On today’s Legally Speaking Podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by Jonathan Wearing and Richard Coulthard.

Jonathan is the Managing Director of Ison Harrison. A personal injury solicitor, Jonathan, has helped the firm grow in size, strength, and profile. He has transformed the firm into one of the first law firms in the country to become an exclusively Employee Owned Business in 2022.

Richard is the Director and Head of Corporate at Ison Harrison. He has a wealth of experience in corporate law, commercial law, litigation, dispute resolution and employment law. He is also an Employee Ownership Trust specialist. With an ‘aims-focused’ approach, Richard strives to provide first-class legal advice and support, going above and beyond to help his clients succeed.

So why should you be listening in? 

You can hear Rob, Richard and Jonathan discussing:

– Ownership Structures Shaping Culture More Than Leadership Titles.

– Long-Term Success Depending on Cultural Readiness, Not Just Financial Viability

– Efficiency-Enhancing Technology Magnifies Human Connection, Not Replacing It

– Clear, Purposeful Storytelling amplifying Competitive Advantage and Stakeholder Trust

– Transitioning to an Employee Ownership Model

Connect with Jonathan Wearing here – https://uk.linkedin.com/in/jonathan-wearing-8ab2821a

Connect with Richard Coulthard here – https://uk.linkedin.com/in/richard-coulthard-8b840677

Transcript

Legally Speaking Podcast sponsored by Clio (00:00)

This is going to create more time for us to be human. Being an EOT has a huge amount of benefit for the firm collectively because it’s very much a team environment. Everyone’s in it together. The more successful the business, the more everyone has the capability of earning. It’s part of a wider story about how we’re evolving as a nation in terms of being more socially conscious. And so I think that’s where this might fit in.

that people like to do business with businesses that they know who care about their employees. I don’t actually think that the introduction of AI, which would allow greater efficiencies, is necessarily going to produce something that the client wants, which is cheaper work. I think they just want more efficient work and a more human nature to it. On today’s Legally Speaking podcast, I’m delighted to be joined by Jonathan Waring and Richard Coulthard. Jonathan is the managing director of Ice and Harrison.

personal injury solicitor, Jonathan has helped the firm grow in size, strength and profile. He has transformed the firm into one of the first law firms in the country to become an exclusively employee owned business in 2022. Richard is the director and head of corporate at Ice and Harrison. He has a wealth of experience in corporate law, commercial law, litigation, dispute resolution, employment law too. He is also an employee ownership trust specialist with an aims focused approach.

Richard strives to provide first-class legal advice and support going above and beyond to help his clients succeed. So a very big warm welcome both to the show. Thank you Rob, you’re right. Yeah, absolute pleasure to have you both here on the Legally Speaking podcast. But before we get into your careers and backgrounds and what are you getting up to with the firm, have a customary icebreaker question. So perhaps come to you first, Jonathan, what is your favorite beverage and what is your preferred choice of footwear during a work day? ⁓

Okay. Favorite beverage, I’m going to have to say, ⁓ look, it’s a pint of beer. I’d rather be a cup of tea, but it turns out to be a pint of beer and footwear. I’m quite stage traditional in terms of what I dress. So it’s a black pair of bronze. There we go. Jonathan, anything you would say for your ⁓ favorite beverage and footwear? I would say, and I am a cup of tea man.

as I remember, yeah, a cup of tea. You might call it an addiction. And footwear. I wear work shoes because, you know, you have to look a certain way. It probably isn’t what I would choose to wear for comfort. I would probably go with walking shoes. had a choice, but it doesn’t match a suit. Does it? Does the this walking shoes? There we go. Well, thanks. Thanks for being good spirited and sharing that. We’ll come back to you then.

Jonathan, would you mind by starting off by telling us a bit about your background and career journey? And I’ll come to you, Richard. So I started out as a trainee, still a relatively small high street out in Manchester, three or four offices. And I was doing pretty well. think they came in through the door. So I I was principally a personal injury, less litigate, but I was also doing wills. I was doing the conveyancing. was doing anything else that came in, seemed to be coming my way because I could.

I was prepared to go and talk to them. I started to specialize in personal injury work and litigation work. And in 2000, found myself moving across the Pennines. I’m four years qualified and I joined Iceland Harrison and into the first injury team here. And it really moved quickly then. I have to say it was quite a frustrating move because you’ve got to start your career and you’re urgently trying to get going on.

