Learn how to reduce stress in law firms with this week’s guest, Michael Burne, the Founder and Chief Executive of Carbon Law Partners and Bamboo. In this episode, he shared the importance of embracing authenticity throughout your career to attract the right customers and improve your mental health at work.   

So why should you be listening in?  

You can hear Rob and Michael discussing:  

• Mental health in law firms 

• Alternative business structures 

• Consolidation in the legal industry 

• Advice for aspiring lawyers 

• How to stand out in your legal career  

Transcript

Rob Hanna 00:00 

Welcome to the legally speaking podcast. I’m your host Rob Hanna. This week I’m delighted to be joined by Michael Byrne. Michael qualified as a solicitor in 1995. With experience at city law firms Dentons and Allen and overy and in the professional services business, he is the founder and CEO of bamboo. Bamboo is aimed at developing legal services in the UK and owns one of the leading alternative business structures for law firms. Michael also founded carbon law partners, a commercial and private client law firm known as a rebel with a cause Michael is passionate about changing the way the legal profession works one step at a time committed to challenging the status quo. So a very big warm welcome, Michael. 

Michael Burne 00:43 

Rob, it’s great to see you. Thanks for having me on. 

Rob Hanna 00:46 

Oh, it’s an absolute pleasure. I’ve been looking forward to this one for quite some time. So before we dive into all your amazing projects experience to date, we do have a customary icebreaker question here on the legally speaking podcast, which is on a scale of one to 1010 being very real, what would you rate the TV series suits in terms of the reality of the law? If you’ve seen it? 

Michael Burne 01:08 

I’ve heard definitely seen it. In fact, I’ve watched all of the episodes of suits. So maybe I’m a binge eater. And I would give it a solid two out of 10. 

Rob Hanna 01:22 

And the fact that you have seen all a lot of the episodes if not all, I think you don’t need to justify your answer. And with that, we will move swiftly on to talk all about Would you mind Michel telling us a bit about your your background and career journey today? 

Michael Burne 01:37 

So of course, so South London comprehensive school boy first university, my family and I don’t own in the law, so chatted to a friend’s daughter who’d done a law degree at Leicester decided to go there because it sounded great. And the law faculty was in a former mental institution, which made me smile I loved studying the law. Although I nearly got thrown out at the end of the first year for not taking it seriously enough, but redeemed myself in the end I managed to get articles because I’m relatively old at what was then called Denton Hallberg and and morons who said they were city law firm because the back door to five Chancery Lane had an EC postcode rather than a West End one. And so my, my, my desire to be a lawyer came came from her black and white TV show that I used to bunk off School to Watch called Crown Court. And I know a few people have been on your shirt have mentioned things like Ally McBeal fabulous la law. Well, in fact, la law was relevant when I got them the very fortunate offer of my articles at Denton Hall because by Chancery Lane had a glass lift, and there was a glass elevator and an atrium in LA law. So I really thought I’d landed as I strode in there and my freshly bought button suit. In 919 1992, is when I started my training at Dentons. And then I had a spell they’re qualified their state became initially an IP litigator. But as is common with all IP litigators, my first piece of work when I qualified was a fairly high profile criminal case. And I acted for a very high profile, business owner and TV celebrity and in a moment of great irony for me, it turned out that he had been in an episode of Crown Court talking about life going full circle. And then when I was about two to three PQ II, because of course, you measure everything in terms of years, rather than content. I went to, I got I got invited, again, bizarre story, got invited to join Allen and over his IP litigation team after having lunch with the head of IP litigation back in the day, a lovely lady called Katrina Smith. She invited me for lunch. I didn’t know why I was going, but it was a free lunch. So I went, we got on really well. And the next thing I know I’m being asked if I’d like to go to a and oh, so comprehensive school boys like me, don’t turn down invitations like that. So I went to a no, for a bit. And then late 90s I decided with my massive huge wisdom, age 27 that I wanted not to be a lawyer because I thought lawyers or advisers, I wanted to be a decision maker, someone who made decisions rather than advised other people who made decisions. What a lot of nonsense. How little do you know when you’re young? So I told my dad, I’m going to I’m going to leave Allen and overy. He couldn’t quite understand. He just started reading the times having moved upmarket, from the Daily Express. And there was an article in the Times about a anos verse million pound partner. And I’m talking 1998. And he, he couldn’t understand why I would leave a firm like that. That’s people like us don’t leave firms like that son. No dad, but I want to be a decision maker. So I left and I went into industry, on my journey towards deciding things, or so I thought, and of course, you realise decision makers are actually either one of two people, they’re either the shareholders of a business, the owners of it, or, and this is a kind of last decade realisation that I’m in my 50s. Or there you, you are the decision maker. And so that realisation has taken me 30 years of a career to work out. But it wasn’t someone else who was making decisions. For me, it was me making decisions for myself. And realising we more live in a world of the, if you like the age of the individual, where you as an individual can control your life and your career. And if you’re smart enough to realise it, you’re a volunteer in all of them. And you can change anytime you like, easy to say sometimes hard to do. So yeah, that’s that’s most of the front end of my career. 

