Authenticity, alignment, and building a modern law firm that people want to work for with Alistair Wells, founder of Tend Legal

In this episode, host Yiuwin Tsang sits down with Alistair Wells, founder of Tend Legal, to explore the fascinating journey of building a modern law firm that people genuinely want to work for. Alistair shares his inspiring story of transitioning from a traditional law firm to launching Tend Legal during the pandemic.

They discuss the challenges and opportunities of reimagining a legal practice, emphasising transparency, and embracing authenticity. Alistair reveals how Tend Legal shifted away from hourly billing towards fixed fees and subscription models, creating a better client experience and reducing the pressure on employees.

The conversation touches upon the importance of client alignment, how dressing informally can lead to better client relationships, and why authenticity is at the core of their business culture. Alistair also shares insights on team dynamics, client satisfaction, and the balance between client needs and business growth.

Join Yiuwin and Alistair in this enlightening discussion on how Tend Legal is revolutionizing the legal industry, creating a space where both employees and clients feel valued and understood. Discover the power of authenticity in business and the incredible impact it can have on building a thriving and forward-thinking organisation.

About Alistair Wells

Alistair, founder and director of Tend Legal, is an experienced solicitor with a wide practice covering company, commercial, employment law and dispute resolution.

Before founding Tend Legal, Alistair was a partner at Woodfords Solicitors in South West London, where he built up more than 13 years’ experience advising small and medium sized business on an array of issues ranging from business sales and acquisitions to employee share schemes. Alistair is known for his approachable manner, zen-like calm, and clear commercial legal advice.

With three young children, there isn’t a lot of downtime, but when not working or reading bedtime stories, Alistair can be found listening to dusty old LPs, riding bikes and pretending not to watch cheesy US rom-drams.


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Transcript

Disclaimer: The following transcript is the output of an audio recording. Although the transcription is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or transcription errors.   Every possible effort has been made to transcribe accurately. However, neither Beautiful Business nor The Wow Company shall be liable for any inaccuracies, errors, or omissions.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Hello and welcome to the Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way of doing business. We believe beautiful businesses are led with purpose by people who care, guided by a clear strategy, and soulfully grown. Hello, and welcome to this week's episode of the Beautiful Business Podcast. My name is Yiuwin Tsang. And this week, we're joined by Alistair Wells. Alistair is the co founder and director of Tend Legal, a law firm on a mission to build a better, more human, less formal legal experience for startups and scale-ups. Since Alistair and his wife Shona launched the firm in December 2020, the firm has grown to a team of 10, providing commercial, corporate and employment law support to a range of exciting new ongoing businesses, including amongst others, a sneaker reselling platform, a revolutionary social media app, and fast growing group of food brands. Alistair, let's talk about building a business that people want to work for. And maybe we can kick off with you tell us a bit more about you, about Tend Legal and about what you do there?

Alistair Wells  
Okay, so I am a lawyer. Originally, I started Tend Legal two and a half years ago. So it's in December 2020. Before that, I had been working at a small law firm in Fulham for about 13 years. And it was a real moment of clarity or madness in the first lockdown that led to starting up a new firm. It wasn't something we'd really thought about before. But yeah, we started the business with my wife Shona. And we felt that there was a space for that I did things a bit differently, that was a lot less formal, that worked in a way that made sense to our ideal clients. So which a lot of startups creative businesses, and was an a better place to work. So it's better for the people that work in the business better for the clients as well. And the more we started to think about it, the more opportunities we still and just decided to go for it. So yeah, we launched in December 2020. has steadily grown since then there's a team of 10 of us now in total, that includes consultants and employees. And yeah, mainly, it's a kind of corporate commercial employment law. And working with a range of quite exciting businesses, from new startups to scaling businesses, in a range of sectors. A lot of them are tech or creative. But there's all sorts there.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Fabulous. So you've gone from a standing start for yourself and your business partner slash wife to 10, as you say, including consultants and employees. And that's all over the space of what three and a bit years, less than three years,

Alistair Wells  
Less than three years. Yeah, I suppose it's the in the quarter, probably coming up three and a bit. 