But within six years, I was the next two partner and a year after I was managing partner. That wasn’t the plan, but that is how it panned out. it’s panned out very well for you. Hugely successful. And thanks for giving us that. And I’m sure a lot of hard work along the way and some ups and downs in betweens that we’ll probably get into. Richard, we’d love to come back to you now. Would you tell us a bit about your background and career journey? Yeah. So I started off at a firm, mid-size, the commercial firm doing sort of litigation work really.

moved to another regional firm doing a mixture of different types of litigation I suppose, moved on from there became a director at another firm where my role sort of merged into more commercial work more generally and then moved to Item Harrison coming up seven years ago now actually and as a partner to head up the sort of commercial services of the firm and then I’ve become a director at the firm.

Um, a few years ago when we transitioned to be employee owned, um, back in 2021. So, uh, and now I head up the commercial services across predominantly corporate work, obviously got litigation and employment, promotional property, what have you all fall within that sort of commercial umbrella. Yeah, absolutely. Very broad practice and again, very, very, very successful, um, career. And thank you for sharing that sticking with you, Richard. We’re always curious to know what inspired you to get into law in the first place? Was it, was it?

family influence? Was it something you saw? How did you sort of get into the law? My parents had had some association with, you know, I’ve attended meetings with barristers for various reasons, associated with families. I had a bit of an awareness of it. It came up in careers aptitude tests and things like that. was I was on an abating team. So that sort of it’s quite naturally, you know, having arguments with other people. So

There’s always an interest there from a very young age and it was just felt like a very natural career path for what interests me or what maybe my strengths are. So it was, it was a, it was a driver from a very young age. was, it was either that or being a pilot, but I don’t have the eyesight for being a pilot. So there we go. We ended up in law. Yeah, there we go. And probably weren’t trusting laser quite so much back then either. Jonathan, we’d love to come to you. What inspired you to get into law? Look, I have a deep sense of justice and purpose.

And I quite like intellectual rigor and I was just attracted to, I was quite good at school. I was able to do the academic side, but it was the sense of justice and purpose. I’m honest, I wanted to change the world. Well, we’ve not done that, but we’ve changed a few little worlds on the way. And that’s probably what I started to understand when I first started work, which is you can have a massive impact upon individuals if you do this right with the right art.

Yeah, absolutely. And you are, and I love the way that the firm is being run. So probably sticking with you, Jonathan, as sort of managing director, what does your role entail? And also, could you tell us a bit about a typical day for you, which I appreciate might be quite varied? Golly. So what my role entails is as managing director, effectively, I help manage, okay, the college, I suppose, or the group of eight directors.

who drive and lead the business. So collectively, we to try and keep them together, constantly dipping in and out and making sure that we are completely aligned. And thereafter, everything else follows because if that, if everyone’s aligned in that room, then it impacts upon managers and branch managers and department heads and what have you. do a lot of listening, a lot of conversation with different managers. It’s not even managers, it’s everyone across the, across the firm.

ensuring that the values are straight. I’m checking new inquiries coming through. I’m checking that we’re taking on the light work. We’re quantifying it. We’re selling it at a light price. There’s the FD side, the finance side, which I’m constantly in communication with the finance director, it’s the marketing team, it’s the IT team. Basically, I describe most of us, most of what we do actually, anyone at work.

You’re either a deep coal miner or you’re a surface coal miner. ⁓ There have been times in my life and I can still do it where I can go right down. Okay. Deep mining, but that is really, really focused work and you can’t be distracted and you basically need to be on your own. we’ve got a good number of lawyers at the firm who were like that. And we massively benefit from that. Their ability to concentrate and focus and get

brilliant results for clients. I’m not even sure I surface mine. kind of just watch whilst everyone else is surface, whilst a load of other managers are supervising and surface mining. It’s really shallow. I do an awful lot at a relatively shallow level. There you go. I’m not sure I’ve solved myself there. My average talking plot. I think you’ve given yourself a really good overview of actually what the reality are, that’s what authentic conversation is all about. a couple of things I’ve just…

like, like picked up on that. said listening. And I think the art of any good leader, as you say, is going around listening and really kind of going deep on those conversations to understand. And then as, as to your point, you’re sort of uniting, aren’t you? You’re trying to unite everyone as that leader from what you’ve said from those conversations, things that you’re doing to try and drive the business forward. And, know, it’s lots of different stakeholders, lots of different things, lots of different departments you’re engaging with. So, you know, having that ability, that’s a good skillset actually to able to dovetail across all of those different stakeholders.

and actually make things work. Richard, you sat there very patiently. We’d love to know bit about your day, because obviously you’re a director of the business as well. You’re the head of corporate. You’ve got a broad background yourself. Could you walk us through what a typical day might look like for you? So I think my role would probably be more client facing. A lot of it comes down to relationships, to where as Jonathan has talked about a lot of our internal conversations, a lot of mine is conversations with, know, clients or referrers or contact, accountants or finance brokers or business brokers or whatever.

and managing those relationships and maybe being a little bit of a face for the firm in terms of the commercial presence. I do a lot of public speaking events and podcasts like this and things like that. It’s managing those relationships. There is some client work. There’s then managing the people. The marketing team report to me. There’s an element of oversight in terms of marketing around the firm and budget control and what have you.