Rob Hanna 06:30 

Now, and it’s fascinating. There’s so many things going through my head when you’re talking through there. Interestingly, my, the reason I do a lot of what I do, my grandfather ran his own law firm in the 1950s, which was in Leicester. So you know, at the time, that was the second richest city in the UK due to the rosary trade. And he said, a quote to me, that kind of mirrors what you’re saying that you’re 27 year old, he says, You can’t put a wise head on young shoulders. And yeah, that’s quite, you know, quite profound to what you’re saying. I think in modern times, obviously, I look at the next generation, I think, wow, they’ve done a lot of talent, and they’re tech savvy, and so forth. But I still think there’s some sort of, you know, truth behind that. So let’s just quickly break down before we come on to obviously, what you’re doing currently, and all the amazing things that you’re you’re doing in terms of really looking forward because I think we’re going through this new revolution, we can’t hide the fact that you know, tech is most definitely here and all of that good stuff. But you know, what were your experiences back then working for the lights? Have you noticed? Because call them Dentons? Now, and the likes of a no, you know, what were some of your key lessons that you picked up there that maybe helped shape your career and obviously, then future going on to found firms? 

Michael Burne 07:32 

I think it’s interesting, I think there’s an enormous privilege in going to work for what I might describe as institutions like that. And I think there’s a, you know, a great flurry of people being critical of those large law firms and the way that they work people. And I would be quite critical today of what it was like for me back in the 90s. And I know others, and there are lots of people out there on LinkedIn and elsewhere saying, particularly and particularly female colleagues, would be critical of either the way they were treated, or what would happen if they wanted to have a family, the different the different kind of gender biases that were going on then and even more so these days. But I still maintain that I was privileged to go and work in an organisation like that, and to have access even to do the photocopying on significant large pieces of litigation or property or corporate transactional work for household name clients. And I got a little buzz out of it. I worked really, really, really hard. But I think in life, if if you want to get anywhere, you need to work hard. And you have to remember I guess going back to what I said earlier, you’re a volunteer in that. Nobody. Nobody made me go to a law firm that expects you to work hard, I chose to go I could have tried to go somewhere else. And it was a lot easier back in my in my day to get a training contract than it is today. So I probably have no excuse other than I didn’t know anyone in the law, which might give me an excuse. But I could have shopped around for a different type of firm. I didn’t I was happy to go to a prestigious place. I was happy to be paid more than my dad was paid as a as an article Clark and I was happy to work for the household name brands. And I remember a great piece of advice actually was given by the recruitment partner of Virginia Glastonbury at Dentons, who recruited me who I thought was fantastic. One of the great pieces of advice he gave to me is and to all of us actually is the intake no matter how busy and no matter how stressed you are, don’t pass your stress on, especially to colleagues who might be legal secretaries, other article clerks anyone around you. But don’t magnify stress by passing it on by the way that you treat others. So I learnt loads of great things and I met loads of great people in in Dentons and had some great opera unities and then you know, and then and then I can see looking back, it was a bit of a straitjacket for someone like me in some ways, but I don’t criticise them for that. I’d take responsibility for my own choice to go there. 

Rob Hanna 10:15 

And I love that. And that’s a message I really try to hammer home when it comes to legal careers and thinking about things having ultimate self accountability. It’s very easy to point the finger and place blame, but I think people who can work towards solutions or actually said, You know what, I made this decision. Yes, it’s not perfect. And the environment is but I’m going to make the change. And, you know, there was that famous quote, isn’t it about pressure is a privilege. And I think there’s some some some sort of truth behind that as well. And I learned recently online and it’s stuck with me, because I don’t believe in the ethos of work life balance, and someone says, Don’t said to me, don’t set goals, set sacrifices, you’re prepared to make that work for you in terms of what you deem successful, not success in terms of other people. I think that’s a really great point, you know, what are you prepared to potentially have to sacrifice to get to where you want to go, whatever success looks like for you, rather than just setting a goal, I want to earn X or I want to be partner, I want to do this? You know, because the reality is, there are going to be certain things you may have to miss in order to get there. So I thought that was really interesting insight. Okay, let’s get on to bamboo. I’m super excited about this. And talk us through how you got to founding bamboo. And would you mind for people who may not be familiar telling us more about what bamboo is? 

