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Battling the Long Working Hours Culture – a conversation with Jonathan Baum
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Jonathan Baum is the founder of Avenir Law a law firm based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA.
Jonathan is concerned that too many lawyers/solicitors and other professionals are working excessive hours. He believes that professional service firms know that this practice has a negative impact on both individual workers and the quality of the work they produce.
In this episode of the Abeceder podcast The Independent Minds, Jonathan explains to host Michael Millward how he is challenging the long working hours culture of professional services by creating a different approach to the way legal services are provided.
You will hear Jonathan and Michael discuss the reasons why professional services has a long working hours culture.
Jonathan describes his new way of working that removes the need to work long hours and how that benefits, workers, employers and their clients.
Find out more about both Michael Millward, and Jonathan Baum at Abeceder.co.uk
The Independent Minds is made on Zencastr, because as the all-in-one podcasting platform, on which you can create your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms, Zencastr really does make creating content so easy.
If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr visit zencastr.com/pricing and use our offer code ABECEDER.
Travel
Sam is based in Great Barrington, Massachusetts, USA. Members of the Ultimate Travel Club, can travel to Great Barrington, and anywhere else at trade prices on flights, hotels, trains, package holidays and all sorts of other travel purchases. You can become a member at a discounted price by using my offer code ABEC79 when you join-up.
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Being a Guest
We recommend that potential guests take one of the podcasting guest training programmes available from Work Place Learning Centre.
We use Matchmaker.fm to connect with potential guests If you are a podcaster looking for interesting guests or if you have something interesting to say Matchmaker.fm is where matches of great hosts and great guests are made. Use our offer code MILW10 for a discount on membership.
We appreciate every like, download, and subscriber.
Thank you for listening.
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Transcript
Introduction to Independent Minds Podcast
00:00:05
Speaker
on zencastr Hello and welcome to the Independent Minds, a series of conversations between Abysseedah and people who think outside the box about how work works with the aim of creating better workplace experiences for everyone.
00:00:21
Speaker
I am your host, Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abysseedah. Today,
Interview with Jonathan Baum: Work Culture in Legal Services
00:00:27
Speaker
I will be hearing about how Jonathan Baum is trying to change the working culture in the legal and professional services industry.
00:00:35
Speaker
As the jingle at the start of this podcast says, the Independent Minds is made on Zencastr.
Promotion of Zencastr Platform
00:00:42
Speaker
Zencastr is the all-in-one podcasting platform on which you can make your podcast in one place and then distribute it to the major platforms like Spotify, Apple, Amazon, and Google YouTube Music.
00:00:55
Speaker
Zencastr really does make making content so easy. If you would like to try podcasting using Zencastr, visit zencastr.com forward slash pricing and use my offer code, Abysida.
00:01:08
Speaker
All the details are in the description. Now that I have told you how wonderful Zencaster is for making podcasts, we should make one. One that will be well worth listening to, liking, downloading and subscribing to.
00:01:22
Speaker
As with every episode of the Independent Minds, we won't be telling you what to think, but we are hoping to make you think. Today, my guest, Independent Mind, is Jonathan Baum.
00:01:34
Speaker
In the UK we would describe Jonathan as a solicitor. In Massachusetts, where Jonathan is based, he is a lawyer. Jonathan
Avenir Law: Life-enhancing Legal Tools
00:01:42
Speaker
is the founder of Avenir Law, a law firm, but today we're also going to be talking more about Avenir Guild, a law firm that provides the tools you need to create the life you want.
00:01:56
Speaker
Jonathan is based in Great Barrington in Nope, me neither. Never heard of it. So visiting would be a bit of a voyage of discovery, one that I can save a lot of money on if I book my travel with the Ultimate Travel Club.
00:02:11
Speaker
which is where I can gain access to trade prices on flights, hotels, trains and package holidays, as well as lots of other travel related purchases. There is a link to the Ultimate Travel Club and an offer code in the description.
00:02:26
Speaker
Now that I've paid some bills, it is time to make an episode of The Independent Minds. Hello, Jonathan. Hello, Michael. So what is Great Barrington like? It is, i think, the best small town in the United States.
00:02:42
Speaker
But it's a town of 7,000. We're about two and a half hours north of New York City and about the same distance from Boston to the east.
00:02:53
Speaker
It's a second home community to many moneyed New Yorkers. And during the summer, it's a quite a cultural hub where very close to us, we have the summer home of the Boston Symphony Orchestra, major dance and theater festivals. It's quite the place worth visiting. There there are many reasons to come here.