Yiuwin Tsang  
And you started during lockdown as well. So it was a bit of a funny time to be starting a business. What do you think has been the was kind of driven that growth? Would you say honestly, because that's by anybody's books going from founders to a team of 10? It's been impressive, what's kind of driven that growth? And how has your approach been, in terms of building the team and kind of adding people to because that's a real, it's a bit of a left field question. I'm sorry, it's kind of come out. But it's really kind of blows my mind really, when you see and hear of businesses that have gone through that because as a business owner, myself, you maybe I'm naturally kind of conservative in the sense that you look, you see what your return rate is like in terms of cash, you bring somebody in? So what were the times for you in terms of growing to the size, it is at the pace that you have gone?

Alistair Wells  
Well, I think we always knew that in an ideal world, we wanted it to be about more than just the two of us. And so that it was on our minds that we knew we wanted to that was the week we wanted to take, I mean, we don't have a clear picture of the exact size that we want to grow up to. But it's just that kind of, we felt that it was something that was a business rather than just me working as a consultant, and showing her doing, you know, the sort of operations side of things, I think we may maybe touched a nerve in sort of how we present ourselves and the model, I've always felt for a long time that there was space for a law firm that does operate in that sort of less formal way in in a way that makes sense to our clients. I think also, there's loads of room for improvement within within the legal profession in terms of how employees are treated, how they work. And so this is kind of, well, I guess it was maybe a bit of a flywheel and that we kind of you get going. We've been quite active on LinkedIn mainly. And just sort of sharing our story sharing the ideas that have a behind the firm and the things we think are important, and sort of, I already had some clients when we started, I was able to bring clients from my last phone, which was really helpful. And from there we sort of, you know, after a few months, I needed help. In the early days, it was just me doing the legal work and showing her handling everything else. And yeah, within a few months I knew I needed some support. So we took on a trainee Neelam and then, you know, just gradually got busier. And then I think we had So Jade joined us Am I said that January 2022? I think that was. And then, you know, since then there's just been a steady kind of, we've tried to sort of steadily manage it. And it's always such a difficult decision, isn't it? Because if you hire too early, of course, you can't afford to pay the salaries, if you hire too late, you're on your knees, you've got far too much work to do. And then the client service suffers. And also it takes so long doesn't it to hire somebody illegal? It's at least three months notice periods. So it's that thing of thinking, trying to think three months ahead. Four months, usually, by the time you've had the whole recruitment process, and thinking, well, this is the sort of trajectory the business is on. There's another bit of a bit of a leap of faith to say, well, you know, in three months time, we probably are going to need somebody. And yeah, finding those the right people. Well, has it been difficult it has, we have found the right people every time we've found some really great people, the team are fantastic.

Yiuwin Tsang  
But you'd argue to say that that doesn't happen by accident. No, it does. It comes back to your point earlier, where you said you really active on social is really active on LinkedIn. Yeah. So I guess there's a two pronged kind of effect to that, in the sense that you'll see kind of setting your stall out to potential clients and potential partners that you might work with online. But also, you're setting your stall out to potential employees and potential, you know, consultants who might join you.

Alistair Wells  
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's very much that it's kind of Yeah, it's a two facing, dual facing kind of message that actually we have message to clients, we have message to people that we'd want to work for us. And it's partly, I mean, what's been quite exciting is just being able to share that story sort of in real time, say, we look, we've got this, this is something we thought of do a post about it, see what the reaction is, and, you know, certain things do get traction. So each time we've hired, you know, we've talked about it quite a bit on LinkedIn, we have found people who, for whatever reason, what we're doing resonates with them, and sort of steadily gone from there. And I think that can be for lots of reasons. And for some people, it's been that they're just really excited by the model that they felt they didn't really fit in, in a traditional law firm environment. For some, it's that they want to work flexibly, and we are 100% remote. So whether they have childcare commitments or caring responsibilities, you know, whatever it is, it allows them to work, and to meet those responsibilities. So that's we have that appeared as well. And of course, then, once you've got people that helps you get more clients, because you can say, Well, look, we've got this great commercial lawyer, which will be really good. And they then will go out and talk to people and get more work and make sure the existing clients are looked after really well. So it kind of there is that sort of flywheel idea where as long as you time it kind of right, and keep talking about it, then it hopefully starts to take on a bit of momentum on its own.