Michael Burne 11:29 

Okay. Let’s start with what bamboo is, and then work back to what why? Where does it come from? Why. So bamboo is a platform on which you can either start a law firm, grow an existing law firm, or exit from the law firm that you already own. And we have done all three of those things. In our relatively short life, bamboo is only just over three years old. The idea for me is that, and this this, there’s a lot of, there’s a lot of experience that’s compressed into perhaps a personal realisation, that then you think might have legs and then you test it out with other people, and they think it might have legs and then you build from there. So the kind of compression of the information is the knowledge of what it’s like to work in a large city law firm. The experience of going into industry and becoming a client of top 100 law firms, and also interpreting legal advice into business speak. And then realising that you didn’t want to spend the time doing the interpreting you wanted the law firm to just write it the way that everyone can understand it in the first place. And that happens a lot more now than it did when I first went into industry. It’s also the realisation that I went into financial services. And in financial services, I saw what you might call a dispersed model working at scale. So my first in house job was at St. James’s place the listed wealth manager. And actually, after two years as an in house lawyer and getting a promotion to head of legal I said to the MD, I don’t want to be a lawyer, which wasn’t quite career suicide, but I got moved out of the legal function at that point. And I started my journey into learning about how to manage teams and people and parts of businesses. And then I went on to the board of a listed competitor of St. James’s places when I was in James’s place when I was 31. Little did I know how little I knew, and how difficult that was going to be. So I had a lot of experience of managing at senior level dispersed communities of self employed people. And actually, lots of the characteristics of lawyers, whether they’re self employed, or they’re not, are that they’re quite independent spirits, because they’re knowledge driven, and very bright. And so there’s an element to which those things I learned in those dispersed communities are irrelevant. I also learned by being a client of top 100 law firms, just how miserable lots of the people that worked in them truly were, and how they didn’t feel there was a choice. They didn’t feel they could have a fulfilling career, and a reasonable life because I agree with you about sacrifice. So if you want to be good at anything, whether it’s the 100 metres, flying a plane, or being a lawyer, you will make sacrifices to be the best you can be and it’s human nature to try your best is going to be new and that’s part of the spirit that I love about people that they they’ve got that pioneering spirit that try your best and sensation. And yes, you make the sacrifices along the way that you choose to make. If you put all these things together dispersed financial services, businesses that scale, law firm experience in the city, big clients career ladders, As technology, you mash that together in a mashup, then in my head, what that spewed out was, well, what if you created the back and middle office of a regulated law firm, in a market that’s quite dysfunctional, where it’s hard to start a law firm, because you’ve got to get that pie quote, equally many people who want to start law firms and lawyers don’t really want to run one. And if you ask most lawyers, if they want to run a law firm, or do interesting legal work and get paid, they say, do interesting legal work and get paid, they don’t really want to be the compliance officer. They don’t want to choose the systems. But they do want their name over the door sometimes, and they do want freedom. And so these kinds of things all came together into post after model based on the Financial Services version of sharing fees and self employment. So first of all, I started carbon law partners to experiment with that model. And then once you’ve done that new work at how to run a dispersed community, and you work out the tech, and there’s lots of working out going on there, then you go, Well, why would the natural evolution is to make all of that knowledge in that platform, and there’s an overuse of the word platform in today’s market. But when you use that base, that basis, and allow it to be used for other things, so then you wind forward and you go, well, bamboo is in effect, like a department store for law. It’s in effect, like a John Lewis’s model, where we’ve got a shop, ie the infrastructure of a regulated law firm, but we’ve got Gant alongside Levi’s Estee Lauder alongside Chanel, as concessions that are using the same infrastructure, but have their own unique identity, their own culture, their own vision, their own values. So part of what interests me is, in a world where the number of law firms is now falling reasonably rapidly, how do we maintain diversity of ideas and thinking around diversity of culture around diversity of brands, and not ended up with what used to be called back in the, in the noughties, Tesco law, where we’re all forced and a homogenised route of the supermarket brand? Well, you know, not on the high street and Etsy, tell us why we don’t all want to buy the same thing from the same place. And that might be true. If we’re thinking about law. So bamboo as a platform enables people to start a law firm that’s fully regulated, if you like a box, a law firm in a box, and they can colour in their own colours with their own culture and values, or to have an existing firm where they don’t want to run it anymore, but they don’t want to stop. So we’ll take that firm on board, or was it just actually wanted? Well, the phrase I’ve heard is da critize, they’d like to take the value off the table. And sometimes they don’t want to stop there either. But they’ve exited the value but not exited the firm. And the brands can coexist in that concession in a department store construct. Well, why can’t you do that? So that’s really what I’m playing with. And the team are playing with us as concepts all mashed together from 30 years experience of wondering if there’s a different way to do it, not the way or the only way, just another way. So we can say to frustrated lawyers, you’ve got choices. Now it’s up to you what you do with them. 

Rob Hanna 18:26 

I love everything about that the sort of, you know, the the creative, the entrepreneurial side of me is just sort of saying yes, yes, yes, yes, yes. But I want to kind of quickly go back to a lesson I picked up from you that will hopefully beneficial to the listeners, you mentioned about the St. James’s place at age 31. You know, don’t take jobs that you know what you’re doing, take jobs, where you’re going to grow and learn, right, that’s the quickest way to stagnate is to do a lateral move, that’s not going to challenge you and actually get you out of your comfort zone. Because if you’re not growing, you’re dying. So I think throughout your career, it’s very clear to me that you’ve taken these roles and had to grow into them and had to get to be up to speed because you don’t want to be the smartest person in the room, because you’re ultimately not going to be learning. So I think that was a really great insight. And then everything you’ve discussed in terms of with bamboo and how you’ve arrived at that has just told me that, you know, you look at situations and actually you can turn a negative attention into a positive. And the reality is when it comes to things a friend said to me, nothing changes, nothing changes, like you say a lot of law firms and this new revolution will go out of business, particularly in the small to mid sized market, there is just categorically no way. I can’t see that happening. That’s just a matter of fact, but the fact that you have this offering now that may not have to be the case for everyone, and there is actually a home or there’s a different way that they can run their firm. And I want to dive a little bit deeper on the distress side of things because we can’t also ignore the fact that you know, there’s there is a lot of pressure within the legal profession. You know, there is a bit of a mental health crisis going on. And you know, you’ve talked about how bamboo works with clients to build their own brand and also grow their own law firm brand and also by their own law firm. But how does bamboo specifically go about helping reduce the stress and issues of establishing a law firm I think That’s an important point. 

