S3E1 - Meet the Team: David Pryce, Founding Fenchurch Law

In this episode, we are joined by Fenchurch Law’s Senior Partner and co‑founder, David Pryce, for a conversation that explores the origins, values and future ambitions of the firm.

David reflects on founding Fenchurch Law in 2010, including the story behind the firm’s name, his early career in insurance coverage disputes, and the “sliding doors” moments that led him to build the UK’s first law firm focused exclusively on representing policyholders. He also shares key milestones from the firm’s 15‑year journey, from top‑tier rankings to international expansion and the recent transition to employee ownership.

The episode also offers insight into the culture David has helped shape at Fenchurch Law and, of course, there’s time for a few lighter moments too, including Beatles albums, Arsenal, and David’s passion for ultramarathon running.

Transcript

Welcome To Meet The Team

Dru Corfield 0:02

Hello and welcome to a new podcast series hosted by Fenchurch Law. The series aims to introduce every member of our offices in a short, informal podcast. Today I'm delighted to be joined by senior partner David Price, who founded the firm in the London office in 2010. A very warm welcome, David. Thanks, Drew.

David Pryce 0:18

It's lovely to be here.

Dru Corfield 0:19

Before

Quick-Fire Choices And Rivalries

Dru Corfield 0:20

we dive into the pod, let's start with some quick fire questions. So, question one if you could only have coffee or tea for the rest of your life, which would it be?

David Pryce 0:30

I mean I drink a lot more coffee, but I'm gonna go tea. Nice.

Dru Corfield 0:33

Okay, so the same question, but the with movies or TV shows? Movies. Yeah, I mean I think I'm but the qu that the begs question though, are you then watching when you normally watch a quick episode of something on a sort of Wednesday night, are you then? No, it's just a nestling down property.

David Pryce 0:47

I do watch definitely more TV shows than movies, but I come back to movies again and again. So if there's a film I like, I may watch it ten times. So if I had to pick one, definitely movies.

Dru Corfield 0:57

Cool. Revolver or rubber soul?

David Pryce 0:59

Great question. So Revolver was the first Beatles album I ever really got into. And so for me, Revolver is always probably gonna be my favourite Beatles album.

Dru Corfield 1:10

Nice. Okay, well that was a my follow-up question was favourite Beatles album, but um no, Revolver's an absolute classic. For the benefit of the tape, David and I are the two probably big Beatles fans in the office. And this final question is not very nice. So, would you take Arsenal winning the treble this year if it meant you could never run again?

David Pryce 1:30

Oh wow. I'm sorry, Oliver, my son, who's an even bigger Arsenal fan than I am. But no, I wouldn't take Arsenal winning the treble this year. I I couldn't like I could take a couple of years off from running, but I think it would mess with my mind too much never to be able to run again.

Dru Corfield 1:46

Well, we appreciate the honesty. David, it's obviously great to have you on the podcast.

The Story Behind The Name

Dru Corfield 1:50

It's the one that the fans have been waiting for because there's so much to ask you as the co-founder of the firm back back then as it as it was. But the first question is something that I've wondered for a while. Who or where or how did you come up with the name Fenchurch Law? I told you this about a week ago.

