No, You Can’t Claim For Tripping Over Your Own Feet

Fairness over fortune, that’s the mantra guiding Denise Head’s 36-year journey from shy student with “average grades” to partner at a people-first law firm. In this episode, she lifts the lid on the side of law you rarely see: the grind of high-stakes personal injury and children’s cases, the myths of big salaries, and the relentless pressure of magic-circle training. Denise shares the challenges of claims farming, overregulation, and paperwork that can overshadow purpose, issues that mirror the struggles in social care and clinical work.

At the heart of it? Relationships. Her firm prioritizes continuity, accountability, and fighting for justice when it counts, like a child-care case that still shapes her approach today. Along the way, Denise reveals the skills she hires for, the mindset that sustains her, and advice for anyone dreaming of law: make a difference, not just a paycheck.

Transcript

Warm Banter And Guest Intro

SPEAKER_04 0:01

Good morning, Jem.

SPEAKER_01 0:02

Morning Nick, how are you?

SPEAKER_04 0:04

Amazing.

SPEAKER_01 0:05

Good.

SPEAKER_04 0:05

Happy, happy.

SPEAKER_01 0:06

As always.

SPEAKER_04 0:07

The weather is shit, but we live in the UK. They just get used to that.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Sunny in this room though.

SPEAKER_04 0:12

It's always sunny when you're around, right? Anyway, right. Right, so today. And do you know what? Why don't you introduce our guest today?

SPEAKER_01 0:25

Why do you always have to practice routine?

SPEAKER_04 0:27

Yeah, I know, but like variation and change. Okay, right, so today we are going to introduce the Queen of Law. The person who is amazing at business commitment.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

I can add something.

SPEAKER_04 0:47

Continuity.

SPEAKER_01 0:48

36 years.

SPEAKER_04 0:50

Daying power of 36 years. It might be 37, but I'm gonna we're gonna go with 36. 36 years. 36 years, the queen of Bateswells and Braithwaite's Denise Head.

unknown 1:03

Woo!

SPEAKER_00 1:04

What an introduction. Thanks guys.

SPEAKER_04 1:08

There we go. So morning, Denise. How are you?

SPEAKER_00 1:10

I'm good, thank you. Thank you for having me. Good to be here. Thanks for joining us.

SPEAKER_04 1:15

And finding it so well.

SPEAKER_00 1:17

Let's just skip over that very swiftly, shall we?

SPEAKER_01 1:21

Moving on.

SPEAKER_04 1:21

Moving on. Moving swiftly on. So Denise. How is your sense of direction? No, alright, okay. Let's move on. Okay, so you are everyone knows you as Denise Bateswells, right?

SPEAKER_01 1:35

Yes. That is your name.

SPEAKER_00 1:37

Apparently so.

SPEAKER_04 1:38

But but let's go back. Tell us about school.

SPEAKER_00 1:41

Tell you about school.

SPEAKER_04 1:42

Were you local, you know, Ipswich or I was think do you know what?

SPEAKER_00 1:45

I was thinking about this this morning because what I can't do is stoke up your argument about which was the best. Oh please tell me it's Cobbleston. Did he go to Cobbleston? Did he go to Stoke?

SPEAKER_04 1:54

I was just stoke up the argument.

SPEAKER_00 1:57

No pun intended, but there we go. Um I'm not from Ipswich, actually. I was born and brought up in Sudbury.

SPEAKER_03 2:04

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 2:04

So not a million miles away. So I went to primary school in Great Cornard, then I went to a middle school, and then after that I went to an upper school in in Great Corners, now called the Thomas Gainesborough School, I think. Sounds good.

SPEAKER_04 2:20

Did it have a house cup?

SPEAKER_00 2:22

No. Do you know what? Yes, you had somebody the other day who was house cup.

SPEAKER_04 2:27

We had house house cup Darrell.

