Commercial law is a huge area of the legal sector. To help us get to grips with what life is really like as a commercial lawyer, particularly in a startup environment, we invited Yulia Barnes to speak to us about her experiences of founding Barnes Law Associates. She talked us through topics from property law and the boutique approach to how to balance the professional and personal aspects of client relationships.  

So why should you be listening in?  

You can hear Rob and Yulia discussing: 

• The challenges of founding a law firm 

• Yulia’s background and career journey 

• How to understand each client’s business  

• Dispute resolution  

• The common pitfalls of legal startups 

Transcript

Robert Hanna 00:00 

Welcome to the legally speaking podcast. I’m your host Rob Hanna. This week I’m delighted to be joined by the wonderful Yulia bands Yulia is the proud Founder and Managing Partner of bond law, a boutique commercial law firm in Mayfair, London you you’re first qualified as a lawyer in Russia before qualifying in England and Wales she has an impressive career trajectory. With experience as a general counsel at Global Corporate ventures lawyer at Clyde, encode and partner at Tasos solicitors heading their dispute resolution department, Yulia also spent time in house before founding Barnes law in 2019. She specialises in commercial law corporate law dispute resolution corporate governments for commercial clients, as well as high net worth individuals at Barnes law, Yulia is dedicated to bring your personal touch to every case being recognised as a leading professional in her field. So a very big warm welcome, Yulia. 

Yulia Barnes 00:53 

Hey, Rob, good to be here. 

Robert Hanna 00:56 

It’s a pleasure to have you on the show. Before we dive into all your amazing projects and experiences to date, we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the legally speaking podcast, which is on the scale of one to 1010 being very real, what would you rate the hit TV series suits? In terms of its reality of the law? If you’ve seen it? 

Yulia Barnes 01:19 

Well, since I can’t say zero, I’d say one. It’s not fair to feel at all.  

Robert Hanna 01:26 

Um, with that, you give a very concise answer. We’re going to move swiftly on to talk all about you. So obviously, I gave a very high level introduction there of your impressive journey. But would you mind taking our listeners back and telling us a bit more detail about your background and career journey? Sure. 

Yulia Barnes 01:43 

Since a very young age, I wanted to be a lawyer and I, after graduating from school, I went straight to uni. So I’ve graduated from my first law degree, to had some experience working in house while studying in England to become a lawyer here. And ever since I graduated, I have been in various law firms that you’ve mentioned. So before I started, being a contentious lawyer, I really enjoyed getting into corporate structures, looking at mergers and acquisitions. And then so it happens, my first job at claim court tend to be in their arbitration department. And I’ve discovered an exciting world of litigation, and I enjoy it ever since. 

Robert Hanna 02:35 

And the rest is history, as they say. So let’s talk about the entrepreneurial side of things as well, because what you’ve done with Barnes law is very impressive. And talk us through that journey to setting up bonds law and tell us more about what bonds law specialises in. 

Yulia Barnes 02:51 

So bonds law is a commercial boutique. Since I have been working with businesses from day one, I have discovered that perhaps there is a big gap between lawyers and business owners, which shouldn’t be like that, because as a profession, we are there to provide support to maximise growth to make it secure, to guide, but inevitably, business owners will make their own decision and sometimes they’re wrong and sometimes their rights but they are, they have different risk appetites to what we have, because we’re all about making it secure and making it certain for people. So I’ve decided to set up this boutique. So we can actually partner with businesses and we can be almost their outsource legal department. So we are more much more closer to the management to to the owners. We understand the structure we understand the drivers of the business, we we we look at their long term plans, we look at their the way they’re structured in sarnelli. So some some departments for example, I’m so much more cautious with the way they talk to clients to sell their products, the way they they represent their production we say in the promises they make and some people are not so we we get in we assess that we talk to managers we understand what type of contract they would require, for example, we need to be more careful, we need to hold their hand. Will they even read that contract? Because most people trust their lawyers and they say, Well, I paid for it. So I trust that you’ve you’ve provided for my interest, and it’s all going to be fine, which is so far from reality. So I’ve decided that that concept works really well and is much more enjoyable to work with businesses in that way. 

Robert Hanna 04:51 

Yeah, and I have to say what you have achieved is incredible. And I tip my hat to anybody who, who takes that brave step to setting up their own firm. Um, let’s talk more about at the high level than a managing partner, you know, what are some of your responsibilities involved there? And what does a typical day look like for you, I’m sure it No two days are the same? 