As said, there is some client work. I still work for clients and do transactional work. But a lot of my role is relationships with external stakeholders, clients, contacts, what have you, as well as managing the direct team. And then involvement strategically around the firm and other matters that come with being director of firm of this size.

Yeah, absolutely. And undoubtedly busy days as well. And thank you both for sharing that. Jonathan, I want to come back to you now, probably for the heart of the discussion today, because what I admire about is actually the firm’s structure, because you are EOT, which is an employee ownership trust. So as that form of business, would you mind explaining for our listeners who may be less familiar what it is and how it works? Okay, so most law firms, okay, and

Possibly most of your listeners will be working for a law firm or have worked for a law firm and most of them, vast majority, are owned and managed by a relatively small collection of people who happen to have found friendship or an association financially, more than any other reason, ⁓ over time. So the ownership and the management are completely connected in most law firms.

And what we’ve done is taken ownership away from management and split the two. So the ownership of Eisen Harrison now is owned by a trust which owns it for the benefit of employees. Okay, so anyone who works here, you are a beneficiary under the trust. If you’ve been working here for a year or more, then as a beneficiary, you’re an eligible employee for a profit distribution at the end of the year. Provided you make a profit, of course.

The management is different. So we have directors of the firm that are appointed by the trustees from the trust. the directors are well incentivized to run the business profitably for the benefits of the company, of course. Now, in another world, those directors are equity partners. The responsibilities are the same, but the profit distribution is different. ⁓

There are significant incentives for our directors to do very well and indeed better than the vast majority of equity partners at other law firms. But of course, you have the groundswell of support of everyone in the firm because they benefit at the end of the year as well, provided that it’s a profit. So effectively, governance-wise is different here. The Board of Trustees who meet quarterly, they’re responsible for making sure that we’re run ethically and

unprofitably. But that’s it. The directors are running the business and the directors such as Richard here, they were brought in as directors from within the firm, by the way, the rate of us. ⁓ And it wasn’t because they could afford to be directors because they were very good managers and very good leaders in their own right. That’s a different mindset to what would normally attract an equity background.

And thank you for being so thorough with that and giving some really helpful context around it. And probably coming back to you then, Richard, because a lot of the conversations we’ve had over the year have been more of the traditional partnership model law firm route that most people are used to. So for you, what do you think are some of the key differences to these two models in terms of the employee ownership trust? And what are some of the overarching benefits you think for maybe other law firms thinking about doing this? I think being an EOT

has a huge amount of benefit for the firm collectively because it’s very much a team environment. Everyone’s in it together. The more successful the business, the more everyone has the capability of earning through profit distributions. our profit distributions have risen over the years as the business has grown. And even though our headcount has grown, individually people have earned more. So it does bring that sort of collegiate attitude to the workforce collectively.

which I’d not convince you necessarily see at every other law firm because people are looking at it in terms of a desire to be an equity partner or the wealth or the profits being collected by a smaller number of people. So it does bring people together in a very different way. It also has the benefit of ⁓ resolving succession planning for the long term.

Many law firms have the difficulty that there’s kind of a revolving door of equity partners or shareholders or what have you are, know, there’s someone coming in or there’s people coming in, but there’s also people being paid out, which has a impact on cash flow longer term. And necessarily, you you’re having to keep an element of cash within the business for that buyout process. Well, we’ve resolved that issue long term.

You know, there’s not a continuous cycle of equity parks and people out, which means they can genuinely invest in the business and in the people for the long term without having to have one eye on, well, actually in two years time, three years time, we’ve got a significant shareholder that we’re going to have to buy out. And therefore you create that situation in that type of traditional partnership where you’ve got

aging partners who are potentially got one eye on their exit and actually do I really want to invest in the business because I’m not going to see the benefit in investing in a new IT system as an example, which is going to benefit the firm but might take a few hundred grand or what have you in cash out of the business, which I really want to have the benefit of myself.

No. And again, thank you for giving some practical examples there for us to get a head round this and, know, certainly see the upsides from it all. know, Jonathan, as sort of MD, do you have any measurable impacts you’ve seen since transitioning to the sort of EOT, it from performance strategy or long-term planning? know Richard was touching on there, but is there any sort of measurable impacts again, to really hammer home firms and people thinking about this? Okay. So 2021 was our last year of being

⁓ What would essentially be an equity partnership? There were three of us. So for the four years, we’re now four years after that. And what has been achieved over that period of time? In 2021, our turnover was just over 16 million pounds. Okay. And we were returning a profit nudging 20 % or something like that. can’t perfectly remember that. And we had 17 offices today or rather four years on.