00:03:10
Speaker
Yes, rather sort like wanting to find out what there was in Great Barrington. Is there a little Barrington? Well, actually there is. The town was founded by our non-Indigenous settlers in the late 18th century, only to and they wanted to call the town Barrington only to discover that the state of Rhode Island to our south had already done so.
00:03:32
Speaker
And for reasons that are unclear, they thought, well, they may be Barrington, but we, we are great Barrington. It's true. Oh, I'm from Yorkshire.
00:03:45
Speaker
It sounds like the sort of thing that would happen in Yorkshire. But we're not here to talk about that at the moment. But it certainly sounds like great Barrington is a place worth worth visiting in the summer as well, with all the culture there.
00:03:57
Speaker
Could you please telling us a little bit about who you are, where you're from, and how you came to be a lawyer in Great
Journey to Becoming a Lawyer
00:04:03
Speaker
Barrington? Sure. So I was born and raised in New York City, Brooklyn in particular. Although it might be disappointing to some listeners, when someone asks how I became a lawyer, the honest answer is is that I didn't do well in my audition at the Paris Conservatory as a clarinetist.
00:04:21
Speaker
And law school became a bit of a default setting for me. But it served me very well. I practiced in New York City for a number of years. My practice then and now is predominantly securities law, finance, with a specialization in funds, know syndications, collective investment vehicles, I think, are often called in the UK.
00:04:43
Speaker
Client-based now are primarily asset managers, um deploying capital in various asset classes from biotech to distressed debt to real estate to private equity strategies.
00:04:58
Speaker
You may know the US and in the UK. Capital raising is highly regulated and a creature of contract. So those are my two areas of specialty, which is the contractual relationship between the investors and the recipient of the funds on the one hand, and the regulatory environment in which the offerings are made.
00:05:17
Speaker
That's what I do. So that's the sort of things that Avenir Law does. Correct. What's Avenir Guild? How did that come about? Sure. Guild is not a law firm. him Rather, it's a passion project of mine to make resources available to my fellow lawyers. And by resources, I mean anything from administration, you know how to administer your own firm to...
00:05:45
Speaker
coaches, biz dev, develop you know, coaches or mentors. And the inspiration really comes from my view, and we're segueing here a bit, that many of my colleagues have spent their careers inside law firms for reasons that to me don't always make a lot of sense. Among the things that they will refer to are all the support, administrative support they receive inside the firm for which they're willing to pay a substantial premium.
00:06:19
Speaker
So part of the Avenir Guild inspiration was to demonstrate to my colleagues that many of the resources offered by law firms can now be had as software as a service for a few dollars a month.
00:06:32
Speaker
It sounds as if what you're providing through the Guild is a resource for people to be able to set up their own law firms in some ways, to have the infrastructure of a law firm behind them, which actually they're using when they need it rather than having it five, six, seven days a week.
00:06:50
Speaker
I think that's right. and It's also part of, you know, sort of how I want to spend the next few years of my career, which is to basically poke at the fundamental rationale given for the way lawyers organize themselves in law firms.
00:07:06
Speaker
It's just one part of my multi-pronged poke. My experience of of law firms is fairly limited, but I do know that when I'm out and about in in the big city, so I'm going out having dinner and I'll see the lights on in the lawyer's office or I'll see lawyers and accountants and professional services people still at work or just going home from work nine o'clock at night or even later.
00:07:32
Speaker
That whole sort of culture that there is a machine, the legal industry, the professional services is a machine and people operate within the machine and each part of it works to maintain the machine, I suppose.
00:07:48
Speaker
I guess the question becomes, what is the machine? Why is it built the way it is?
Challenges in Law Firm Culture
00:07:54
Speaker
And does it have to be that way? Really originated with a current uptick in interest, at least in the US and the UK.
00:08:04
Speaker
on the well-being with a of lawyers with a particular focus on mental health. And I would love to be proven wrong is that it all felt very palliative in that it was a lot about mindfulness and yoga.