Yulia Barnes 05:10 

Absolutely. You obviously your wake up to a lot of messages and calls because business owners tend to wake up really early, they have their workout at 6am. And then by the time you have your first coffee, you already know that they’ve they either chase you or they want an update, or they want to discuss something because business life happens really quickly. And most of the decisions need to be taken yesterday. And when they come to you with a project. The expectation is something happens within one or two days. So there’s a lot of pressure from that point of view, because he you have to make sure that it’s safe, you have to make sure that you thought about it, you’ve considered carefully all the risks, but at the same time, you obviously meet the expectations for the fast pace that most businesses have. And of course, we have the wonderful world of compliance nowadays, which is really tough. So it’s not my favourite question, subject, but we have to do that. So there will be a lot of management and supervision on that site. And of course, the team meetings that you have to make sure that everyone knows what is happening in the farm, you you also have to be informed of what’s happening on each case. So it has to be well structured for any business, or managing partner to to be able to achieve the goals, you have to have really good structure. But at the same time things happen not quite to your plan. 

Robert Hanna 06:52 

Yeah, you can expect the unexpected, I guess some days you can have the best plan and structure. But I guess when certain things come in, you know, there’s a crisis management mode, you have to act on things. But I think you gave a really good solid over there, overview there of what you get up to. And look, it’s not easy running a business. It’s not easy necessarily being a lawyer and dealing with like you say you’ve got clients that are up at the crack of dawn, they’re probably demanding they’re needing your help. You know, most people come to lawyers, because they’ve got a pain, there’s a pain point of some description that they’re trying to overcome. So what have been some of your challenges, you’ve experienced founding bonds law? And how have you managed to overcome them? What words of advice would you give to others who might be experiencing challenges now running their own firm? 

Yulia Barnes 07:35 

Well, I think as lawyers, we are not taught how to run a business. So certainly, I would, I would think that before you think of establishing a law firm, you probably need to learn how the business actually works. Because if you have good structure in place, you probably will be ahead of the rest, or at least you’ll be able to comply with your business plan, which quite often is much more ambitious than you able to achieve at times. So yeah, I think the challenges are, I guess it’s having the right funding in place, having good consultants that can set things up for you. opening bank accounts. I mean, luckily, I said it a lot before COVID. And we didn’t have many delays, and it was much, much easier. But now I I see how businesses struggle to even open a bank account, it takes forever sometimes. So yeah, I think the challenge is, you know, when you don’t have a big team, you almost do everything yourself, unless you have big budgets to bring in people straightaway. So I think the first couple of years is you work weekends and most nice to achieve what you need to achieve.  

Robert Hanna 08:49 

Yeah, and I remember back to, you know, I might my company recruitment company has just turned eight years old. And I think back to years, one, two, and three, you know, where I was having to put in the hours, you know, nobody knew who I was, I needed to be established and needed to get the work done. But of course, within within reason, you know, you’ve got to make sure that you also looking after yourself in the same breath. So you avoid that sort of burnout scenario. And having good mentors and people around you to guide you along the way is important. And I found that but what would be, you know, the number one thing you’d wish you’d known before setting up your law firm that would have saved you so many headaches that you’ve experienced today? 

Yulia Barnes 09:28 

Um, I think you have to be brave, or you have to be brave to set on your own given the risks and responsibilities that any lawyer has. But I would think that start employing people much earlier. Don’t think, Oh, can I afford a salary or not? You probably will be able to, but you can’t do it all yourself. So don’t be afraid to start employing people as early as possible. 

Robert Hanna 09:56 

Yeah, and I remember a mentor said to me many years ago you You adapt to the environment. So if you buy a big house and you’ve been in a flat, you’ll still find a way to fill that big house with furniture and things. Similarly with your company, right or your firm, you know, if you if you can get into that office space, and there’s some empty desks, the reality is you can make that happen. So you want to keep continually growing and having that that growth mindset, and that really stuck with me. But look, you’ve worked in a number of different environments, international, large international firms in house, you know, what advantages do you see in the boutique approach, especially when it comes to serving clients in Mayfair? 

Yulia Barnes 10:34 

Well, I think we probably are quite suitable for medium sized businesses for startups. Because, you know, we, we can work with different budgets. And it’s much easier to contact us and have a more personal approach. You know, we use for example, we use messengers for initial chats, which a lot of young business owners find very easy, because that’s all they used to. So what they say is your whatsapp message away. So and because it’s young and vibrant, we attract a lot of young people to join, who are joining bonds law. So I think that it also has this young wave. But yeah, I think we’ll take is is more sort of bespoke approach and more personal approach to clients. So we know who they are, well, they do their characters, their hope is, so we know what style to adopt working with them. 