We’re turning over £35 million and we have over 400 staff and we’ve got 24 offices. Profitability running at 27-28%. That’s the numbers. I am not putting that all down to the ownership model of employee ownership, but I am saying that it has had a significant impact. Our business model also is a good one. We’ve got this branch and spokes network across Yorkshire ⁓ and it’s

and the economies of scale that’s driven and the benefits of people getting a scar in communities and working in that way has been a really successful one. And it was working before we became an employee-owned business, but we’ve just been turbocharged by the ownership model changing. That’s what I would say.

Yeah, and powerful numbers. And thank you for sharing that and not just the numbers, the impact of this and some of the benefits. Richard, once taught now, obviously you’re a director, undoubtedly you’re probably managing people and there’s probably going to be traditional solicitors and associates, juniors listening to this. We have a whole raft of different people. Just maybe going deeper, how do staff at Iceland Harrison really benefit from this structure that they may not get elsewhere in terms of being sat in more of a traditional firm? Is there anything you would say to that that might surprise people?

One of the benefits, and it might be also how we run it, is we have a huge amount of transparency in the figures in terms of profit, mostly in wealth and all the rest of it. That buys goodwill, it buys investment with people, feel part of something. We’re obviously getting the profit distribution in terms of, you know, every year we distribute an element of the profits to the employees and the first £3,600 of that is tax free.

anything above that is subject to income tax. When you gross that out for many solicitors and more they earn, it’s a significant amount of money. But aside from the financial aspects of it, there are no barriers to success, there’s no barriers to progression. In some law firms, there might be a perceived barrier in terms of background or financial standing, can you afford to buy in?

How’s that going to be structured? There’s none of that here. You are promoters and you succeed based on your success and your quality and your commitments without any of that sort of baggage behind you. So it’s much more inclusive in that way that they sort of over-taught. Yeah, it definitely feels more inclusive, more collaborative. I say it all the time, collaboration is domination. We is greater than me if we come together as a team. And you’ve both been touching on this, but again, I really want to kind of…

go deep on this topic. So it’s the first time we’ve really talked about this on the show. And I think it’s fascinating. I see all the upside with it and it’s decision making. So Jonathan, know, typically within law firms, it can be pretty hard for decisions to get made and it can be really, you know, headache. having this EOT structure allows the firm to be more agile in making decisions as the decisions are made by the employee council for the benefit of the employees and not by the individual partners who may have different priorities than the employees. We’ve talked about that. So

How has this shifting decision-making then to an employee council rather than that small group of partners actually changed the culture of accountability and alignment within the firm? Would love your thoughts, Jon. Imagine that, and this may sound as if I’m over-complicating it, but it isn’t. It just drives more conversations. It doesn’t drive greater complication. There are three legs to a three-legged stool. One of the legs is

the Board of Trustees. They’re responsible for the ownership of the shares effectively. They make decisions, the trustees of which there will be a couple of employee representatives on there, a couple of founders in there, and an external independent trustee will be there as well. They make decisions as to what the profit distribution will be. The second leg of the stew is the Board of Directors. They run

the business, they make the decisions. So when you’re staying before, ⁓ the partners aren’t making decisions. ⁓ You just change the language around that effectively, you’ve got eight partners making the decision, but only eight partners within the firm of 400 plus. So you haven’t got 50 that you’re trying to get a decision through with. Okay. So it’s tight and we are very aligned and decision making is easy.

There is a third leg to the stool and that is what we call the EO council. And that’s where the voice comes in. They make very modest decisions, but what they do do is feed into trustees and to the board in terms of the feel of the firm. And it’s kind of like a breathing in and out of what is that, but they’re all equally important. And that gets the best engagement as the EO council. We as a board make

allotted quick, very agile decisions, whereas we wouldn’t be opening offices this day, twice a year, and refurbishing, and all the decisions that we have to make, and dragging the business forward. And the trustees trust us because we’d report to them on quarterly basis, and they know about the performance of the business and it’s going in the right direction. So they’re kind of leaving us be. that’s how it works. Rob, can I just add to that from a

technical perspective, I suppose, because we do quite a lot of advice work, but also law firms in terms of transitioning. And it is a question and it’s often a concern that I see is, well, does that mean the employees are making all the decisions and what control? It’s really not okay. And if I draw by analogy, let’s talk about something like a PLC, okay. PLC has a board of directors who run the business, okay. They’re not going to the shareholders all the time for each and every decision.