David Pryce 2:06

So before we started the firm, when we opened our doors in the first of February 2010, a former colleague at my previous firm, guy called Rob Fink and I, we decided that we wanted to go through the process of seeing if we could set up our own law firm. And it kind of seemed like a weird fantasy at the time because we were both in our early 30s, and the idea that two young guys like that would be able to set up a law firm on their own felt like it was probably gonna be beyond us. But we committed on the 26th of September 2009 to go through a process of seeing if we could put together the foundations for a law firm. And so we being young guys, I had a young family, big mortgage, wasn't in a position to give up my income at that point. So we needed to go out and get some external financial support. And so one of the things that we decided that we had to do was put together a really solid business plan in order to try and get that financial support. So before we even knew that we would be able to open the firm, we had we had the name, we had the logo, we had some taglines, which we don't have anymore, by the way. Our taglines are different now, but in that startup phase, we effectively had a business plan, and my dad still got a copy in his house, which effectively was a template for running the firm. And as you said, name was was part of that. And the reality is that coming up with a name was a lot of trial and error, and I've still got a couple of little notebooks which I put together in that phase between 26th of September 2009 and 17th of September, 200 17th of November 2009, when we eventually did our pitch to try and get some external funding. And in those two notebooks is loads of ideas about what the firm might look like. And at the back of one of the notebooks is a whole list of names, and they are so embarrassing. It's like all of them are absolutely terrible. And I've said to you, I will not say any of them out loud, but right at the bottom of the second page is Fenchurch Law. And as soon as we came up with the word Fenchurch, we realized that that was that was the name for us. Yeah.

Dru Corfield 4:18

Well, thanks. Well, you very kindly let me have a flick through those notebooks, and it is it is incredible. Um you're not allowed to say any of them on. I know, I know, I know, and I won't, I won't. They were I think that they were less bad than you think they are. That's all I'll say. All right. And uh where had you worked previously?

Early Cases That Shaped A Niche

Dru Corfield 4:33

Had you you'd always been involved in coverage disputes, right?

David Pryce 4:35

Yeah, so I started out as a trainee at a firm called Thomas Egger, which was a mid-level full service practice, mostly based around the southeast of England. And so as a trainee, I did a little bit of insurance-related work. But my entry into the world of insurance really started when I was about one year's PQE, when we got a new partner at Thomas Eger, a guy called Mike Scanlon, who was a remarkable lawyer in terms of his ability to win really big ticket clients for big, exciting cases, which were not the sort of cases, honestly, that that firm was doing at the time. But he had just the gift of the gab. And he had this idea that large American policyholders who had made claims under their environmental liability policies for the uh if you've ever seen the film Aaron Brokovich, the sort of cleanup that was required as a result of the environmental protection agencies clampdown on pollution in the States, and lots of big American policyholders had to go back and try and reconstitute their insurance programs going back to the 40s, 50s, and 60s. And the reality was that a lot of the records for that insurance weren't weren't kept. And so Mike had this idea that we should bring claims against the brokers who had failed to keep those records. And for anyone listening to this at Fenchurch Law, we do not see brokers. So this is a dirty bit of history, but this is when I was a one-year PQE.

Dru Corfield 6:00

This is the kind of stuff we wanted to find out.

David Pryce 6:01

I know. So so I started doing that that insurance-related work, but basically looking at historic insurance programs going back to the 40s, 50s, and 60s and then and then dealing with claims involving insurance brokers. And then in 2006, I moved to a professional indemnity defence boutique called WHCG. So Williams Hold and Cooklin Gibbons. They were actually based in 40 Lime Street, which is the same office that French Law's London office is currently based in. So where I'm sitting now, I was previously sitting about two floors of Donna with Donna. With Donna, yeah. So we were both at WHCG together and also with Rob Fink, who is my co-founding partner. So all three of us were there, and we were doing some really good quality professional indemnity work, and we were only acting for insurers, and it was there that it seemed to me that we were constantly coming up when we were dealing with coverage disputes against opponents who are non-specialists, and it seemed to me that there was a real need for policyholders to be able to access the same specialist advice and representation that the insurers were taking for granted. And that was the seed of the idea for Fenchurch Law.

Dru Corfield 7:08

Yeah. And they for anyone who doesn't know, the first firm in the country to do that, to focus solely on the Absolutely.

David Pryce 7:14

At the time there was no law firm in the UK solely focusing on representing policyholders in coverage disputes.

Dru Corfield 7:19

And I wanted to ask you another question about because I think I I might be misremembering this, but I think is there a story that you nearly joined Michael Robin?