00:08:20
Speaker
Relaxation chairs and pool tables, all sorts of things that really are quite superficial, but makes people who are providing them feel as if they've done something very positive. Right, and there's a whole ecosystem of of wellness coaches and even clinical psychologists who lecture widely to law firms on how to sort of assist in the mental health and well-being of their lawyers. But what I find striking, and again, I'd love for someone to show me where I'm wrong, is that I haven't been able to find any conversation about
00:09:00
Speaker
how this came to be, you know, why is it that my colleagues
00:09:06
Speaker
on survey after survey, top the league charts in drug abuse, divorce, mental health crisis, depression, suicidality, like, like where's the conversation about why i get, you know, the virtue of offering you know, mental health support and all of that and meditation rooms and all of that. But like, I think the conversation needs to start much, much earlier, which is what are we doing that's bringing us to, you know, to the brink?
00:09:46
Speaker
So I suppose what you're saying in many ways is that the the current way in which as employers, we support employees in health and wellbeing is closing the stable door after the horse is bolted. Right.
00:10:02
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's right. And so the conversation I've been trying to ignite ah from my town of 7,000 here in a small, small part of the United States is, Hey, why are we doing this?
00:10:18
Speaker
It doesn't have to be this way. And let's have that conversation. I've been in meetings with lawyers and with consultants from big organizations and so thought we've come to the end of the day, so I'll buy you dinner. know but I shouldn't be saying that, to yeah but it's the end of the day. Thank you for working so hard. Let's let's have dinner.
00:10:40
Speaker
And they've said, no, no, no, we've still got a few more hours work to do. So I have dinner by myself. the whole culture, the way in which we manage people in certain industries, certain environments, certain professions, is that lots of lots of hours, do lots of hours. There's lots of work to be done.
00:10:57
Speaker
So we will work well in excess of 10, 12 hours a day. Why is the question though, isn't it? Why has the industry developed to be like that? I'm sort of less interested in how we got here historically, and I'm more interested in why we persist.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, but in order to understand how we, why we persist and how we're going to change, don't we have to and address the issues of why we're in that situation in the first place so that we can not to repeat it and, yeah, just not repeat it. We need to know why, what it is that we're, we need to change, but why are we in the situation that we are at the moment? And I suspect it's simply that there is an awful lot of money at stake and people believe that we've got to be in control of that. And that leads to the long hours and the the immense amount of pressure are put onto individuals rather than the whole team looking at the issue. I think that's right. I think money is at the root of that.
00:12:00
Speaker
Even that, I think, needs to be you know sort of teased apart. So, for example... From the perspective of a newly minted lawyer working in a US law firm, you know we we would refer to them as ah as an associate, for example.
00:12:15
Speaker
They are operating at a fixed salary with a bonus. And the press is full frequently with the bidding wars among the top firms and how much more they're willing to pay for talent and the bonuses that are being gifted to these people.
00:12:35
Speaker
But ultimately, um employed lawyers are are ah fixed costs, but they are variable revenue generators, right? You can, as much hours as we can squeeze out of that person, then the gross revenue of that particular firm goes up.
00:12:56
Speaker
And i think it is what it is. That's how many lawyers are um perceived and utilized inside their firms.
00:13:07
Speaker
yeah The more that you are paid, the more work you will have to do to justify But even if you do the math, the simple math of a highly compensated first or second or even third year lawyer and in a top New York firm,
00:13:22
Speaker
and you divide that by the number of hours that ah they are required to spend either working or you know a billable hours or at the office, it often comes out to be about the same hourly rate as a massage therapist. you know it's it's you know It's not that the hour the the compensation per hour for these people is really quite low, even if their total annual compensation is quite high.
00:13:53
Speaker
The hourly rate for the set contract might look quite attractive, but when the reality of the number of hours that are worked is put into the equation, the amount of hourly rate is quite low.
00:14:07
Speaker
And then you start to wonder, like, well why are people doing this then themselves? Why are people putting themselves through it? And that's then, I suppose, you just get into like a whole cultural shift and you need a business case for change. I think there is a business case to be made for it.
00:14:23
Speaker
And I think there's an individual case to be made as to whether you want to live that life. We could talk about this at length, but it's supported by various you know substantial organizations. In the U.S., we would look at federal agency ah that looks at worker health and safety, which has published reports indicating that think the ratio is that $1 of prevention in talking about stress-related health issues is would save $3 to $4 in remediation and health care. So there's actually economic argument to be made that fewer hours per associate, per lawyer, would actually be more profitable, if not to the firm, than to the insurance carrier paying for it.
00:15:09
Speaker
And talking with clients that having been a client myself for many years, I think that an argument, a persuasive argument could be made. And I've talked other you know general counsels.