Robert Hanna 11:39 

And the word that I always come to talk about is caring. I think, you know, if you can really channel it on those little touches, knowing that so and so’s daughter maybe supports a football team, and you could maybe then suggest tickets to an event for them or something that’s coming up really having that level of relationship that makes them not feel like they’re in a number dealing with just a large corporate, I think that really is the heart of what we’re driving to. And again, I talked about this on every recruit, every recording we’ve had, I think in the last year or two, it’s no longer b2b or b2c, it’s H to H, it’s that human to human connection that’s going to win the business. Now we’re moving forwards even more so in the sort of tech enabled world we’re in. So I really liked that sort of personal touch. So let’s talk about leadership. Because as a managing partner, how do you define good leadership? And what role does it play in fostering a positive culture, particularly within your law firm? 

Yulia Barnes 12:31 

It’s interesting, I think, a lead by example. I have tried different trainings and programmes for executive programmes and leadership. And inevitably, I think that if your team respects you, that’s your answer. You, you have to be as hard working you are you need to be knowledgeable, you need to be interesting. You need to be inspiring, and you need to share that knowledge with them. So if they see that it’s not just a job, but you genuinely care, and you genuinely invest your time in them, and you, you correct some mistakes or some misunderstanding, but you then explain why. And then you even sometimes just say, Well, what about this strategy, which isn’t really something that I found many managers do, because you know, you don’t have that much time. But for me, I like my team to stay with me long time. So I really like them to give the best what I have and what I’ve learned from amazing managers I worked with, and I think they appreciated Well, I hope they do. And you know, and sometimes you see your team copying something that you’ve done before. And you see well, well, they they obviously, obviously, respect your knowledge. And they they feel that they want to learn from it. So they they’re copying some patterns, which I think is probably a sign that it’s working. 

Robert Hanna 13:51 

Yeah, absolutely. And it’s definitely working for you. Let’s try and break that down then for our listeners to understand at a more granular level, what leadership trait Do you believe are most important when managing a law firm? 

Yulia Barnes 14:07 

I think you have to have good structure, you have to also have a human side. So your colleagues need to feel that they can have a conversation with you. And they can have a frank conversation with you and that whenever they have a question, they are not afraid to ask it. And I think that that’s what matters. It’s not about being strict or not strict. It’s not it’s just having this great relationship of, of confidence and respect. I think that’s what leadership is about. 

Robert Hanna 14:42 

Yeah, I agree. Those those two definitely go hand in hand. And I always say, you know, Respect is earned. And you know, I think people shouldn’t take that for granted as well to stay respected because environment change, markets change and sort of you need continual need to be making sure your leadership is fit for purpose. Because leaders many, many years ago versus modern leaders with all the tools and the variances of market dynamics and things that have happened, you’ve got to be a sort of modern leader in, in my view, let’s talk about getting deeper into the sort of professional and personal touch side of things. I think it’s so important to get right. And I think it’s how law firms can really differentiate themselves, particularly in 2024. So balancing professionalism with a personal touch is ultimately crucial, isn’t it in terms of those relationships? Can you share any examples of how you achieve this balance to ensure client success? Sorry, can you repeat the question I got? Cut off? Yeah, sure. So balancing professionalism with personal touch is often seen as a crucial in client relationships. Can you share any examples of how you’ve achieved this balance to ensure client success? 

Yulia Barnes 16:02 

Well, it’s, I think it’s intuitive. You, you get it with experience. So most, most clients that we deal with are professional clients anyway. And they they have they have that boundary, they understand, you know, where, you know, you, you can mix the professional side with the personal side, but you don’t sort of they don’t take advantage of the fact that you know, you’re always available, you’re always there. So there’s that respect. So I think it’s just, it’s intuitive, and it comes with experience, and I don’t think it’s something that you can teach. 

Robert Hanna 16:43 

Yeah, I remember my late grandfather saying, you know, you can’t put a wise head on young shoulders. I know, I think there’s times are changing. But there’s some truth behind some some of that. I mean, in terms of your understanding of business needs, I think that’s really what sets you apart. And you’re really kind of focused in on really understanding that you can deliver the best results for your clients. But how do you and your team go about gaining that understanding of each individual client’s unique business challenges and objectives? 