Yiuwin Tsang  
I think it's a demonstration of Tend Legal how it can do and the way that you describe it almost feels organic, I hope you use that term feels like it is in the sense that you know, your first hire, you kind of had the awareness to know, right, okay, you need an extra pair of hands, you're doing all of the legwork, and it's almost understanding that there is a optimum capacity of utilisation, I guess is probably the best term where, you know, there has to be a degree of redundant utilisation in order for you to do that extra bit of thinking so you don't burn out, you know that you can do that. And I guess that translates into the wider team, as well, as lovely will come on to this whole balancing the needs of the business and the team, the rest of it as lovely as it would seem to have 100% utilisation across the team. When you think about it, there'll be absolutely horrendous, it will be horrendous.

Alistair Wells  
It would and certainly, you know, I've been in that situation in the past web workspaces where everybody is flat out a new request comes in from a client and you think, oh, no, it's not you're not rejoicing, that they've got this new instruction, you're thinking, I don't know if we can do this either. Or we're gonna and it's it is a dangerous situation to be in because you risk losing staff, or you know, them burning out or getting ill, and you risk losing clients, because you just can't service them in the way that they need you can't meet and particularly with you one of the things we do we have this subscription model. So it's really important to have a bit of slack built into the system. Because otherwise, you know, there's people that have subscribed to our services will be asking us to do things and we're saying, Well, yeah, we can do it in four weeks time or something. And that's no good to them, you know, we need to be so. So it's kind of it can feel a bit scary. And it has at times where we've, you know, March this year, we took on two people at the same time, which was initially we were recruiting for one. And that process went really well. But then somebody else just approached us out of the blue. And she was really good. And we just thought actually, we can make this work. So you have to, you know, we're committed to that. And there isn't that period of time where you're then building up the business to sort of you have that outlay, it's an investment period where we're not making much money but because it's taking time for people to settle in and for the work to build up to for them to do but it will come and it's just making those decisions, isn't it and I suppose having an element of faith that actually if you've got the right people that if you Keep talking about what you're doing, you will find the work will come. 

Yiuwin Tsang  
Yeah, you've got to back yourself in these kind of situations. Otherwise, how can you expect other people to when we spoke you talked about and I think this relates very much to the change that you wanted to see in the industry. And it was the way that you've set up 10 legal to work. But when we spoke, we talked about some of the systemic problems within the legal professional specifically. But the more that we spoke about it, the more I thought about it, I think some of these challenges translate into other industry sectors as well outside of legal so things like hourly billing, as an example, lots of agency type businesses, be they tech agencies or you know, creative agencies, whatever it might be, you know, they'll work on this kind of billing model. It's tried and tested, very traditional. But ultimately, these are the metrics that serve the bottom line. What do you feel are the problems with these types of metrics and the way that kind of businesses kind of measure their success.

Yiuwin Tsang  
I just want to take a quick minute to say thanks to our trusted partners, Krystal hosting. Krystal is a B Corp powered by 100% renewable energy, and has a goal of planting 1 billion trees by 2030. Krystal services super fast and super reliable. And they're genuinely really nice people. We're super picky over who we work with as partners, our beautiful business, and we're delighted to count Krystal as one of them. Back to the podcast...