But every year they have an AGM and there’ll be certain updates and what have you and the shareholders can have certain influence on certain decisions and certain resolutions and things like that. So on a smaller scale, that’s kind of how an EOT works. The board of directors are making the day-to-day decisions. They decide who’s getting hired, who’s getting fired, pay rises, contracts, all of that. That doesn’t actually change. The board of trustees sits there as representatives of the shareholders.

to approve certain decisions or certain things that require resolutions. For example, the amount of the profit distribution. So the board of directors would make a recommendation to the trust going like, which is how much we think is sensible for us to distribute in profit this year? The board of trustees has to approve that, because it’s essentially a resolution. And now they could come back to us and go, well, actually, we don’t think that’s quite right. Or have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? And there’d be a discussion.

But there’s not a sort of daily discussion between trustees and directors or any sort of tension there because the trustees are, they’re a safeguard to make sure that the business has been run properly by the directors in part, actually. Does that make sense? It does particularly on that day-to-day point, because otherwise you would have so much friction and slowing down and you wouldn’t be able to be as efficient. So a lot of trust is obviously, you know, in the word put into this as well between those, those parties. It all sounds great, but businesses

Bloody hard. you know, things are hard. So Jonathan, I want to come to you in terms of challenges. Could you share some that you faced as a law firm sort of operating as an EOT and how you’ve perhaps been able to overcome them over the years? Operating as an EOT being a challenge. ⁓ There have been very few for us. We’ve got the same challenges as every other law firm, but they’re probably slightly down. So recruitment is less of a challenge.

Because we’re an EOT, we’ve got a story to tell. It’s about purpose, values, and actually look how we’re treating others. That feels right. And it is right. Okay. That’s how people, know, we’re not selling something that doesn’t exist. example, retention is an issue, but less so than for other things. I would say that marketing might be an issue, but less so for other, so we’ve got more of a story to get. Now it may well be, but. ⁓

If they become more and more employee owned businesses, we become less special in that field. So therefore we don’t stand out. But it is a bit of a differentiator. It’s been hard. All of the regulatory stuff is hard. All of the acquiring work or the marketing. It’s all quite challenging, but it’s very difficult to unpick that from becoming an EOT from our business model because we’ve got a burgeoning business model. We’re competing in certain markets.

I don’t think it makes any difference to Richard here, who runs our commercial, ⁓ whether we’re an EOT or not, in terms of being able to pull a client or how to network or anything like that. He may have a story that all the hard grafts still needs to be done as well. It’s not a silver bullet for anything. It gives you an edge.

Business and we haven’t seen this, but I have seen this in advisory work that I’ve done for other businesses where people can have a challenge on an EOT is actually around the process of conversion itself in terms of whether it is a right solution for them as a business as to where they are at in terms of can they afford to do it? Have they got cash? How do repayments work?

⁓ Can they get the people on board? Is there an expectation around equity partnership? That’s a problem. Financing any sort of deal. There’s challenges around the conversion process itself, but I don’t think being an EOT causes a challenge ⁓ beyond that which any other business has. If anything, it is a benefit. It does give you a differentiator.

we have one work off the back of being employee owned because we are employee owned or that’s been the differentiator when we’ve been up against somebody else. I’ll say, sorry to jump in Rob, but I would say that when I looked at other businesses, not just law firms who probably had difficulties after converting, it has either been because culturally,

They were really never going to be an employee and the founders can’t let go of this kind of ownership, the whole concept of that. Secondly, they sold for too much or third, know, to the trust, which has to buy it out, pay the founders back over the period of time. So therefore they’d over cupped the price. Or thirdly, they weren’t financially viable at the time and they’ve gone too hard.

And so we were fortunate in many ways, as we’ve all spoke, that culturally and actually we were set up for it. Yeah. And look, thank you for being so thorough as well and talking us through it and some of the benefits, some of the similarities, some of the things. Because that was question I was going to ask you, Richard, in terms of how it impacted anything. And maybe I’ll move to where I was going to ask you next, which is around…

Humanizing because you know, I talk a lot about we’re no longer in B2B, B2C, we’re in this H2H, human to human connection with our clients and our people internally, all of our stakeholders. And you’ve spoken Richard about sort of the OT model, humanizing the legal profession. So what does this look like in practice for you? I think we’re moving in terms of the society to a position where, you know, younger generations, they genuinely care about the planet, about people, about

stories in maybe a slightly different way, okay? And so you see when the businesses our employee owned, you know, actually there’s a genuine, they’re genuinely giving back. They’re commercial outfits, but actually there’s a shared wealth, there’s a shared story, there’s a shared community about that. And actually, EO Business is not just talking about our firm, but actually EO as a community around the country is a thing.

know, EO businesses tend to do more work with other EO businesses, a bit of a tried. But you see that in other things, you see that in things like B Corp having environmental policy, the ESG, all of that. think it’s… don’t know, going back to what Jones says, it’s like it’s one leg of a stool. I think it’s part of a wider story about how we’re evolving as a nation in terms of maybe being more socially conscious.