Michael Burne 20:02 

Yeah, that’s a great question, Rob, because stress is a very personal thing, isn’t it? What stresses you out might not stress me out. And one of the things that’s important about bamboo, and in fact, one of the things that is important to me, personally, is that we want to celebrate the individual. We want people to stand out, not fit in. So it’s in our mission statement, actually, we say we want to create and develop the conditions for exceptional people to flourish. And being a lawyer, I’ve given exceptional a definition exception is that we are all exceptional twins are not the same one is an exception to the other. So if you are truly you, you can stand out. And if you do that, you will attract and repel exactly the right people. So find me Truly Me, you will either like me, or you won’t like me. And if you don’t like me, you don’t ever have to see me again, or speak to me. And neither do I. And we’d have this friction based relationship where we don’t, can’t just say that. And if I’m not really me, you can’t tell who you’re dealing with. So that’s quite stressful to come back to your specific questions. So the first thing is, try to work out who you are. And then what we’re trying to do is celebrate who you are with you, rather than try and make you into something else. So how stressful is it? And I’ll just be I’ll be very personal because it’s not right to talk about others are stressful, would it be for the comprehensive boy from South London, to wander into Dentons in his Burton suit, realise that’s not what anyone else is wearing. Now imagine you magnify that with any other personal characteristic about a human race, gender, sexual orientation, anything, I’m just doing the very basic white, middle aged middle class male version of it, which I know gives me an enormous amount of privilege. Okay, so I’m in my Burton suit, feeling like I don’t fit in because I hadn’t been to Oxford, I didn’t speak in a certain way. And so that was really stressful to me. And so the stress of not being true to yourself is hard work. So start with and bamboo would encourage this. And so would we at carbon, start with being you be honest about who you are, and be honest about what you want? So whenever I meet people who are thinking about carbon or bamboo, there’ll be people who might even listen to this podcast who’ve spoken to me Oh, yeah, he did ask me that. Two questions. Who are you? And what do you want? Now, they’re not designed to be plenty hard questions, or to be provocative or difficult. But if you tell me who you are, and what you want, I can tell you how we can help. But if you’re not honest about that, and you give me a meme or a version of yourself, I can never respond to that. So start with who you are, that will automatically reduce the stress of trying to be someone else. And then if you think about the environment that you’re joining, you’re joining a community we call it B, B, ie the bamboo ecosystem, which we can come on and talk about that is, you’re joining a community of like minded people, they’re all different. They’re all being themselves, they’ve all joined the place because they feel that suits them, that the stress in that environment is different by design to start with. Now, then, there are things that are stressful about running a business. The first one is, I guess, if you’re in a regulated law firm situation like we’re in what why would you run a regulated law firm and give yourself the stress of being a compliance officer? Or running client money? Or picking a practice management system? Or negotiating a contract with PLC? Or oh, my goodness me the annual PR insurance renewal? Why don’t you give yourself the stress of that, if you don’t have to, unless you think you might love working on it, and make a positive choice to do that. So there are some people out there who want to start a law firm, they should start their own. You know, there are still people even though the numbers falling overall starting new law firms. And there are some great examples of people who’ve done it really, really well. Just think of people like Aleister and Shona tend legal. They’re really great people who’ve started their own firm, they’ve not come on a platform like ours and need it. They’ve worked out their way of doing it. And they’ll be getting support services from maybe people at Hive or using systems like Clio. And they’re happy to work on that. And they happen to spend some of their working time working on that. Because it’s a choice back to the beginning of our chat, and therefore it’s not stressful. There might be hard work and there may be sacrifices, but it’s not causing them stress. So I think making the right choice for you is the beginning of managing your own stress. And that stuff, that’s the start and the end of what we then do to wrap around you. We’re doing stuff for you that you don’t have to do. We’re running so systems, we’re sending invoices to your clients, for you, we’re collecting the money, we’re dealing with the SRA. That’s a bunch of stress you don’t have to deal with. But there’s still the stress then of building your business, building your client base, doing the actual work, the stress, the other side might try and put on you if you’re in a dispute or the arm wrestling in a deal. And if you find this thing stressful, maybe law is not for you, because that’s part of it. But if you’ve been honest about who you are, then you’ll know, you’ll know the answer to that question. And we can help you to manage away the stress that you don’t need to have if you want to be in law.  