Alistair Wells  
It's a good question. And it's a big issue in law at the moment. And as you say, it's that has been the traditional model for so long, and for other professions or industries as well. And the benefit of it, and I think why it's evolved is that it's relatively risk free for the firm, you say, we're going to charge an hourly rate. So we know what each person has to make in a year, we've put that into hours. And then as far as client work goes, we say, well, we don't really know how long this is going to take. But we'll give you an estimate. But if it's longer, we'll charge you more based on time. That's the appeal of it to firms. The downside of it, I think, is that from the clients perspective, of course, they don't have certainty on costs. And there is this horrible kind of misalignment in that the client wants, yes, they want to be properly protected, they want a great job, but also, they want it done quickly, efficiently. They want it to be done proportionately to the value of the transaction. And they want to know where they are, they don't want surprises. So that's those are the kinds of issues as far as clients are concerned, as far as employees and people working on that basis. Okay. And you will see on LinkedIn, there are lots of people saying, you know, hourly billing can never work. It's all terrible. And I don't necessarily subscribe to that completely in that plenty of people who work in hourly billing basis, and they work fairly and proportionately and they communicate well with their clients notice that but the problems about it, I think, is it's just, again, you're measuring inputs on you, you're saying to staff, what we're measuring here is the time you spent doing something. So as long as you build, you know, record seven out and lots of law firms, particularly bigger firms will say, you've got to record seven hours of billable time of day, which is pretty much all the time you're in work. And so of course, you don't record seven hours of billable time, in seven hours of time, it takes a lot longer than that Gemini. And so you have people you get to the end of the day, and I remember doing this, you kind of get the end of the day and think, Oh, I've been working hard all day, if any recorded two or three hours. So then you have to go back and try and work out what what did you do and sort of retrospectively fill that in? Or you have to stay longer and actually do some more work to justify things. So it's not thinking about actually what does the client need? are we achieving results for the client? Is the client happy? It's just gets you into that mentality of thinking about hours. And I think that's, that's harmful in terms of client focus. Because you're saying to client, well, you know, this has taken me 10 hours, I thought it would take five, it's actually taking 10. So the cost can be double and in your head. That's it completely reasonable thing to say whereas the clients thinking, but it's the same job, like how has this happened? Why am I paying? So and I think it can, you know, and drive mental health problems overwork, burnout stress, because, again, people are thinking about time, I've got to be at the we're at work for this amount of time doing this number of billable hours, rather than thinking, well, we've got something to achieve for the client here. What's the best way of doing this? How can we make it more efficient? Can we you know, am I the right person to be doing this? And you can within firms, it can also lead to sort of people not collaborating as they should because of course, you know, if you've got a bit of an hour's target, you want to do that work yourself and get it on your end. Whereas actually, sometimes, if you don't have that it's more of an incentive to collaborate to think well, can we give this to someone more junior parts of this or can we, you know, collaborate with a colleague is there is there some technology that will help us to do this faster? So I think that's the problem for me is that misalignment between well between the client's needs in the law firms goals, and also between the employees well being in the what the firm needs to achieve as well.

Yiuwin Tsang  
It's really interesting. It's really kind of counterintuitive relationship isn't there between the value of the work that you deliver, and the time it takes to deliver it on your almost well as an employee, as a firm that bills by the hour, you're incentivized to take longer to do something, which is bizarre. And then if you you know, if you then ask the client, what is it that they valued the value the time that's been spent on this? Or do they value the value that's been created from the work, then they'll invariably answer the latter. But it's just weird contexts we're in, isn't it? Like people are just so familiar with time and materials as a billing method? It's quite uncomfortable on many levels to kind of move away from that. But it seems like it's something which you've made some progress in terms of doing over a 10. But do you still kind of size up job using that kind of? Well, it'll probably take about this long. So we need to fill in the region of that. Because we find we do that well, on the projects that we do are disruptive anyway, we'll look at a project in its entirety, we internally will work out, okay, how long will it take us to do these sorts of things, we then put a value against it, we send it over as a project cost, but it's still kind of pairs down. And I'm really interested to know Is this how you do it from a commercial viability perspective? How you work out the rates, or you know, the methods that you use?