SPEAKER_00 2:29

Yeah, no, no, no. We didn't have house cups. We may well have had houses, but clearly I've blotted it out. So I wasn't much of a a a sporty person at school. So it was school fun for you or uh I didn't mind school too much. I mean, I was kind of pretty much average, I suppose, at school, came out with an average set of exam results. I was much probably much shyer then than I am now. I think a lot of the photos of me as a baby, I'm kind of like turned my head away from the camera, not wanting to look at it, not wanting to talk to you.

SPEAKER_04 3:00

When you say less less than now, I heard recently that everyone keeps saying every time you're posting on LinkedIn, wouldn't you put your face on there and you still won't do it?

SPEAKER_00 3:09

No, I hate having my ha speak to Helen. I loathe having my photograph taken. I absolutely hate it with a passion.

SPEAKER_04 3:16

So yeah, so maybe it hasn't changed so much.

SPEAKER_00 3:18

No, no, maybe not. I think some of that might be a self-confidence thing. I mean, I just I I hate having my pic taken. Or having it posted any. You know, whenever you see a photograph of yourself.

SPEAKER_01 3:28

I don't like that one. You're your own biggest critic, aren't you?

SPEAKER_00 3:30

Yeah, I I think anybody is actually I think everyone does it.

SPEAKER_01 3:33

If you're walking into a room, you're quite confident, aren't you? I've never known you to be in a room and I've not known you're in that room.

Grades, Confidence And Finding Her Voice

SPEAKER_00 3:39

No, but I think to some extent it's it's something that you learn with age and experience, I suppose. I mean, you know, I suppose years ago it's it's a comfort zone thing, isn't it? So it would have been massively outside my comfort zone years ago. I suppose you just get more used to it. You know, going to stand in a conversation with four people that you don't know is a weird thing to do for anybody. So I don't I think you kind of just learn ultimately just to wait your turn, be patient, listen, yeah, and then you know, interject or hope that someone's gonna know.

SPEAKER_04 4:13

I think that's a really interesting lesson. I heard someone say the other day, and they said, um, start getting comfortable being uncomfortable.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

Yeah. Right.

SPEAKER_04 4:20

You know, because that's that's the thing that's gonna push you.

SPEAKER_01 4:23

Well, you're never gonna grow otherwise, are you? Just gonna remain.

SPEAKER_04 4:27

Correct. Okay, so average set of grades. Average set of grades. That's shocking me already.

SPEAKER_00 4:32

Is it really?

SPEAKER_04 4:33

I I go like legal profession, obviously top grades, genius at school, straight A's. No?

SPEAKER_03 4:42

No.

SPEAKER_04 4:43

No, I didn't know.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

I wish. No, I didn't have a single A, actually. Okay. Ever.

SPEAKER_04 4:48

So when you s so you have to help us Ipswich people, because we don't really understand like lower school and middle school and upper school. Okay. It's like a weird villagey thing that happens, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:59

I think it might be partly a generational thing as well. I hate to say so.

SPEAKER_04 5:03

Denise, you are not a day over 35.

SPEAKER_00 5:05

Bless your heart. We will not have enough.

SPEAKER_04 5:09

Oh, hang on, we introduced us 36 years at Bateswell, so yeah, probably that doesn't quite work being 35.

SPEAKER_01 5:14

She started when she was one, didn't you?

SPEAKER_04 5:15

Maybe she inherited. That's it. Yeah. Yeah in your inheritance. Yes, I was a genius. That's it. Okay, so like upper school, was that O levels or GCSEs?

SPEAKER_00 5:24

Yes, so upper school started at sort of 12, 13.

SPEAKER_04 5:27

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:28

And then you so that would be equivalent to what is now years nine, ten, and eleven. Okay. And then sixth form. Okay. At the same school. So I did three A levels, which were also pr pretty poor. When I when I told my husband what the results were, he said, You lazy cow. I d I didn't do a huge amount of work. So yeah, it was a pr not the best of a results.

SPEAKER_04 5:53

So was it a case of you struggled, or was it just a case of like, you know, that kind of education wasn't for you? Because we've had it, I mean, we've had it a lot with our guests where they kind of go, like, academic learning didn't interest them, and because they had no passion for it, they didn't really do it. But give them something practical to do and they would excel at it, or they could understand the why.