Rob Hanna 25:30 

Yeah, and I love that because, you know, I talk about this a lot in terms of the importance of the workplace, embracing authenticity, you know, allowing people to be their true authentic selves and to show up, because that then creates that sense of belonging. And this is good for baseline profit as well, you know, that’s the thing if you allow people to be who they are and flourish and not feel like they’re having to come on with a poker face every day. And, you know, they’re not really bringing their full selves. And, you know, I love that you touched about, you know, as myself as I’m passionate about legal community building and trying to build this kind of more collaborative, you know, future proof, you know, community, and everything is energy. So if you can get into the B system, like you mentioned, you know, you’re gonna have that energy because you can be around right and like minded individuals, and actually, you can go and mastermind a problem together, and you’re not just getting sort of, you know, this negative energy for someone who might be looking down on you, or maybe actually saying, that’s quite easy. You know, we’re all in this together, there’s no silly question, I’m, I’m in the right environment, I’m going to help flourish and grow. And it’s so so important. And I just want to get back a quick step, because we have a range of listeners, obviously, from law firm owners, people curious about the law, and also legal people thinking about starting in the profession, and some of them may not be quite so familiar with an ABS law firm. So working within ABS law firms in the UK, you enable lawyers, financial advisors, accountants and new market entrants to set up an SRA regulated firm, which we’ve talked about. But for those who are unfamiliar, could you explain what an alternative business structure is? And how does this model perhaps differ very much. So from the traditional law firm models that people might be more familiar with? 

Michael Burne 26:59 

Okay, so go back in our legal education, to 2007 and the Legal Services Act, which is what sent me down this pathway. And in fact, I tried to raise money in 2008, I had some support from accountancy practice to go and raise 10 million to start this business model. And for another day, there’s a story that I call shag pile carpet. And the shag pile carpet story is me in a private equity firms offices in Mayfair ready to do my first pitch to raise 10 million to start this business on September the 18th 2008, which was the day that Lehman’s collapsed. So I didn’t get my money. And I wasn’t able to start my abs then, because of circumstances and timing that were completely out of my control. But I did 17 pitches that week, because nobody cancelled, but everybody said, if you see what’s happened to Lehman’s, we can’t possibly invest that much money in your startup idea. And I feel Yes, but I’ve got I’ve got a new clean shirt on and I’ve got my adrenaline going. And surely you’ve seen me because you have a great idea, but not for now. So an ABS was the structure that enabled external investment. And external owners of law firms, something they’re now trying to do in Scotland, and in other jurisdictions in the states and so on. I think we need to be careful because people talk about abs like, ABS is the definition of a modern law firm. It isn’t. The definition of a modern law firm is to do with who runs it and what they’re trying to do. And the regulator says you can have different structures in which you can choose to do that. And ABS means you can have outside owners. And if they own above 10%, they need to be approved by the SRA. But when I first started and people could didn’t believe me, when I first started in 2010, on my little experimental law firm, I was a limited company, authorised body law firm. I was not an ABS, I didn’t become an ABS. And this is such a lovely quirk of fate. I became an ABS or we became an ABS on Valentine’s Day in 2019. So for nearly 10 years, we were not an ABS, but people would have described us as doing things that were disruptive with a small d different trying to forge a different way of practising law, fee sharing consultancy new models, but we were a bog standard law firm. So let’s not get hung up on what an ABS is. And ABS is useful if you want outside money. But the most important thing isn’t the underlying regulatory structure. It’s the state of mind and the ambition of the people running it. So there are plenty of old style law firm, legal authorised entities doing really innovative things, because they’ve got modern thinking. So that’s what I would say about an ABS it’s not the only way to be to be different. 

Rob Hanna 29:57 

And I love that and that’s a great point because you know, Some firms can change, you know, they’re in this tradition environment, but they are looking to adapt, you know, not necessarily all but you’re right, because you know, certain firms will look at this and say, you know, we just need to tweak this, we need to tweak that. So it’s a really, really good point. What would you say? Are the key advantages, though of a platform model, like an ABS versus others? And do you think more law firms are going to look to adopt this sort of alternative business structure or not? 

Michael Burne 30:26 

I mean, I think that that there’s a whole condensing of a market going on, isn’t there. So we’ve got consolidation at play. And people get excited about that in financial services. I’ve watched 30,000 IFA firms become 5000 IFA firms, in about a decade. So in various ways on various platforms, I’ve said, I think we will pretty quickly get to 5000 law firms from 11,000 at the peak. Now, that implies lots of change. And that implies lots of opportunity, so change to me as an opportunity. But the opportunity to change doesn’t mean chucking the baby out with the bathwater. So there are lots of great things about law firms that we should honour to do with things like for example, integrity, professionalism, sharing knowledge, those kinds of things. The spirit of partnership, not the legal constructs of it, we talk about that a lot inside our business that’s working the spirit of partnership for shared outcome. So I think the market dynamics of this dysfunctional market with the number of law firms falling, some of them dying, quite a lot dying, unfortunately, which I think is, again, could be the subject of a whole discussion. How does that happen? Why does that happen? What can you do about it? How can you make sure it doesn’t happen to you, et cetera, et cetera? And we might touch on that next month? Who knows? And, and so the, the idea of the structure come second, to me is the business plan that comes first, what Who are you serving as a law firm? Who is your client? How will you do it? With what systems and what humans? Are you going to deliver that, then what is the right model for you to do that from? So I wouldn’t start with the ABS versus limited company versus LLP versus old style partnership? First, I’d start with what you’re trying to achieve, you know, classic, Franklin Covey, start with the end in mind, where are you going, you know, set the course and then work back to. So if we’re one of them, doing this for those folks, this is what we should be structured like, because we’re going to need an external investment because we don’t have enough of the money ourselves to do what we need to do on day one, week one year one. But if you don’t need that, then why would you structure yourself like that you might not bother. You might just set up a an LLP, or limited company. So it’s, it’s I would put the cart before the horse. I’ve used about five dreadful cliches and metaphors that have no end in mind. carthorse. 