Alistair Wells  
Yeah, I mean, it's a really hard one, isn't it? Because it as you say, it's very deeply ingrained. And when we started the firm, I think from from when we started, we said that we're going to be, I think we said, wherever possible is going to be fixed fee. And I don't think we've ever been probably one or two more litigious matters where we did be on an hourly basis to start with, but we're not really doing that kind of work anymore. And so everything is either fixed fee or subscription. And, as you say, initially, when you start out with a fixed fee, you do is that thing you think? Well, it's gonna take me this number of hours, and you have a notional hourly rate head, anything Oh, I think this, this is about fair. And you know, even now, I find myself sometimes doing, but what we try to do is to think, Well, what to understand what this means to the client, you know, what's the value to the client? And then there's a range of factors. I mean, how long it's going to take us is what you know, what resources you're going to take? Is it going to take? How many people you know, is it isn't take hours of our time? Is it simple? Is it complicated, of course, that's a factor. But as well, the value to the client, as I say, the urgency, you know, whether it's work that we really want to do, and sometimes is it for a client that actually, you know, we've known for, for a long time. And this is not something that we're going to charge for, but there's going to be more work from them. So there's all of these factors that I think you can bring into, into play. And it's always said, when you listen to podcast and things about pricing, it's always said it's more of an art than a science. And I think that's so true. Because I think with experience, you get a feel for what is the right price for something, and what's reasonable, what's fair, and I think what I've really learned, and I've, it has been quite a journey, because I'd say it's something that was quite new to me when I started the business, but learning about value pricing, and listen to lots of podcasts, and then lots of books about it or, and moving to that the importance of having that conversation with the client to really dig into what it is they want to do what that means for them, why they want us to do it. So we understand that the value that we're going to be delivering early on. And if we get that right, and then explaining, I suppose what it is, we can offer them how that's going to affect their business, how it's going to move it forward, how working with us might be different to working with a different firm. And I think if we get that right, and then the pricing, a it's a lot easier to work out what the price is, because you understand what you're dealing with and be, it's a lot easier for them to accept your pricing because they understand what it is you're going to be doing. And you understand how they're going to you're going to help them and the value you're going to deliver. So I've always found that when people email, say, Oh, can you give me a quote for this, please. And sometimes I just send them a quote. And invariably, those are the ones that either they don't accept, or it's almost refusing to do that and saying, look, let's have a chat, I just need to get a bit more understanding of what it is you want to do. And show that you really you know, you do you care about what it is they want to do and understand it and that you are the firm to help them do that. So yeah, it's definitely been a learning curve for me.

Yiuwin Tsang  
And it's so true when you have that conversation in terms of value and how I guess the impact of the work being done well, will have for them as an individual for the team for the business. As you say, it's really interesting. Whenever we've been able to get into that position. It was hammered into me from a very early age. If you have pushback on price. Is it an affordability question, or is it a value question? And that's always what it comes down to? If there's pushback on price? Is it because they don't have a budget? Or is because they don't value what you're doing enough. It's always going to be one of those things. And the value conversation means that you will migrate to the value conversation. So the value perception, and if you're able to, you know, anchor high in terms of your value, it means that if there is a budget restraint, they are prepared to reduce scope, they can see the value of what you do and they'll say, Look, we do want to work with you. What if we were to not do this bid, we will not do that. But can we get it into budget? And that, again translates back into what we've been talking about in terms of, you know, the capacity in terms of the workload for your team? And have you seen the benefit? Well, it would come back to the topic of this podcast, building a business that people want to work for, when you have these types of conversations, when you have a client that understands the value of the work that you do, what kind of impact does it have on the rest of him? Because it sounds like, you know, what we spoke about before and balancing what you need, as a business owner, what the clients need in terms of the work to be done? What's the throughput to team members that you've seen? So

Alistair Wells  
I think when we get it, right, there are lots of things go into getting it right. But I think when we get it, right, it has that lovely feeling that the team feel like they are aligned with the client and firm feels like it's more aligned as well. And that comes down to a lot of things. So getting out there with social media with that marketing message, finding those right people that might be interested in what you do. And then it's like that, you know, I hate to talk about funnels, but it is you're talking to a lot of people, and then you're finding, you know, you might get to know a few of those. And then a few of those might want to work with you. And hopefully those will be the ones that really appreciate what you're doing, get who you are, get what you're about. And we've, we have been fortunate to with the clients we've got, we've got a number of them that really, you know, we really enjoy working with them, they get what we do, they appreciate what we do, you know, they're not difficult about fees, because they appreciate the work we do. And so we enjoy working for them. And it's just, it's nice, I think for everyone, because of course for for lawyers or for anybody, if you're working with a client who sees you as this kind of distressed purchaser, you're gonna have to get a lawyer to do something, they hate it. And then you come across people that hate well, they hate lawyers, but, or, but certainly hate having to spend money on lawyers because they don't see the value. And they're always the most difficult clients to work with. Because they don't listen, they don't appreciate what you're doing. And then they difficult about fees. And so yeah, the reverse of that, if you get that kind of alignment, if you find the right people and have, make sure that they see the value, or find people that do see the value, then it's just a nicer working environment for everybody. Yeah, and one thing with the subscription model, particularly. Now, once you have people on board, it feels very much as if we are a part of their team, we have shared Slack channel, and they can message us with with any of their legal queries or things they want us to do. And so it really it cuts out all of that friction, I suppose around instructing a lawyer and getting legal advice. And so that's been for us as well as for the team. I think it's just a it's driven a sort of more aligned client relationship. We have a stronger relationships, we're on the same page. And yeah, I think it works better for everybody.