Yulia Barnes 17:11 

I think it says thorough questioning whenever client calls. And for example, says I need this contract. I never say Okay, fine. I actually question what is what is the reason for the scoring for what do you do? I mean, how would you, for example, you know, I’ll give you this contract? What are you gonna do with this? What, what, because often sometimes, not, not often, but sometimes clients come and they ask for something, but they need something else. So it’s about taking time to question what is the purpose behind it? And actually, what is not what, because sometimes people confuse process and the aim. So you just want to say, Where were you getting with it? And then we can explain to you the process, how you get that? 

Robert Hanna 17:59 

I love that. And yeah, I will always comes down in any industry. In my opinion, the better quality questions you asked the better quality information you will receive and the better service you can then deliver. So let’s talk about the ever changing legal landscape, then, because we are in a very, very fast moving world. So business needs are changing regularly. How does Barnes law adapt its approach to very much remaining agile and responsive to the changing needs of your clients? 

Yulia Barnes 18:27 

Again, it’s just keeping a gibbon track of all the changes that has happened in in legislation. And quite often, we would even approach clients ourselves to say, Well, look, this is changing. We’ve done this for you before, I think you need to review because we need to change something about it. Also, just understanding not just what’s happening in the business, or the trends, and there was a lot of training around for lawyers, or you can probably go to training every day and never hear the same stuff. So it Yeah, we we take that quite seriously. And everyone has particular plan, how many hours they have to do each month, so we have it recorded or we have reviews and then I’ll look at the training plans and I see if they have done enough or not. But there’s plenty around to to be on top of things.  

Robert Hanna 19:22 

Yeah, never, never a shortage. Okay, let’s switch lanes and talk a bit about dispute resolution then. And again, we have a whole range of listeners listening. So for those who might be less familiar. Can you tell us what dispute resolution is firstly, and then also sort of how do you see dispute resolution potentially changing or evolving, moving forward? 

Yulia Barnes 19:45 

So dispute resolution is when a dispute arises between companies or individuals and they can’t resolve that dispute between themselves and then they have to resort to lawyers to to settle their differences. So It is quite a wide term. So it can include negotiations in, in correspondence, it can dispute, it can involve mediation, where you get a third party involved to, to actually spend a day or so with you trying to resolve the differences, which is actually quite effective. Because at the end of the day, it’s almost like a preview of what can happen in court. Because there’s a lot of pressure people in different rooms, there’s this independent person travels and between the rooms and you know, tells the other party’s position, and then they have to think about, you know, how to respond to it. So it is quite stressful. And I think, at the end of the day, when everybody either gets died or sees that, actually, maybe they don’t have that strong position. And they’re better off settling. Because at that point, you have control over what you can do. As soon as you go to court, if you can’t settle, you go to court, you give that control to a third party. So essentially, we can do our best to persuade that you have a strong position, but it’s going to be somebody else that is going to decide and we don’t know how it’s gonna turn out, or at least we can’t give any guarantees. So that’s, that’s kind of a short description of what dispute resolution is. 

Robert Hanna 21:27 

Yeah, absolutely. And you gave a very good comprehensive overview, actually, and I think you make a good point about, you can only control the controllables, you know, so you need to do what best you can in terms of controlling what you can ultimately control to then hopefully, try and ensure that things that might be out of your control, go the way that you want to, particularly for you, yourself as the lawyer and of course, the client. So how does your approach then differ, navigating litigation for say, UK businesses, startups and multinational corporations. 

Yulia Barnes 21:58 

So we start off with analysing what we can potentially achieve out. Because I always tell to people, and a lot of people come angry because you obviously go through different stages of you know, you upset and you accept it, then you know, you get tired of it, and then you say, well actually just just ended, it’s too expensive. It’s too long. I don’t want to be involved anymore. So you start off by saying, Okay, well, whatever trying to achieve. So it’s not about going to court and winning. It’s about money at the end of the day, most of the time. So I said, Well, we can do all of that, for example, but let’s see if the other side has any assets, because you might be successful in court. So you have a bit of paper showing that you’ve done really well. But at the end of it, is this going to result in you getting the money out of that person or getting an outcome of whatever you expect? You know, yes or no. And a lot of people think, Okay, well, then, fine. So there’s a risk, let’s then establish what what, what are the assets on the other side, because you can spend, you know, millions litigating and the end of it, you’re going to be out of pocket. So we start from there. And then if we, for example, can establish that there are assets and it’s worth pursuing? Will we also look at the contract, how strong the position is, what are the likelihoods of you losing or winning. And then based on that assessment, the client takes a decision. But in reality, I always say that if you want to have control, and settle it as quickly as possible, and you can never recover 100% of your costs anyway. So you, you will always spend a bit more than you can get back can get back, or much more than you can get back in some regimes, because it just depends on which track you’re in. It’s better that you take a pragmatic approach, because all the time you’re litigating Your attention is off doing other things. So you might be losing not just, you know, in legal fees, or potentially in losing the case, but you’re also losing out on investing, you’re improving your business growing your business. So because your focus is somewhere else. So that is all that needs to be considered when you decide to go to court. 