A Sliding Doors Career Decision

David Pryce 7:29

I did. Yes. I did. So I made the decision to leave WHCG and I accepted a role with the firm where Michael Robin was one of the two name partners, a firm called Robin Simon. And Michael had founded that firm alongside the other name partner who's a chap called David Simon. And during the course of the process to interview with Robin Simon, I had a couple of dinners with David Simon where he was talking to me about his experience of founding Robin Simon alongside Michael. And it felt to me as if I could have joined Robin Simon and in a few years' time, you know, if all had gone really well, maybe I could have been managing partner. But it felt to me as if, however senior I would get, I would never feel about Robin Simon the way that David Simon felt about the firm because it was his baby and he'd created it. And that just gave me a real itch to scratch. And I really felt I wanted to do something similar to what David and Michael had done. So founding Fenchurch Law in yeah, reasonably large part was it was in inspired by you know Michael Robin's experience, and so it's been amazing actually now to be working alongside him at Fenchurch Law.

Dru Corfield 8:39

Yeah, a crazy, a crazy full circle moment. I hadn't I hadn't appreciated that a real sliding doors moment. Totally. So just so how many years qualified were you when you started the firm? I think that's going to put my life into shape.

David Pryce 8:52

Yeah, all right. So it was 1st of February 2010, so I would have been eight years PQE. So I was just a grade A Fierna by about six months. Right, okay.

Dru Corfield 9:02

Okay, I'm only three, so I've got a bit of time. You got a bit of time left. So as you as you as any the astute listers will know, the firm's obviously celebrated its 15th birthday of this year. If I had

The Ranking That Changed Everything

Dru Corfield 9:13

to ask you to pick a highlight from the first decade, what would it be? God, that's tricky.

David Pryce 9:19

So many great moments. One that jumps to mind is winning boutique law firm of the year at the lawyer awards. That was that was absolutely huge for us. Was that 2018? That was 2018. You could say the opening of our first international office in Singapore on the 14th of October last year. Both of those were huge. I would say probably, though, the most important single event was the first time we were top-ranked in Legal 500. It took us a few years to get top ranked by chambers as well. We've been top ranked in both legal directories for a few years now. But that first number one ranking in Legal 500 really transformed the perception of the firm within our market. And it really helped elevate the quality of the work that we got, but it also really helped elevate the quality of the people that began to come to us wanting to work with us. So we still in many ways feel like the scrappy young upstarts. But the reality is we have been going for 15 and a bit of years now. And when we got that first legal 500 top ranking, we really were young, scrappy upstarts, and we had a team that was full of people that were entrepreneurial, but the top quality team members that we now have across the board, most of them really only began to knock on our door when we were top ranked. So that was key for us. It's like the third Michelin star.

Dru Corfield 10:49

Yeah, no, it's um well it's I don't want to sound uncuous, but I I am very proud to work with a firm which is well top ranked by so I think I think since I've worked, I think it's been both Legal 500 and Chambers. It's um, you know, people it's a anecdotally, people say, Oh, you're a lawyer, what law do you do? I say, Oh, I work for insurance specialist boutique, and they're sort of saying if it's not a magic circle, whatever, people fill outside law like, oh whatever. But then if you say it's lawyers, oh we're top ranked for what we do by both by both directories, they go, Wow.

David Pryce 11:18

Yeah, I mean I've got a copy of Legal 500 from 2014 in my living room at home for random reasons, not because I look at it an awful lot, but I did take a look at it a couple of months ago, and just to remind myself who was in the rankings in 2014, and and we were ranked, but we were ranked in tier three or tier four, I think. And I won't name them, but they were two magic circle firms at that time ranked in tier one in Legal 500, and those two firms are still really, really good at representing policyholders in coverage disputes, and they're still really highly ranked, but neither of them is ranked as highly as we are, and for me that does feel like a big deal.

Dru Corfield 11:52

Yeah, here.

Global Ambition And A Fair Fight

Dru Corfield 11:53

So we that was backward looking, forward looking. What do you think you're most excited about when you think about the future of the firm?