Rob Hanna 33:04 

It’s true, though, you know, and I always think, you know, a lot of people, you know, it’s very strategic thinking what you’re showcasing here, you know, I always think about your ICA, your ideal customer avatar, and thinking back to that and that journey, and it’s absolutely what you’re just sort of articulating there. So it’s this is all good stuff, really enjoying the conversation. Okay, the key question probably listeners listening in who might be at a smaller, firm, or might be a little bit twitchy in their current environment, you know, what strategies can small firms employ to survive, and indeed thrive in a consolidating market that you’re referring to?  

Michael Burne 33:36 

I mean, I’ve kind of hinted at it. If you don’t know who your customer is, I mean, we’ve got the obligation. And it’s, it’s makes me smile. As regulated law firms, we have to know who our client is, we have to identify and verify who they are, partly to check their money laundering crooks. So right at the beginning of a relationship with a client, we do what in American law firms called KYC. Know your client? Or what if we did that, from the point of view of the business plan? Who is the client, we’d like to know? I’d like to work for people like Rob, that disruptive, entrepreneurial, start and run a range of businesses. Okay, so if that’s the kind of Avatar or the marketing persona of the client, I want, therefore, how do I structure my firm work back? So if you don’t know that, if you’re just being opportunistic, and you’ve got, you know, Mrs. Miggins, comes in off the street and you do whatever she asked you to do. As a lawyer, you’re not differentiated, you can’t be a specialist. You don’t stand out from the crowd. Trying to be all things to all people is really dangerous as a marketing strategy. I don’t think these are, this is not radical or new. I mean, this is just basic, common business sense. I think that many lawyers will forget that because they’re so busy. They’re just so busy doing what they do every day that they don’t get the opportunity to sort of pause and I often also pause and turn around and enjoy the view to see how far you’ve come. But also decide where you want to go. So if how far you’ve come means you’re doing any kind of legal work that comes through the door, and you don’t enjoy it, we’re back to the theme of our conversation, make the change you want to see, decide who your customers going to be, and then tilt yourself towards them. So that’s the most important thing. If you don’t know who your client is, you really are going to struggle to know how to serve them what to serve them with, how to develop relationship connection, how to really truly look after them. 

Rob Hanna 35:36 

Yeah, I think if you’re reactive, like you gave that scenario waiting people to come through the door and let them detect rather than be proactive and take those steps, I think that you run a risk there. Yeah, and I just love the overall mindset and a great point around pause, I always say there’s real power in the pause, you know, we live these busy lives, you know, we’re on, we’re gonna come on social media in a minute, you know, we see things online, I should be doing this, I should be doing that, or we should be at this stage now. And like you say, I really liked that point, right? Take a look at what you’ve achieved, you know, and actually, I was talking about the small wins, like, you know, actually, if you can make 1%, incremental changes weekly, not necessarily daily, don’t put too much pressure on yourself, you’ll be amazed what that looks like, in a year’s time, two years time, three years time, because as I said, nothing changes, nothing changes. But if you make these incremental, you’ll see huge differences down the line. Okay, let’s talk a quick bit about LinkedIn, because your profile stood out to me, as you know, I think we chatted before it says, A rebel with a cause. So would you mind telling us a bit more of the meaning behind that? 

Michael Burne 36:34 

Okay, so, back in 2016, I was invited to speak at the doula I didn’t realise just what an honour that was and how terrifying it was until I got there. On the day I was supposed to speak. And it’s a residential weekend on a farm in west Wales, it’s really hard to get to, but people come from all over the world, only 100 tickets. So it’s limited audience the tickets aren’t cheap. And you hear 20 speakers who speak for free about about what they’ve done and are doing. And the idea is to encourage others to have a go. So I had to give a talk at an event like this, where there were people like the guy who founded what three words, he spoke the same weekend, I spoke with his globally significant idea. And I’ve got, I’ve got a different way of doing law. So it was really it was really, it was a fabulous experience. And the do lectures is a brilliant concept a bit like Ted. But without the unnecessary polish, it’s much more real. It’s a real conversation. It’s not edited or scripted. So I had to have something to say, that would be interesting in a community of people that are changemakers. So it just came to me that, you know, I was, I was quite rebellious, really, compared to not every lawyer, but lots of lawyers, there are lots of lawyers, who would be maybe as contrarian as me or as willing to challenge the status quo. And there are more and more all the time. But go back to 2016, where they were less, but still some so. So I needed a way of describing myself to people that was easy to remember. And of course, who doesn’t want to channel James Dean. So I went, I went through a rebel with a cause and the rebel is I want to challenge the status quo, not for the sake of it, but where I think it could be improved. And the cause is to make a difference in a profession that’s been very slow to change. And where I think we can embrace a diversity of ideas to pick up Matthew society’s book I love we can pick up the atomic habits to change something small each day. So that’s really been behind me describing myself like that. And then of course, the thing I have to do is try and live up to it a bit, but not look at me. Alright, middle aged, male, white. I am not a rebel, really am i I’ve even got my Gantt shirt on, and my specie specs and my air pods. So I suppose I’m a comforting revel, because I’m not too out there. Now. I just want to ask the question, why? 