And so I think that that’s where this might fit in that people like to do businesses with people, businesses that they know who care about their employees and care about the environment. I think that’s where the story fits in, in terms of maybe the benefit and how we’re perceived as a person. 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.

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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. Stories matter, right? Facts tell, but as the stories that ultimately sell and land with people and connect with people and give you that point of difference, as you say, because ultimately, you know,

Yes, you can slice and dice the pie in different ways. You know, different law firms will look at undercutting, but actually if people buy into, you know, why you do it, that story behind it, I think that’s super powerful and clients and people can connect with that. know, Jonathan, coming back to you, you’ve talked about sort of operationally, probably not too dissimilar in many ways to a traditional firm. know, this, you know, in recent times, AI technology, legal tech, it’s everywhere. I’m just curious as someone sort of running as an MD currently, you know, if you wanted to influence the adoption of a

new piece of legal technology or look at AI tools. How does that work in practice, particularly in your sort of model, give us a bit of a flavor and can things be much quicker to get done in the current situation that you’re in, in terms of that structure? Okay. A couple of things. Firstly, IT can allow you to do things incredibly quickly other than change IT. That’s the bizarre bit about it. Anyway, because of the size now and our growth, we’re actually bringing in one of our

What about he’s done so well this year, but someone who effectively is working across the whole firm as a lawyer, and he’s going to be working within the IT team in terms of innovation and development. And that will align itself to bringing in more of the AI ⁓ efficiency solutions that we are looking at. My whole mindset around this, and we’ve got a variety with a little team working on here and as I’m sure a whole

All firms are doing it. But my whole mindset about this is that this is going to create more time for us to be human. So if I can do the lease, if I can prepare a lease in a fifth of the time that I used to, that has released four fifths of your time to be brilliant with your players. Whereas previously they were frustrated that you weren’t communicating with them. Now you can over communicate.

you might bring the pie style. You might actually get a different piece of work from them because you spoke to them a little bit more. I was on a conference the other day and there was a chap who was discussing, I he just released a book actually, it was The Rise of the Humans, okay? That is where my whole nice bet is around this. But the more efficient we can be with the words, the more words, human words we can actually have, whether it be, you know,

meeting with people in meetings and explaining the documents as opposed to simply sending them the document which has taken you an hour to prepare and you’ve now got no time to take them through it. do think there’s something around that. That’s probably not answering your question. I don’t think as an EO, as an employee-owned business, we are in any different situation to any other business in terms of introducing AI. Eventually, we’ll

will be charged lots of money for using that new software. That’s all I see. But I think you make a really key point on the, you know, the efficiency gains and the opportunity to be more human and, you know, really be client-centered. I think that’s going to be the real key for any business, not just law firms, but you know, the world that we operate in now is, is how do you use that extra time that you basically have been given back to be more client-centered to double down, maybe it is to get further business to get

get great quality referrals to just enhance that relationship, whatever it might be opportunities that come with it. think it’s, it’s a very exciting time for those that choose to, to really be strategic with the time that they have. What I would say, and this may be of interest to you, is that our clients are not choosing us because of our price. I don’t actually think that the introduction of AI, which would allow greater efficiencies is necessarily going to produce something that the client wants, which is cheaper work. think they just want more efficient work.

and a more human nature to it. So actually for those firms who think, well now instead of doing one of these per hour, I can do five of them, stack them higher. I don’t and do them cheaper. I’m not sure that’s actually what clients want. Certainly not the clients who come to us because they’re not coming to us because of our price. We just struggle. We don’t have to crave that much. ultimately the price is what you pay, value is what you get. And if they see the value and all of that good stuff, they’re going to stay with you. And you’re right. I think that

perhaps would create a race to the bottom, the latter point that you’re making there as well, rather than, actually this is a real chance for good lawyers to become even better, greater lawyers with their clients and really set the bar nice and high. Okay, we’ll talk about succession planning now, Richard, coming back to you because you’ve said in the firm article,

Isen Harrison advises prominent regional law firm on employee ownership. You shared, have increasingly been engaged by a range of businesses, including other law firms to advise on the transition of employee ownership as this continues to become an increasingly popular option for success planning. So what are some of the biggest misconceptions that we may not have already covered that you see organizations having when they explore this route and how do you help them navigate those uncertainties?

So I think that the starting point whenever you come to succession planning for any business, whether it’s a law firm or anyone else, okay, I see a lot of people leave it too late. I think if you want to get succession planning right, you need to be thinking, properly thinking, copy three to five years out, as to actually what does a succession planning look like? Because in many ways there’s two stages to succession planning. One is you’ve sold, I’m not an owner anymore.

