a precise temperature the test runs for a precise length of time so you can work out what the parameters of the test are and then you can work out as soon as car is doing something that wouldn't be in that environment you turn all the filters off and it can spew out as much gas as gas and pollution as you like so that's what that's what was uncovered in relation to the e8189 engines and then we have undertaken investigations into the other manufacturers to find how they have worked around the test regime the allegations that that are out there is that all of the main diesel manufacturers selling cars in the UK have some form of defeat device that's designed to work around the test so that in the test environment it won't pollute outside the test environment and certain parameters it will.

43:01How big do you think this will be? Well it's already the biggest GLO that this country's ever seen and there's 13 GLOs that have been consolidated into a GLO of GLOs with millions, well over a million clients signed into it and thousands of defendants. So it's enormous. It's completely enormous. Yeah, and I have to say, the more I read about it as well, I'm fascinated and I'm curious to see how it all will play out. You've mentioned before that we're behind over here when it comes to commercial litigation. What developments do you expect to see with regards to it generally in the coming years, five to 10 years, that might be somewhat changing and useful for people listening in today?

43:51I don't know. I don't know, Rob. There's a lot of headwinds. There's a lot of institutionalized resistance to advances in this. um we you hear it from the labor government who's pro-growth apparently uh and i think that means cozying up to american industries so you can see you can see um politicking and lobbying taking place from from vested interests trying to make this this uh activity as difficult as possible it's constantly under review the laws are constantly being challenged um so that i've that's probably slightly pessimistic. And that's certainly how it feels at the cutting edge of this work, that we are confronted with an enormous defense industry whose sole remit is to prevent guys like me and my colleagues from bringing these sorts of cases.

44:52So I don't see any sunny uplands, unfortunately. I only see quite a lot of work to continue the fight. Well, there we go. Nothing like a bit of raw honesty. Flipping to, I guess, before we let you close, a couple of career focused questions for the next generation to start with. What would be your advice to aspiring lawyers who are looking to specialize in commercial litigation? And as a follow up to that, for yourselves at Millberg, what are the types of lawyers that you've recruited that tend to perform well in that type of environment? So, gosh, that's a that's a very lofty question. um i mean back to that word of curiosity and then i think also nimbleness and you know if you're if you're coming up as a commercial litigator or interested in it i think one of the things that helped me in my career was being genuinely interested in the underlying subject matter you it's not it's not being interested in the law per se it's being interested in the business that is being affected.

45:56So take, for example, the moment our motor finance mis-selling claim. That's something that we've been following and monitoring for over six years. I'm a victim myself. And then you get curious, how does this whole thing work? What is going on? And you scratch away at it and you try and figure out what is the underlying wrong here? How does the business operate? Who's making money? Who's not making money? having that understanding of how it works so that when the client phones and says hey i've got this issue you you already understand how the world works so i think any commercial litigator needs to be commercial that that's the first thing if you if you don't understand how crypto works then you're not going to be able to be a litigator if you don't understand how financing works you're not going to be able to be a litigator you have to understand uh the way the city works and and read vociferously around how markets work and how um and how all these industries work love it okay fantastic so that should hopefully help people understand what they need to do while they're getting into careers and then for those that are in careers now that might be sat in big law or might be thinking of career change and thinking hmm milburg looks quite attractive james and what they're building over there is pretty good um what are the types of lawyers that tend to perform well the skills that you think particularly stand out when you're looking to hire um elasticity of intelligence uh so again playing on that theme of curiosity but you can't turn up into boutique law and just be really really good at a particular part of the cpr that's that's not going to work you have to be elastic in your approach and dynamic uh and and that means you know being confident with numbers it means being confident with clients it means being able to have a broad application of your skills um which is fun right it's a really great opportunity as a junior lawyer you're not pigeonholed you're not just sitting there doing a disclosure review or a regulatory review there's any day you can be called upon to do the most random bizarre tasks because there's no one else no one else to do it um so that doesn't work for everyone someone who who likes to be in their lanes who likes to be safe that you know there are plenty of places for for people like that to to succeed and excel but if you if you're intellectually curious uh and get itchy feet uh and looking for for new and interesting challenges then a boutique is going to provide you with far broader experience and get you i think in most cases involved in higher level work more difficult and challenging scenarios earlier in your career um i was trying to say but it is a baptism of fire you turn up and day one there's nowhere to hide you've got to get get amongst it and work really hard and do difficult things from an early from an early stage in your career yeah no absolutely and you look clearly it's it's working because you know milberg is flying and it's been a hugely you know successful career journey for you and no doubt that's going to continue and i'm sure our listeners will be inspired listening to your career indeed what you're building at milberg today so if they want to find out more and please do share some websites where they can get some more information or any social media handles we'll also include them in this episode for you too yeah i mean just check us out on milberg it should all be melbourne.co.uk and then LinkedIn we're quite active on on that platform you might unfortunately also see me on TikTok and Instagram trying to promote cases that we that we're involved in I mean that is that is another thing that we're trying to achieve is there's a I think is a credibility gap between consumer opt-in litigation and people's expectations.

50:02I think people are not used to that. There's the myths that we were talking about of it being ambulance chasey also sounds a bit too good to be true. You know, we've really had to battle that with our diesel case, with our motor finance case, even with our competition claims. there's this reluctance for people to get involved um you know there's a huge amount of information out there about scams and don't share your data and people are very nervous about that sort of thing and i really want to habituate um british consumers to participating in these in these sorts of things and hopefully as people get more used to it and they start getting money back i mean we've we've sent uh thousands of pounds out to individual consumers for their losses um and you know it's a really nice moment they sort of can't really believe it that it's that it's happened because you read something on social media hey sign up to this thing we'll get you some money and yeah sure um but ultimately the system can work it requires participation and i think the more we get people participating the more that the judiciary will be will have confidence that this is a real thing the more that the government will see that it's not just for lawyers and for funders right and so you start you start to achieve social change just through participation and and and attacking that skepticism that's out there and is fomented by by big corporations they want you to remain skeptical they don't want you to participate that so that's our mission for the next five years right is to try and shift people into getting completely used to this line of a bit like you know if it was groupon you know people are used to getting discounts by by using um a consumer purchasing power that's the same ethos we want to try and subscribe to here is safety in numbers, power in numbers, you can affect change.

52:10And along the way, people can get some of that wealth transfer back out of the big company into their pockets. And we're here for that. And we fully support that mission and all the great work you and the team at Milberg are doing. It just leads me to say, James, thanks so much for joining me today on the Legally Speaking podcast. It's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. From all of us here, wishing you lots of continued success with you fighting that fight, your own career and indeed future pursuits. But for now, 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.

52:49Go to our website, www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com. There's a link to join our community there. Over and out.