Robert Hanna 24:26 

Yeah, everything is energy. And if things are taking energy from you, and isn’t, like you say allowing you to really focus on your goals of running and driving your business and servicing your own clients, then you need to look at the opportunity cost of that as well. Okay, let’s talk about some of the common pitfalls startups encounter when entering into contracts. You’re engaging in business transactions. What would you say to that, 

Yulia Barnes 24:51 

for startups is difficult because some startups or most startups don’t have budgets and they’ve Very excited about what they about to do. So they focused on driving the idea of the ground, investing in their project product, whatever they’re developing. So quite often, they either don’t have documents in place, or they get documents from somebody that did something that don’t fit exactly the model that they have, or they download them from some libraries online. Sometimes they add the appropriate contracts for that particular scenario. And sometimes there is something else that even not even relevant. And unfortunately, you know, you sometimes can continue to grow. I mean, often, if you intending to have rounds of investment, you on the first round, you will establish that you probably don’t have it, because investors will want to see the health of your business, including legal health of your business, and they will see, you know, into the structure of who you have, as your co owners of the business, do you have a deadlock company that has a potential of, you know, having loads of issues when two owners can agree and you have no mechanism of resolving how you’re going to deal with it. And, or sometimes they go on for ages, and we have experiences with clients that would trade for many, many years, and then conflict arises. And they discover that they don’t have anything to help them to resolve the issue. And a lot of people don’t know that dollar company that law companies on valuation get a reduction on the value, because it’s, it’s a 5050 company, or whatever that log is. So unfortunately, you can discover issues quite late on which can be caused a lot of damage to company, and potential loss of your business. So you can’t really not appreciate the the importance of having the right documents in place.  

Robert Hanna 27:10 

And as someone who’s invested in companies sits on the board of companies started up companies, that is some of the most important advice you will hear, particularly on deadlock clauses, and indeed what’s in reserved matters. And if this stuff really isn’t landing with you, you really need to go away. And make sure that you have a comprehensive understanding of what the documents say within your business. Because if you’re trying to remove shareholders, if you’re trying to do things in terms of growth, whatever it might be, what the what is in the contract is in the contracts, you need to understand that and like you say, also from a health perspective, and also from sort of perspective, people. So I think that’s a really, really important point you mentioned there. So thank you for sharing that. And given some really good examples. Let’s switch now to talk about property. So could you explain a little bit in terms of the difference between commercial and residential property?  

Yulia Barnes 28:01 

Firstly, all commercial properties, commercial brands, so it’s a restaurant or a shop, and residential properties where it’s where you live, so say it’s a hot house or flat intended for human habitation. 

Robert Hanna 28:18 

And it’s as simple as that, folks. So sometimes we don’t need to overcomplicate things on the show. Let’s talk about a recent article. Bond’s law article navigating the Building Safety Act 2022. It states the legislation is aimed at enhancing building safety establishing rigorous standards and procedures for the construction and management of buildings. So what are the implications of the Safety Act? 

Yulia Barnes 28:41 

So for us, we have been looking, of course, we do residential conveyancing, so it’s important for us to whenever we buy to have the right documents in place to make sure that the building is safe. And but we also looked at this from a construction company’s point of view, because some of them are our clients. And in terms of liabilities that and I’m not going to talk about fairness or unfairness. But you know, some of that liability is for something that was completely compliant and legal when it was built, but because of the fires, they have changed the regulation, which is much tighter, but somehow those construction companies will be responsible if that building is not compliant. So there are lots of grants around work and trash can companies can can get to fix the things but we had instances where people get reaction letters saying well, you’ve you completed the building, but it wasn’t so compliance. And unfortunately, it’s not just the company that did traction project, it can be a company that is in the same group structure which you You know, is quite harsh. But nonetheless, yeah, it has a lot of implications for construction companies that the projects in the past. 