The second is, I’m not in the business anymore. I’m laid on a beach or wherever you want to be. Okay. And those two time tables are not ordinarily the same. Okay. So it doesn’t matter whether you’re doing a trade sale to somebody else or you’re doing a management buyout or you’re doing an employee ownership feel. So anything like that. The time that you take you to get to a point where you have souls is probably different to the time when you are actually no longer in the business.

Okay, does you probably going to want to or have to stay in the business for a period of time even after your souls? So I think identifying your timetable individually, but if you’re in business with other people, other shareholders, I think you need to be open conversations about that early on because we often see that people’s timetables are different and people’s priorities are different and that can cause tension. So I think getting the help plan and then getting a vision is to actually

What are you wanting to achieve out of a succession point? Your financial being just one element of that actually, you know, people always want to look after people who’ve supported them quite a bit. Yeah, they might not want to sell somebody who, you know, might rip the heart out of the business. Yeah, financial is clearly the practical side of it. There’s all of these things. So in terms of employee ownership specifically as an option of succession, okay.

Yes, there are tax benefits to going down this route. They’ve changed because of the budgets in November, but there’s still more tax advantages to do employee ownership than any other form of succession conning. Okay, so you’ll get a 50 % reduction in your capital gains tax. Your employees can earn up to 3,600 a year tax free. That’s not changing. There’s also the least that’s corporation tax. So there’s huge tax incentives.

I would never advocate that someone does it because of the tax incentives. They need to do it because it’s right for them in terms of what they want to achieve, in terms of they’ve got to be right for their business and for their people. Okay? That’s not a one size fits all solution. If people are wanting to have a proper impartial advice to go down what the different strands looks like, we can take people down that process.

in terms of, right, this is what a trade sale might look like. And this is the advantages and disadvantages for you. This is what a management buyout looks like. This is the advantage and disadvantage. This is what an EOT looks like. Family situation. I think you need to get a picture of what life looks like and the money and all the rest of that will take care of itself afterwards. No, and again, really good advice there because like you say, ultimately, it’s the DNA, the values and the fabric of the business that you need to understand they’re going to match because yes, you may want to think about doing these things, but ultimately,

If it is just purely for that, then it’s probably not going to get the best out of all the benefits you’ve articulated today that EOTs can actually offer. mean, just looking forwards, just probably look to close. Jonathan, we’d love to get your thoughts in terms of, you mentioned you’re quite early in terms of Iceland Harrison as one of the early sort of EOT type businesses. In the coming years, what developments do you see? Do you see other firms following suits? Yeah, just give us a bit of a flavor of your predictions for the future when it comes to this model. do see other firms following suit. I was expecting more.

to have done it by now. think if your business is, I think if you’re struggling a little bit, it’s really not an option. I think if you’re flying, you may keep going. ⁓ That’s, know, say, know, comments upon what Richard said in terms of firms, go long. ⁓ And then they turn into a situation where they’re not able to do it anymore. I think you do need to be financially…

secure, you need to have a really good culture already, ⁓ being a really flat hierarchy and people already engaged and knowing about what’s going on. ⁓ And I think possibly part of it is the accountants and possibly other law firms and just the mindset of ⁓ entrepreneur or owner ⁓ can still be bit cynical about employee English years and thinking this because

The ownership mentality of owning the shares or being the founder is still significant. In some ways, that’s the other side of the coin is that that’s a massive advantage if you are at an Eisen harrison, because there are no equity partners for you to feel like you’re a failure, because I’m not an equity partner, because nobody is. So therefore, it’s quite liberating for those people who might in their minds have been told that that’s what

the holy grail was, well, it’s not available here. So actually, that’s cool. So what do do now? Well, I can be a manager. Okay, cool. Let’s do because I’m good at management. Actually, I know I just want to focus on being a good lawyer. So it takes away that sense of, I don’t know, disappointment or failure or unfulfilled desire, I suppose. And that also probably applies to those firms that we speak to who would sell to us because who owns me now is never a question. It’s like, okay, we’re joining this employee owned business.

just as my secretary would be or the person sitting on the section or my colleague across the way, I’m now going to be a member of this employee business. And that’s okay. And I think that deals with the vanity, as it were, or the status, which drives so many law firms. And I think that’s part of it. When Wimps was talking about the challenges that he sees in succession planning, I usually think that…