00:15:20
Speaker
If you ask them, would you rather have two lawyers working on your matter during daylight hours or one person working on it until 2 a.m., what would you choose?
00:15:32
Speaker
And they always say, of course, we want two people who are well rested and, you know, cogent doing our work. and And you can tell when a project's been worked out at at 3 a.m. m I mean, I can.
00:15:45
Speaker
When you've increased the number of hours that you've got working on something, theoretically and in practice in many ways, the quality of the work that is related to the number of hours actually decreases. think that's right.
00:15:57
Speaker
You've got to be fresh. You've
Balancing Work-Life in Recruitment Strategies
00:15:58
Speaker
got to be fit. You've got to be awake. Because if you are working when you're tired, it's journey logical that this quality of the work is going to be down. An inspired law firm could make that argument to their clients. They could say, your work will be produced by people who are happy, well-rested, and you know psychologically fit.
00:16:17
Speaker
I think that would be a very compelling argument to make. On the flip side, you could also make a very compelling recruitment argument that, yes, you might earn $50,000 more at our competitor, but here we will make sure you work no more than 1,200 billable hours, which converts 1,500, 1,600 hours in the I, as an HR professional, have used that strategy to recruit people when I've been doing a bit of headhunting.
00:16:48
Speaker
And they've told me, well, yes, such and you're interested in me, but this other organization is also interested in me. And I said, well, yes, but they don't have an office like ours and they don't have a car fleet like ours. And and they are renowned for people working long hours.
00:17:05
Speaker
And I've spoken to a recruitment consultant who would phone up the candidate that he wanted to recruit ah when he knew that they the person would not be at home on a weekday and in the in the evening and would then speak to their spouse, their partner, and say, well, if they took this job, they'd be working with people who are now at home.
00:17:24
Speaker
So there's that family side of that equation of the hours that people work as well. It makes an awful lot of sense to have an employment offer that is helping people to create the lifestyle that they want to have.
00:17:39
Speaker
That old equation, I suppose, are you working to live or are you living to work? And it does sound from what you're saying that a lot of the people in this industry end up living to work because of the way in which the organizations, the culture of the industry is. And it's the way that you get ahead.
00:17:57
Speaker
You have to be seen to be committed. You have to be seen to be putting in the hours to then impress people and it's are people being impressed by the quality or the quantity of the work? I mean, I could talk about this for days, but I just want to move on to the third constituent, which is we talked about the employed lawyers who talked about the equity partners who enjoy the fruit of the profit created.
00:18:21
Speaker
And we've touched a little bit on the client side, but I just want to pursue the client perspective a little bit further. So I was at a conference in the fall. One of the speakers was prominent member of the general counsel's office at a major US bank.
00:18:37
Speaker
And as they're speaking, I'm flipping on my phone to find that bank's code of ethics for vendors. yeah You know, we're we're accustomed to hearing about ethical ethical um purchasing standards.
00:18:50
Speaker
So i'm looking at the this bank's ah vendor ethical standards and I'm thinking,
00:18:59
Speaker
So the set when this particular segment was over, I walked up to the you know this associate general counsel and I said, you know, do you think that any law firm you retain would satisfy your bank's ethical purchasing standards?
00:19:18
Speaker
He's smart guy and he knew exactly where I was going. He said, I just won't answer that question. Just because you're paying someone a quarter a million US a year, but they're being employed in ah work environment that is detrimental to their physical and mental health.
00:19:35
Speaker
Are you telling me that just because we're paying them a lot, we can do that? Is that the argument? think it's a very valid point. And it's just the comparison between someone in some form of sweatshop somewhere else in the world doing manual work and someone who is being paid hugely much more money and sitting in an office wearing a tie or ah business clothes.
Ethical Standards in Law Firms
00:20:00
Speaker
The actual exploitation may be different, but essentially it is the same. You are creating working conditions which knowingly or unknowingly are going to be detrimental to that individual's health and well-being. Yeah, I think that's right.
00:20:16
Speaker
And since I already had this guy cornered and looking at me like, when can I go to my coffee? You know, I said, you've been around long enough. Can you tell when the work's being done at 3 a.m.? m And he said, absolutely.
00:20:31
Speaker
We're getting to the point, though, that this culture, this way of working doesn't seem to serve anyone. it just it It just is. It just is the way in which, for some reason, people work. But it doesn't work for the people doing it. It doesn't work for their firms. It doesn't work for their i think it does. I'm sorry to interrupt, Michael, but I think it does. I think there is a constituent for whom this works brilliantly, which are the handful of equity partners at the particular law firm.