Robert Hanna 30:08 

Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, really important point. So I appreciate you giving some, some detail around that. Let’s talk a little bit about technology. Because as it continues to transform the business landscape Rock Roll, do you see AI and technology playing in potentially the litigation process? 

Yulia Barnes 30:27 

It’s interesting, because a lot of people think that is the future and it might replace lawyers. I’m a bit sceptical about this, at least at this point of time, we have some technology, and even clear has is using some technology. And we because we using clear was our case management system, which sort of helps with some admin tasks. So automation is great. But in terms of using technology to create documents or letters, we’ve tried to play with it just out of interest to see how, how good it is. I didn’t find it. Well, I mean, unless you know exactly how to ask, ask the question, you’re not going to get the right outcome, because it’s all about analysing exactly what is required, and then finding the right precedent and finding the right lessor approach to it. So and I think that’s the key when clients come they need help with that. Because not everybody knows, I mean, unless you are trained as a lawyer, why would you know? So? It’s yeah, if you if you don’t ask a court question, then you’re not going to get the right outcome. And also, sometimes it gives you even if you know how, to what to ask, sometimes it gives you really strange result. And we now all know about cases where the programme came up with fake case law. And I think we have this American negligence cases where, you know, they argued using wrong precedents that just not even wrong, but they didn’t exist to argue something. And obviously, they will find out. And so I don’t think it’s ready, it’s, it probably will be it might replace some junior positions where you can automate things, but in terms of creating a structure and something that a human being can can do. So I think much senior level would not be impacted. 

Robert Hanna 32:42 

Ya know, no. And again, thank you for giving such great examples. And you’re sort of perspective on that, as a leader who’s working in this space, particularly with that sort of boutique law firm model. Looking forwards, then in terms of the next few years, what development Do you anticipate shaping the legal sector and how does bond law plan to adapt to these potential changes? 

Yulia Barnes 33:06 

We always looking out for technologists, we there are few publications or training or events organised in London, where companies present their products we have in practical law, for example, using some tools integrating so there they soft work packages that you can buy as an add on to help you with some contract management, some automation of your drafting. So it’s difficult to say because it’s moving so fast. But we’re definitely if there is a product out there that will be useful. We’ll definitely be looking into it. 

Robert Hanna 33:48 

Ya know, and it’s great that you kind of stay curious you stay open minded and you know, embrace technology. I think that’s a really good message to send as a as a leader. And this has been a masterclass as I knew it was going to be either in terms of sharing all your wisdom from how you’ve got to, from where you started to where you are today with Barnes law, it’s thoroughly impressive, and I’m sure a lot of people get a lot of value from today. But finally, what would be your one piece of advice for aspiring lawyers looking to specialise in either commercial, or corporate law? 

Yulia Barnes 34:18 

I would, I would say you have to get as much experience as possible. And I would like to say that is quite important to start in the right environment. So you just need to understand if you want to work in fatique. You want to work in a big farm. You want to work in house, so it’s okay to try. Maybe try a wall and then set up your mind because once you find the right environment, it’s going to be very enjoyable. And also when you find the right partners, managers, it’s also going to be very enjoyable because it’s In the amazing profession to be in, it is challenging, but at the same time, it’s also enjoyable. So when you find the right place, and the right partners, senior people who will help you to grow, it’s going to be very enjoyable. 

Robert Hanna 35:15 

Yeah, no, really well said I think it’s some its people, isn’t it? You know, if you can get around the right people that can shape your career can support you during the tough and the good times, then you know, you’re really off to the races. But I think that’s some really sound advice. And if our listeners which I’m sure they will, you know, want to know more about your career or bonds law, where can they go to find out more what’s the best social media handles and websites tend to go and visit. 

Yulia Barnes 35:38 

So we have our brands law site that has some details about what we do. We also publish events, where, for example, I’m speaking or I’m attending arbitration days. We also publish our articles on LinkedIn and things that exciting things that we do, but also there are contact details for us. We are quite open to discussions and a lot of people that work with us actually just drop me a line and it was quite an unusual introduction, which I find really exciting. So two of those people are now have jobs with us. So do not hesitate. 

Robert Hanna 36:19 

Absolutely. You never know where a message may lead Yeah, and I love that and you obviously you got some exciting events coming up and yeah, I would encourage people we’ve also had the London international disputes which team come on and check out what they’re getting up to generally in terms of disputes events, but you know, this has been absolutely amazing. Thank you so, so much for coming on to the legally speaking podcast. I’ve really enjoyed enjoyed it. Wishing you lots of continued success with your career and bonds law but from now from all of us on the show. Over and out.