David Pryce 12:02

Bringing our model to every region in the world. So, as you said, we were the first law firm in the UK to focus exclusively on representing policyholders in coverage disputes. If you go to the US, you've actually got a pretty strong policyholder bar. And we're super proud of our best friend's relationship with Sax Sternberger and Vita, who are the leading boutique law firm in the US representing policyholders in coverage disputes. But if you go outside the US and the UK, there's really no other jurisdiction in the world where policyholders have got anything like the same access to high-quality specialist representation than insurers do. And so we feel that in order to meet our goal of leveling the playing field for policyholders, we can't just focus on the UK and the US. We've got to focus on all regions of the world. So Singapore was a start for us, Scandinavia, we're going to open in Istanbul on the 1st of October, which is super exciting. But we have set ourselves the target of having a presence in every region in the world by 2030. And ultimately, we want to help policyholders everywhere in the world be able to challenge their insurers on a level playing field.

Dru Corfield 13:05

Nice. So you heard it here first, and as listeners, we are going global, and yes, insurers all over the world will know exactly who we are soon enough.

David Pryce 13:13

But look, but look, they they shouldn't be worried about that because actually we always say we're the people that the insurers can have a sensible conversation with. We're not we're not coming in trashing the insurers, we're actually super pro-insurance market. Insurance is a really good thing. Insurers generally do the right thing in almost every case. Sometimes there are genuine disagreements about whether a particular loss should be covered by an insurance policy. And when that genuine disagreement arises, you want to have someone on the other side of the table with whom you can have a sensible conversation. And we like to think we're the people that you can have a sensible conversation with.

Dru Corfield 13:44

Definitely. And it's always worth keeping in mind that 95% of claims get paid out like that, and we just, you know, don't see them. I always feel like having a bit more license to make jokes about the insurance industry given that both sides of my family have basically lived in it.

Why Employee Ownership Matters

Dru Corfield 13:58

And David, I'd I'd like to ask you a question about the EOT because we have fairly recently become an EOT. Could you explain why you're so passionate about that and the thinking behind it?

David Pryce 14:08

Yeah, sure. I have always loved the John Lewis model. Sure. And John Lewis is probably the the best known employee-owned business in the UK. And I've always felt that there's a little bit of a different feeling when you go into a John Lewis as compared with a different retailer. And it's always felt to me as if the people there just care that little bit more. No, I don't know. They're a little bit more invested. Yeah, you get that feeling too. Yeah, definitely. And and it always seemed to me that the the the sort of business that I wanted to work in was one where everyone was an owner and everyone felt personally invested in the business. And we've gone on a really long journey from starting up with three individual shareholders, one of whom was not day-to-day involved in the business, and that presents particular challenges for motivating the team who are actually doing the hard work to take the business forward. So it was a long-held ambition of mine to to transition the ownership of the business so that 100% of the business was owned by the people that were taking it forward, which is not in any way to to do down the the original owners who were absolutely fundamental to our ability to get to where we are today. But I love the fact that now everyone who works at Fenchurch Law is in some sense an owner of the business and is fully invested in taking us forward.

Dru Corfield 15:48

Yeah, no, it's a great feeling. And I don't, well, I I'm not sure off the top of my head how many law firms in the country would even have that.

David Pryce 15:54

There are others, but not not not very many.

Dru Corfield 15:56

Yeah,

Using An MBA To Build Strategy

Dru Corfield 15:57

no, it's it's definitely something that's really cool. So, David, moving away a little bit from Fenchurch Law, you have people may or may not know that you have an MBA from Henley Business School. What was that like? And do you feel like you've applied anything you learnt there at the firm?