00:21:00
Speaker
the bosses in the same way as the person who owns the sweatshop, the working conditions benefit the bosses. and And that's essentially what you're saying is that the working conditions, getting people to do a job and conditions which are detrimental to their immediate or long-term health and wellbeing, their safety is beneficial for a group of individuals who make money from their activities.
00:21:31
Speaker
It doesn't matter whether that is in a sweatshop making jeans, trainers, high technology bits and pieces, or big fancy office. the so The situation is the same.
00:21:44
Speaker
Right. So then how do we change that? What have we got to do in order to get to the point where people aren't working in that way anymore?
00:21:54
Speaker
Is it that clients need to buy their services in a different way, look for different types of law firms? Or is it something that's got to happen within the industry?
00:22:05
Speaker
Or is it something that the people who want to work in that industry have to say, actually, I'm not going to work in that type of firm because that way of working isn't isn't right.
00:22:16
Speaker
We need to find an employer who's going to be able to attract the top talent because of the way in which they, their working culture, the way in which people are employed and the clients need to be looking for those types of organizations as well.
00:22:32
Speaker
What comes first? you What's the first step on the ladder to achieving this? All of the above. If I had to choose among the many routes that you've just listed, I think it, I believe that nothing will change until clients speak up and say, it's just not okay.
00:22:52
Speaker
They're the people in control of the process because they pay the money that fuels the process. So in the same sort of way as your teenager may say, I'm not going to buy that sweatshirt because it was made in a sweatshop.
00:23:06
Speaker
I'm going to buy that one, which may cost me a little bit more, but I will... I will have a clear conscience because I'm wearing a sweatshirt that was ethically produced. You're saying exactly the same thing about the people that are buying professional services need to be thinking and the same Although I think it's easier for law legal services than it is for T-shirts, meaning I don't think you have to pay more for legal services provided by a well-rested, well-balanced individual.
00:23:36
Speaker
like i The challenge I gave to this poor fellow at the conference in New York, I think, Just read your own ethical standards. just Not just read them, employ them.
00:23:49
Speaker
Put them into action. I think if I had to choose a first step, the first step would be client awareness, but more importantly, client action. Reach down into your providers and say, here are the standards that we need you to maintain, or we're going somewhere else.
00:24:07
Speaker
How likely are clients to do I don't know. Which brings me to the fact that you've listed many options. So we can't rely on any one of them. But that's one step. Another step, we distinguish lawyers by saying they're either in a firm or they're solos. And solos, particularly in a small town like where I am, often indicates that I do a matrimonial matter at 9 o'clock, a real estate closing for a house at 10.30, and And I do some kind of modest criminal defense work at noon.
00:24:37
Speaker
Right. It's sort of a, it's like, um, Jack of all trades. And instead, actually, I do the same work that's done by the major law firms, both here in the U.S. and in what you, I love the expression, where you are the magic circle firms.
00:24:54
Speaker
Yes. So I'm not a solo. What I am is i'm an independent, meaning that I am not affiliated with any one firm except my own. And i take projects that a large firm will do, and I staff them with people that I need in order to get it done. So if I need...
00:25:14
Speaker
If I need U.S. tax work, I'll reach out and find the right person who may not be a lawyer to give me the project, the tax advice it needs. If I need someone who knows if it's a timber deal in Alabama, I'll reach out and find a natural resource lawyer there who can help advise on the regulatory environment that this asset manager is about to embark on.
00:25:40
Speaker
I form teams of experts. I'm not
Forming Expert Legal Teams
00:25:43
Speaker
constrained by any law firm, meaning i as big as any law firm may be, they absolutely do not contain all the experts on any one subject.
00:25:54
Speaker
I have no such limitation. I can call anybody I want. um Yeah. So forming a team for that project. Exactly.
00:26:04
Speaker
And you're being able to, instead of just calling people in from your Los Angeles office or your office in Toronto or London, you've got, you're able because of the independence to bring people in from any law firm in any location to actually staff the project with the people who are most appropriate to that project. Right. Appropriate in terms of expertise, price, and availability.
00:26:31
Speaker
You know, in my old firm, it was a joke when we were trying to get an offering out of the office. We were waiting for our tax department to finish their review. was a bottleneck of sorts, right?