Yiuwin Tsang  
It's that flywheel concept again, isn't it? Yeah, you know, the strength of the communication between your clients understand the value provide the appreciate what you do is what's coming through is it's I love, I don't love it at all, you know, that distress purchase is the worst, isn't it? Oh, God, I've got to pay for it, and you'll be good. It's like we pay an annual car parking is ridiculous. It's like, Oh, my goodness. And it is just a begrudging payment that you've made, that you have to pay, if you had to pay on a daily basis that it's like a tenner a time or something like that is ridiculous. And then what we do is we pay 120 quid for the whole year. But it's kind of like it's joyous to share with them, I'll pass as you drive through. But there's a similar sort of thing, it's as you say, it's like, you know, if you can appreciate the purchase, and appreciate value that you do, the impact that has on your team delivering the work, if your employees feel more valued, if they feel like their clients appreciate the work that they do, then you arguably, you're gonna get more productivity, you're gonna get, you know, you're gonna have that little percentage that you get of discretionary productivity, they do it because they get on with them. And they dig a little bit deeper, because they like the client. And it's that whole kind of trim rate of wins, isn't it? Where Yeah,

Alistair Wells  
yeah, and this is the thing I'm learning still, I think, is that there isn't in business, there's not one thing you can do, which you can't say, oh, well, you know, how do you make it great for employees? We'll do this one thing will, you know, but that's pay structure or is everything and everything has to kind of work together to create that atmosphere and that, you know, that you're creating value, but also you're looking after your people and you're getting your messages out there and you're doing the work well, but you know, if you drop one of those balls, then actually the whole thing can come crashing down. You have to it has to all sort of flow doesn't it? It doesn't

Yiuwin Tsang  
it has to reinforce on both sides. You can't be kind of like outwardly this kind of forward thinking progressive organisation, and then internally, you don't walk the walk because it just all falls apart. And one question that I did have is around you know, there are certain services professional services specifically where you kind of expect, you know, the boring grey suits in the stuffy offices and stuff like this. Legal Services, arguably accountancy services, but there are obviously, you know, animals out there such as well, who kind of break that mould. And the, I mean, it's a very small sample size, but they are performing disproportionately Well, or at least they perform incredibly well. So So what kind of made you want to take that risk to do something a bit different? When you compare 10, legal to, let's say, you know, some of the more traditional firms that are out there?