David Pryce 16:11

It was amazing. I loved it. So I did a flexible executive MBA at Henley, and one of the reasons why I was particularly drawn to Henley as a place to do the MBA was because they not only allow you to, but they require you to do all your assignments on your own business. So instead of going to a different business school where you would have case studies on Microsoft or Google or whoever, every assessment that I did was focused on Fenchurch Law. So it meant that I could take one day a week, and I basically took every Wednesday for three and a half years, and I did MBA work, which wasn't just taking time away from the business, it was actually taking time to reflect on the business. So I went through the discipline of going through each of the different modules from finance to marketing to human resources to strategy to internationalization. And I spent a day every week for three and a half years applying the models and concepts that I learned on the course to Fenchetch Law. So a lot of what we do in terms of our strategy and our direction comes from having had the ability to reflect on where the business had come to up to that point and where we wanted to go in the future. And our UK managing partner, Joanna Grant, has just been on a mini MBA at Henley. So that relationship continues, and I think she found it just as useful as I did.

The Rule Of Three Explained

Dru Corfield 17:33

Awesome. And I have a follow-up question which is more about I guess we've talked about big picture stuff, but Matt's more about the sort of day-to-day in terms of the type of firm that you have created. So for the benefit of the tape, what is the rule of three and where did you count where did you come up with that idea or like the thinking behind it? Yeah, okay.

David Pryce 17:53

So the rule of three is that anytime you've got a minimum of three Fen Church Law team members gathered together, you can go out and socialize together and you can expense it. And we don't have a expenses policy that's lots of rules, it is treat the firm's money as if it was your own. Which doesn't mean go and spend all our money, but it means you know behave responsibly with it. But ultimately there's there's no cap on what you could spend using the rule of three. And the reason why we introduced it was in order to try and encourage all members of the team to really bond with each other. So if you were to be a basketball player in a team where you've got LeBron James on the team, he requires that his teammates go out for dinner together regularly. And honestly, you can't say no to that. You can't just say, Oh, uh, LeBron, I'm I'm just gonna I'm just gonna miss that dinner because from his perspective, having a really strong social bond between team members is vital to actually high team performance, and we don't make it mandatory that people have got to go out for dinner together, but we do do things to encourage people to build that social bond because ultimately it makes us stronger as a team. You've mentioned already I'm an Arsenal fan. If you cut me, I'm gonna bleed red for Arsenal.

Dru Corfield 19:13

But not at the sacrifice of running.

David Pryce 19:14

No, no, not at the sacrifice of running, but but but really if you are a member of the Fenchatch Law team, what I really want is that it's not just a place where you work, you really feel part of the team, and if you cut you, you're gonna bleed Fenchatch Law a little bit.

Dru Corfield 19:29

No, I I definitely feel I definitely feel that. I mean, you really do feel like people buy in, so to speak, when they work here. It's and also me and DJ Mike, we're firm fans of the rule of three.

David Pryce 19:40

We use it as much as we.

Dru Corfield 19:42

I mean, if there's a few of us on a Friday afternoon after 5 30, we may or may not be seen in the grapes having a beer or two. That's the plan. Finally, David, thanks so much. I've really enjoyed this conversation, learning more about the history of the firm and the thinking behind it. But as this is meet the team, we need to well, listeners need to perhaps learn something about you.

Ultramarathons And Final Thoughts

Dru Corfield 19:59

Okay. So for the benefit of the listeners, because obviously the Fen Church lore team know this, but you're into ultramarathons, which is mad, but wild. I mean highly impressive as well. But what is the longest running race you've been involved in without stopping? Because I know you've done a very, very long one which you had a sleep in the middle, but what's the longest distance you've run in one go?

David Pryce 20:20

So the route is supposed to be 132 miles. I've done this route three times actually. And when I've measured it, it's been closer to 140. So I'd say 140 miles is probably the longest that I've run without any sleep.

Dru Corfield 20:39

It's I remember the first time I found that because I have friends who run marathon and say it nearly killed them. And then to think in your head you're doing over five times that distance is it's well, it's it's superhuman, but um you're very, very good at it, so so it's clearly doing something right. Anyway, David, we've had a great conversation. Thanks so much for coming on. Thanks so much for your for your honesty as well with the firm because I know you probably could have played it straight, but I really feel like you've spoken candidly about about Fen Church Law and everything that you've created here. So so thanks very much. Absolute pleasure. Thank you for having me.