Rob Hanna 39:19 

Well, I think you’re definitely you know, everything that I see and what you’ve articulated with bamboo, you know, and the meaning behind that. I think it stacks up. I love the fact that you’re challenging the status quo. I love the fact that you’re focusing on not just challenging, but then providing the solution and you give some really great insights throughout that I thoroughly enjoyed. I want to talk about one of your articles. A crash course in social media for lawyers building an effective online presence on the bamboo blog, you share seven lessons to conquer social media, choosing your platforms wisely, crafting a captivating bio, think we just touched on that engaging with your audience showing your personality content is king or indeed Queen In hashtags everywhere and network like a pro, could you tell us more briefly high level about some of these more lessons and any tips you would give to others?  

Michael Burne 40:09 

Yeah, I’m really, really fortunate Rob. So I’ve had some great teachers around social media, the wonderful Helen Burness has helped us over the years from time to time. And she really did help me to understand the power of having a social strategy, rather than being intentional about about it rather than accidental. So I used to sharp Write, write about anything, occasionally, with no pattern or any standards applied to myself. So Helen really taught us as a business a lot about how to be intentional how to choose the topics that you want to express an opinion about, again, back to know your client know your audience, who do you want to talk to. So I might want to talk to people who are a bit frustrated about the way law happens. But I might want to talk to people who’ve got some ideas about diversity and inclusion, and what that truly means not just a tick box exercise, but how to encourage diverse thinking, which is why I really like Matthew sides book. It’s not just about the quota driven approach to diversity. It’s about having different ideas and where they come from. So what if I wanted to talk to a community about that? So if I know they’re my audience, I’m now writing things that are relevant to them. And what I’m trying to do. I think this is the most important thing is is your audience’s time is limited. Be respectful, have something interesting to say. And be yourself. So if you do those things, and yeah, hashtag this network that, then great. If you haven’t got anything to say, Michael, don’t bother. Don’t write drivel, don’t write stuff you don’t mean. Don’t write stuff that is insulting. Don’t write stuff that you wouldn’t say to your grandma. Be honest and straightforward and true and decent and share your views and opinions and experiences. When you’ve got something to say. And if you haven’t, don’t just feel our consciousness with the drivel and pictures and nonsense. I’ve, I’ve actually paid back the amount I say, I comment regularly on other people’s stuff, because I like what they say. And if I like what they sell, I’ll say and I’ve sometimes dividend jousting. So many Scott Simmons will jabs regularly about the chargeable hour. And it being whether it’s the source of all evil, or in my view, bad management is the source of all evil. There’s things like that where you can engage with people and get to know them. So being yourself, say something if you’ve got something to say, connect and support those that are saying something because it takes effort to create content as you as you really well know.  

Rob Hanna 42:46 

Yeah, great point, you know, and again, everything starts with a conversation, you know, and having a debate and a conversation is great, right? It’s engagement. And as you say, sometimes less is more so and one of the benefits of a platform like LinkedIn, actually, I’ve got a good friend John Lindsay, who who creates parody videos, the legal community, they are they’re hilarious. I’ve done a few myself. He only posts on a Monday. And his strategy is he’s in the comments, right? Because that will enhance his visibility. And he’ll build community through driving conversation making pupils that you’ve seen and, and heard. And so you know, you don’t necessarily like to say just need to fill the fill the gaps and you know, be yourself. So, so important. So yeah, really great lessons, as always. So I’ve got a couple of quick questions for we we finish up probably quite a big question, because I don’t know how I even answered this now with the world that we’re in. But how do you envision the legal profession evolving over the next? I mean, decade? Yeah, I guess in the next five years, because we’re in unprecedented times in terms of change, and you know, what’s going on? So and within that, what role do you see bamboo really playing in this evolution of legal services? 