Alistair Wells  
Yeah, I think it was part of the appeal for us. In starting a new business was sitting down in China and I, in the early days, we just had lots of conversations about things like, well, if we're going to start a firm, that was the kind of firm we would want to use, what would it look like? Or if this kind of firm we wanted to work out, what would it look like. And so it's partly just doing something that aligned with naturally sort of who we are, and how we like to do things. It was partly as well, this feeling that I'd had for a while that actually I there was a sort of misalignment between how law firms operate and the kind of business I like working with. And I remember, my old firm going down to a meeting with a client, and I was wearing my suit and tie and everything cufflinks and the client came in, and they are running this really successful business in going a few years. But you know, they're there in jeans and T shirt, and they start the meeting by apologising for not dressing up. And I was like, oh, that's, you know, you're the client, please don't apologise, we've got it the wrong way around, we're making people feel uncomfortable. Because people don't wear suits. In most walks of life. Most of the time, I've got nothing against suit. But it was just it felt like actually, in a lot of instances, that's a barrier. And it's not just about clothes, either. It's, I think a lot of having spoken to a lot of people about their experiences of using your friends in the past, they'll say, Well, we just found it a bit stuffy, and formal, or a bit slow, or the way they communicate, it just didn't make sense. And you get you know, emails with Dear Sirs, and letters. And so all of that kind of went into the mix as well, when we were thinking about it. And you know, the strong feeling we had was, if we're going to start something new, there's no point in just making it like a smaller version of a firm that already exists. And just because nobody is going to notice it, nobody's gonna care, it needs to have a reason for, for its existence, it needs to be and it needs to stand out. And it was quite I remember, we had this photoshoot for the website, before we launched it. And we'd been talking about before, you know, should we? Or should we wear what should we and I was like, I'm gonna wear a t shirt. And then I remember the night after that wake up in the middle of the night, wear a t shirt, I should have done some with a shirt and tie just in case that, you know, doesn't work. And I don't know, it did feel a bit, it felt a bit risky at the time. But then actually, the the response has been really positive. And I kind of think if you're brave enough to sort of be clear about who you are, then you will find the people that like that kind of thing. You know, not everyone, some people will look at our website and think you know, who are these jokers? That's not for me. But some people will think, hey, these, you know, this looks like somebody I could talk to, I like the look of it. And now if you've got an it's about finding those right people, like the people that appreciate what you're doing, that it resonates with, and that want to work with you,

Yiuwin Tsang  
that will again apply to both sides of the equation that doesn't in terms of the people that you want to attract from a talent perspective, as well as on the client perspective. But I think it comes back to everything that you spoke about. There's an authenticity as well behind it, I think. And it's really interesting. And it's really encouraging to see as well, even in an industry as formal as the legal industry where, you know, people buy people, isn't it? And it's the same, isn't it? And your example of you know, there'd be some people are looking at your website, see that you're in T shirt and think who's this clown? They're probably not the people you want as clients. And that's exactly,

Alistair Wells  
yeah, and there's no point pretending that we are, you know, this firm that we're not, you know, it's not

Yiuwin Tsang  
an up virtuous circle, that flywheel keeps on spinning, because those are the people that would really annoy your team, there'll be the ones where, you know, your team are gonna be Oh, no, why do I get this one? Why do I get, you know, why do we get the awkward one, which again, means that, you know, the more demanding, the less fun to work with. And so you know, the morale of that individual or that team is working on that account kind of drops down a bit. And you think that this again, I know what the answer is already, but this kind of virtuous circle is going to flywheel the effect that it has on the culture at tend reflects the types of clients you work

Alistair Wells  
with. Yeah, I think it's something that's fundamentally what we wanted to be careful. It's not this, we don't want it to just be like any other law firm, but we're wearing T shirts, you know, is the reason we're less formal in the way we dress, is I think it comes down to that authenticity piece that you mentioned that actually, we want people to feel comfortable working here. We want to appeal to a certain type of business. It's not and it's, you know, of course, what you wear matter. It's not saying Where were you like, it's, I mean, we don't dictate what people wear. But it's not saying that clothes are not important. It's just we're appealing to a different market now. And so of course, there was a time when, if you're a commercial lawyer, all the clients you're working with are going to be dressing a certain way if it's going to be suits and formal attire, but actually, the most of the businesses we're working with are not and so it's partly about appealing to those businesses, but it is partly as well about encouraging I suppose authenticity within the team and that you're willing to, to be yourself, I suppose at work, and giving people that that opportunity. And, and of course, if we're upfront about that, on the website, and everywhere, clients would expect, that it's not something we have to explain to them, or no dressing down today or anything this is this is just who we are. And I think that's, I don't know, I think it's important to give people of course, everyone who does have, I don't know, you hear a lot about bringing your whole self to work, and I'm not sure anyone brings their whole self to work, or whether, you know, that would be a good thing. But as long as you work, the work version of yourself is kind of more in line with who you are, if you're comfortable in how you dress and how you present yourself, I think that's part of the culture. And, you know, we try and within the team, encourage, I suppose, encourage that openness in terms of, you know, we quite often have discussions about mistakes we've made or things that we've got wrong. And, you know, our weekly meeting, sometimes people will be really open and say, you know, this week, I learned something, I did this, I didn't get it, right. This is what I've done about it. And, and I think that's all linked to the same thing it's being because I think so often, in law firms, I'm sure and lots of other businesses as well, there's this expectation that we have to, we have to get things right all the time, we have that we can't admit to failure we are, you know, and being, I suppose, giving people permission almost to be themselves to be human. And to understand that we are like that, that everyone's like that. And that together, we can work these things out is really important, I think, particularly with when you've got sort of junior lawyers, he need to see somebody more senior acting in that way. And that helps build that sort of atmosphere of trust of, yeah, I suppose that supportive culture, which is important to us.