00:26:43
Speaker
I don't tolerate that in my work. When I contact someone to work with me, I say, I need this project by X date. Do you have the capacity? And if they don't, I call the next guy.
00:26:54
Speaker
Yes, but that word capacity means that they can say, my capacity is working from nine till five, or my capacity is working nine till nine.
00:27:06
Speaker
Do you, as the purchaser of their service, have any rules for your suppliers about the types of hours that they are going to be working? i try to. you know I think I do. i think I have a great sense of, by this time, after doing this for so long, of the people I work with. And also, there's a there are sort of subtle signals of respect that we pay one another, which is that we don't schedule calls for 7 o'clock at night.
00:27:34
Speaker
Oh. or 10 o'clock on a Saturday morning. When I ask someone to do, like a tax person to do a review of a tax section in one of my offering memoranda, I say, look, two weeks, the right amount.
00:27:47
Speaker
And if it's not, tell me. What we've got, though, is is you're putting into action the things that you're proposing that everyone should do. You are doing them yourself. You're working with the people that you are working with in order to find a way that enables you to get what you need from them, but also for them to get what they want from you and also to live the life that they want to live. Right. I guess I went a little too deep into my business model, but what I was trying to illustrate was that That another answer to the, I think is a crisis in my profession is that I think individually lawyers can vote with their feet and say, I will not work that way, or I will find another way to create a professional life for myself.
00:28:32
Speaker
And part of the effort or the offering of Guild is to say, this is that 64 color crayon box you always wanted as a kid.
00:28:44
Speaker
Take the colors you want, take the tools that we have collected here, or other tools, I don't care, and do it. Make that life for yourself.
00:28:54
Speaker
You don't have to be restricted by the big, the big what we might call in the UK, the big corporate machine is not the only way to do it. And when you deconstruct it into its component offerings, there aren't that many of them.
00:29:08
Speaker
They're easy to obtain on your own, and they are are really, really inexpensive. Yes, I can see that. Because you haven't got the infrastructure, you don't have the costs that then require you to maximize the income out of every billable hour, which I suppose because of our expectations of law firms that they will have the big offices,
00:29:32
Speaker
the plush interiors, the prime locations that our solicitors and lawyers will be wearing tailor-made suits and wearing the fancy watches, driving the big prestige cars, all of maintaining that image and delivering the services within that context means that it comes with a price and in order to maintain our perception of what a solicitor lawyer would be like. It
Impact of High Overhead Costs
00:30:02
Speaker
means a way of working that isn't necessarily the best way for the individuals who are actually doing it Right, and I think it's beyond the scope of our call today, but I think there are arguments to be made where all of that expense and overhead can be a disservice to the client, not just by driving up fees in and of itself, but in litigation particularly.
00:30:25
Speaker
The litigation costs are enormous, at least here in the U.S., in any kind of commercial litigation. And i remember being in a settlement discussion, midtown New York, with a client.
00:30:41
Speaker
And I looked up at the wall in this little conference room, and they were people. pieces of art by famous artists, not copies, the real thing.
00:30:54
Speaker
So i at one point in the negotiation, I told the client, you know, i think we should hang in there because, you know, On the walls of my office are things done by my children.
00:31:08
Speaker
Here, this you know you're you know the other side of this litigation is paying for Frank Stella artwork on the walls and really good lunches. I think we should hang in there.
00:31:24
Speaker
ah It gives a whole new meaning to the expression, read the room. I hadn't thought of it that way but It's really very interesting. And I get the feeling that we've only really scratched the surface of this, but it is a big, big issue, not just in law firms, accountancy firms, consultancy firms.
00:31:43
Speaker
It's across the board, but in the last so half hour, you have certainly made me really think about the the whole sort of issue in in ah in a different way. And Jonathan, it has been really very interesting. Thank you very much. I've really enjoyed it this conversation.
00:31:59
Speaker
Thank you, Michael. I really enjoyed our conversation as well. Yeah, brilliant. We must expand on it. I'd love to. I am Michael Millward, the Managing Director of Abbasida, and I have been having a conversation with the independent mind, Jonathan Baum, who is lawyer in America, runs the Avenir Law Firm and the Avenir Guild.
00:32:20
Speaker
You can find out more about both of us at abeceda.co.uk. There's a link in the description. If you have liked this episode of The Independent Minds, please give it a like and download it so that you can listen anytime, anywhere.
00:32:34
Speaker
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00:32:46
Speaker
Until the next episode of The Independent Minds, thank you for listening and goodbye.