Michael Burne 43:48 

Call? What a couple of Whoppers to finish on? So let’s have a look at the the market and where’s it going? So I think it won’t change as much as people believe that it will. If if we look at evidence, if we do a bit of financial services, past performance isn’t the guide to the future, but it’s quite useful to have a look back. The pace of change in law has been relatively slow. I think it’s accelerating. And we should be aware that it’s accelerating. So that that calls upon us to behave differently if we want to be a survivor. So back in 2007, I spoke with a lawyer conference about being an arc builder. So I was asked, you know, what’s my model for the future? And my answer was, and I’m not a religious person, particularly but my answer was I’m building arcs because I don’t know when the floods coming. So the flood is gradually coming. The water is rising, and not everyone is rising with it, hence less law firms and they’re not all consolidating happy mergers and successful practice deals. Some of them are just dying and in my analogy, sadly drowning which is awful, and So being an app builder, which involves having a little look forward, I wouldn’t look forward 10 years because I haven’t got a clue what’s happening next week, I’d go six to 12 months. And I would have a clear strategy for what we as a firm, or I as a lawyer and going to do in the next six to 12 months, and I would keep vigilant for signs of the flood or signs of change or signs of acceleration, and be able and agile enough to move. So I talked about bamboo, then what’s bamboo enabling? Well, think of a supertanker, and maybe let’s be unkind to big law firms. I was trying to them at the beginning and privilege to work in the mystery a bit unkind. Let’s have the supertanker law firm ducking across the legal ocean. Really difficult if you said to that, that stupid sank a law firm turn left. Yeah, that’s really difficult, right. The time it takes that supertanker to turn left is really slow. So what if bamboo enables the flotilla of small boats, and as we remember D Day, something that’s very, very important to me and my family, because my grandfather was on the landing craft in D Day, that flotilla of small boats was incredibly powerful. Why? Well, because you could form that flotilla of small boats up to look like a supertanker. But if one of them needed to swerve off, right to fulfil an opportunity, they’ve got the agility and the speed, but they’ve got all of the comfort of the supertanker shape, form resources. That’s where I think bamboo has a part to play in helping that flotilla of divers and different small boats, they put together when they want to need to, into what I’ve called the bamboo ecosystem, so they can share clients knowledge, information intermediaries, experts that be themselves. So the future is about progressive change. The speed is being exaggerated, over what it will actually be. But we should watch out because one thing I’m 100% sure about, and everything I’ve just said, is that I’m wrong. Because if I was right, I wouldn’t be here I’d have the lottery numbers would night.  

Rob Hanna 47:17 

Well, exactly, exactly. But I think it’s a guess. And that’s all any of us can do in this modern world. But I think you give some really good examples about you know, I always say, you know, necessarily exclusively to this, but Boutique is beautiful. And what I mean by that is you can be nimble, you can be able to react a lot quicker than some of the larger organisations, you can kind of go with the times a little bit more and be more modern than we had. Before. On the show, we had piers Lynnie, former Dragon’s Den investor and lawyer, and he talks a lot. You mentioned the arts, he talks about the value pyramid and the need for it doesn’t matter if you’re a lawyer or a doctor, accountant, whatever you do, if you’re not moving up the value pyramid, ultimately, technology is going to come in and eat your lunch. I think it’s similar to like you give the analogy of the ark and the flood unless you’re moving up the value pyramid, finding ways that you can meet your clients and future clients where they’re at. You’re at real risk. So I think there’s a really good, great insight there. And I love that expression, I might steal that the arc as well. Okay, one final question a little bit cheeky, because I know I said a couple but just again, for the aspiring lawyers listening in, what would be your one piece of advice for them looking to make a significant impact in the legal sector? 

Michael Burne 48:23 

I really would go back to something I’ve already said to you, which is be yourself. Because if you are yourself, you will connect to the right people. Of course, you’ve got to have legal expertise. We take that for granted. Of course, you’ve got to be good at building relationships with people because that’s what lawyers essentially do. They build relationships. And relationships are human interactions. They’re not, they’re not digital, they might be digitally enabled. And we’re digitally unable to talk to each other right now. But we’re forming a relationship and a bond, there’s chemistry going on. So if you want to you, you give yourself the best chance of the right chemical reactions when you meet people who you could serve. So be you and don’t forget your work in the service sector. Don’t get carried away with your being a smarty pants and knowing the law and making it complicated. You are there to serve clients. Do it yourself and you’ll be successful.  

Rob Hanna 49:19 

Yeah, it’s such a great point. And I talk a lot about the need for this. H to H this human to human revolution in the workplace. It’s not b2b, it’s not b2c, that’s changed because like you say, you generate this connection and then you build rapport with people and you get those long lasting relationships and trust comes from that referrals come from that all of these amazing things. Michael, this has been a masterclass start to finish as I knew it was going to be so if our listeners want to know more about you your career bamboo law, where can they go to find out more feel free to shout out on your websites, any social media handles will also share them as episode 42.  

Michael Burne 49:55 

Best place to find me is on LinkedIn. I’m on LinkedIn obviously If you want to know more about bamboo, you can go to bamboo dot law. Or you can go to carbon law partners.com. And you’ll find me and us and our various incarnations and the people that we work with and support and who’s in the team and all the stuff that people want to know. They always want to know who’s in and who’s doing it. So go look at the people pages, and you’ll see but I love connecting with people. So if people want to know me a bit more, I would like to share their story with me because I love hearing other people’s stories then come find me. 

Rob Hanna 50:31 

But they have it folks, Michael, thank you so so much. Once again, it’s been an absolute pleasure having you on the legally speaking podcast wishing you lots of continued success with bamboo and all your pursuits, but from now from all of us, over and out.