Yiuwin Tsang  
100%. And it's interesting, again, if you make it a safe environment for people to, you know, admits even the wrong what's almost recognise the mistakes and then learn from it and grow from it. And that's the key thing, isn't it, so they're able to move on from it and move forward in a positive way from anything that, you know, that didn't work the way they expected it. Because the opposite of and I guess this is perhaps you've probably, I've certainly experienced it in the publishing and the media world, but you've probably seen in the legal world is that if there isn't a safe environment to do that, then things get hidden away, things get, you know, swept under the carpet, or, you know, you hope that they don't get noticed. And you know, on many levels, that's such a negative thing, from a client experience level, from a business perspective, but also on a personal level, as well, that you've got this, you know, this millstone around your neck, that you made a mistake on this client account. However long ago, it was, and you're just desperately hoping nobody finds out, you know,

Alistair Wells  
completely. And you know, in legal services, those things can be, you know, drastic, that could be that person being struck off or losing the right to be a lawyer of the, you know, it's been so often you read in the, well, the Law Society has this thing called the Gazette, and they report all the disciplinary actions they've taken against people. And so often, it's things where there's a junior lawyer that's made a mistake, they've tried to cover it up, they've lied about it. And then, you know, it's come to light and they've lost their job, they can't work as a solicitor anymore. And that's it. And you often think well, is that, of course, you know, the individuals have to take responsibility, but was that because there was a culture of fear that they couldn't talk to anybody about it, and it's having that kind of open communication, I think, and for a remote firm, it becomes even more important that we can trust each other because, of course, you know, we can keep tabs on everybody, all the time, we can see what's happening on the system, we can, obviously, if we needed to, but really, we have to trust that if we've hired these people who are as good as we think they are, then we have to trust them to do a great job. And part of that, I suppose, is making sure that we have that environment where if something doesn't go, well, there is absolutely no problem with telling somebody about it. And that we will work it out together. And and I suppose on the trust thing, as well, even you know, we don't really have set working hours, we say to people, you know, it's a full time role, or it's a part time role is but you know, you can choose when you work as long as as long as you're meeting fine obligations, you're getting the work done, you're there for for meetings, you're reasonably available in core hours, or at least they know when you're going to be available if there's something that's going on. And I think that's again, it helps build that culture of trust. But it also from the individual employees perspective, they should be able to decide when they work and how they work, because they've got through years of academic study doing that they're smart people. And almost I think it's somehow we you know, the traditional workplace is really almost, I can never pronounce it but infantilizing? Is that how you say it, is telling people they've got to be here between these this hour and this hour. And they've got to do this and do that. And, you know, I think having that flexibility. A is something that people appreciate, as I say helps them to balance other areas of their life they've got to take care of but it also helps to just let them know that we trust them to do the job. And it's not you know, we're not going to be like breathing down their necks all the time. We're going to trust them to get on with it. Yeah, I think all those things sort of helped shape culture perhaps.

Yiuwin Tsang  
Thank you for listening to this week's podcast and a massive thank you to Alistair from Tend Legal for sharing his stories, his advice and his insights. Thank you for joining us for this week's Beautiful Business Podcast. Beautiful Business is a community for leaders who believe there's a better way to do business. Join us next time for more interesting discussion on how businesses can bring about change, helping communities, building a fairer society and safeguarding the planet. You can also join in the discussion at www.beautifulbusiness.uk