I could agree could you fit in conversations with with clients like this a lot of people need therapy to get through the concept of no longer being younger they just struggle for so often for founders and again not just talking specifically for law but we are generally people can associate their identity with being an owner of a business or when they cease to be an owner of a business

become something of an identity crisis for some situation because they struggle to let go, particularly as they’re still working in the business. But also just to go to Jonathan’s point is to your business needs to be doing alright if you’re looking at it terms of doing an employee ownership because the practical reality of an employee ownership process is there is still a sale. The founders are still selling the shares in the business for a market value and that has to be funded

out of the business over a period of time. So the business has to be generating profits to be able to sustain that. So if the business doesn’t have those profits and is struggling or has lots of debt, it isn’t going to be suitable for them unless there are changes made in the run up to you. Although I would say, this is relevant to you listeners, but it’s factually correct and interesting is that when

I was one of founders, but the three founders had been sold to the trust. Around about a third of the purchase price was available already within the firm because we were doing very well and the cash was available. The other two thirds was to be paid over a period of 10 years. Likely as not, that period of time will be more like five years.

and because it’s done so well. then after that, there’d be no liability at all to the founders, which will actually be a second boost for the firm where there’ll be this kind of financial freedom where there’s even more money to be able to invest in return. Being able to do that, you’re going to be continuing to be able to innovate, you can continue to be able to be fit for purpose, continue to be competitive, continue to be able to lead.

and all of that good stuff. This has been a wonderful conversation. Richard, love to come to you then, Jonathan, with a quick fire question. What advice would you give to those interested in pursuing a career in law in 2026, keeping in mind the times have changed over historical times? I think one of the most powerful, but in many ways underrated qualities that a young lawyer, young professional generally can develop is the ability to develop their own network and their own relationships. In terms of professional contacts.

whether that’s for us as lawyers, commercial lawyers, you’re going to look at people like accountants and IFAs and finance brokers and people advising businesses. young lawyers have a great opportunity of developing relationships with people of a similar age, similar mindset, but in other sectors. And they can grow their careers together and have those referrals and have those relationships. And I fear that in

the current society, the growth of social media and remote work and all the rest of it, there is a generation that is losing that skillset, the way of standing out and doing something different. You will always have a huge amount of benefit in your career by being able to have that skill of developing relationships and developing networks.

I love that. I always say contacts are good, but it’s the relationships pay if you can sprinkle value over them over time and NSN never stopped networking. We’d love to come to you, Jonathan, one piece of advice for those interested in pursuing a career in law you think would be invaluable. Positivity. Just work hard, put a smile on your face and whatever is a difficulty today will be an opportunity for you tomorrow. You will always, well, no, you won’t always. ⁓

We used to have youth on our side. Okay. When you’ve got youth on your side, you may not have experience on your side, but you have youth and your ability to adjust and change with a smile on your face and ⁓ a positive outlook. Good things happen to optimists. When you look around the successful people, that is what you see. Love that. I couldn’t agree more. I bang on that.

all the time. say everything is energy. The more positive energy you can put into things, the more positive outcomes will come. This has been a wonderful conversation. Jonathan, if listeners want to know more about indeed, Eisen Harrison or yourself, where can they go to find out more? Feel free to share any websites or any social media links. We’ll share them with you, with our audience too. Okay. Well, it will come as no surprise to know that Eisen Harrison have a website. www.isenharrison.co.uk. Okay, then go on there.

I mean, it’s a busy website. There’s a lot on there. It’s all a different, it’s desired to clients obviously, but also we put a lot of information on there. I’ll tell you what will tickle the fancy. We put our five year business plan on there. I don’t know one other law firm with loan business because of business plan on there. And we’ve done that for each of our last four idea business plans. And it gives a whole story of us. gives our values, our purposes, where we’re heading. Okay.

And whenever I hear it that a lot, the way, because, you know, people will come for interview and they will just repeat it back to me because people want to read it. It’s really it’s quite interesting. Absolutely. And Richard, if people want to get in touch with yourself or reach out, what’s the best? Is there any social media or is there a best way for them to get in touch? Yeah. mean, websites, my email address is on LinkedIn. I’m fairly prominent from there. So, you know, reach out to me email via LinkedIn by the website. Yeah. Happy if anyone wants to have a chat half an hour.

about succession planning or about EOTs or anything like that. I’m more than happy to give my time and, you know, if they’re looking to something more formal in terms of advice and representation, we’re to help with that as well. Awesome. Well, love it. And yeah, I love that point, Jonathan, as well about transparency on your website as well. And that’s been a good conversation throughout this transparency definitely is key. Thank you both so, so much for your time today. It’s been actually a pleasure having you both on the LeaguiSpeaking podcast sponsored by Clio. But now from all of us, wishing you lots of continued success with your

future careers and indeed 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. Go to our website www.legallyspeakingpodcast.com. There’s a link to join our community there. Over and out.