From Nursing Dreams To Studying Law

SPEAKER_00 6:14

I I whether there were other distractions, you know, I we had quite a strict upbringing. My dad was a fairly volatile man. I mean, he was a good dad, but he was fairly volatile at times. So I think that will have played, you know, on my mind. And and, you know, maybe I don't think you sometimes you don't learn about the benefit of learning to do what you need to do until later on. So as I went through my degree, so I went from A levels onto university, very traditional course, you know, path. And it wasn't until I sort of got into years two and three of my degree that I started to work a bit harder. So, you know, my my grades improved as I as I went through uni, I suppose.

SPEAKER_04 6:59

So, did you always know you wanted to do law?

SPEAKER_00 7:02

No. No, up until I was about 15 or 16, I wanted to be a nurse.

SPEAKER_03 7:07

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 7:07

I'd have made a shocking, shocking nurse. Shocking nurse. Ask my family. I'm not I'm not the most sympathetic when people get ill at all. I'm like, just get on with it because I've got time for it to be ill.

SPEAKER_04 7:19

Oh no, that's come on, there's no time for this.

SPEAKER_00 7:21

Come on. Well, exactly.

SPEAKER_04 7:23

Do you know I do that at home? It's so bad as well. I always have this with Doris. And so whenever she's feeling ill, my first thing is, you know, do you need us to go to A E? And she goes, No. And I go, okay. Do you need to book an appointment for a doctor? She goes, no. And I go, Would you like one or two man they F up tablets instead then? Because I'm like, well, what do you want me to do? But as a man, you just want to fix rather than empathise. So because it's like, well, you know, do you need to go to AE? Do you need this? Do you need this? No, just get on with it then.

SPEAKER_00 7:57

Yeah, I mean, I suppose if someone's really got something wrong with them, I'm alright.

SPEAKER_04 8:01

Go to the doctor then.

SPEAKER_00 8:02

Yeah. But no, go to the doctor. I sent my son to school when he was complaining of a tummy ache. He was in year six, and it was like his first his last day of primary school. I've got a tummy ache. No, you've got to go to school, you've got to go to school. So and I'd got to work, and then I got a phone call to say, Your son is projectile vomited. So I had to pick him up. So there are, I suppose there are times I probably ought to take a bit more notice than I know. And in fact, actually, I went out with my sit my sister years ago one night and we'd gone out in Sudbury, actually. We'd gone to a restaurant in Sudbury and Chris wasn't feeling very well, and I'd left him in bed, and he'd got this really bad throat thing going on. And Julie and I had gone out and we'd had quite a lot to drink, so there's no way that I could drive in a million years. And then I got a phone call to say his throat was really bad and he'd taken himself off up to A and E and they'd kept him in. No.

SPEAKER_03 8:59

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 8:59

That's really bad, isn't it? And so then my brother-in-law had to go over to mine in Ipswich, collect some stuff for him to wear, take up to the hospital, because I was too pissed.

unknown 9:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 9:10

I was too pissed to go to the I think. I'd say maybe there's balance. Maybe maybe Denise sits on the other side of that balance. Indeed.

SPEAKER_00 9:16

Crikey.

SPEAKER_04 9:17

So you went off to go and do a degree, I'm guessing it's a law degree?

SPEAKER_00 9:21

I did, yes.

SPEAKER_04 9:22

Okay. And came out well?

SPEAKER_00 9:25

It wasn't too bad. It was what we call a Desmond. Okay.

SPEAKER_04 9:28

Oh yeah, actually. Okay. Enough to tick the box.

SPEAKER_00 9:32

Enough to tick the box, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:33

Absolutely. So can I just start can I go back? So when you said you wanted to go into nursing, did you ever attempt that route?

SPEAKER_00 9:39

No.

SPEAKER_01 9:40

Okay, we never even got into it.

Misconceptions About Money In Law

SPEAKER_00 9:41

No, I I got as far as kind of looking at what you needed to do. And then I think one of when we sort of got to the end of O levels and beginning of sixth form, somebody else was sort of talking about, you know, they wanted to go into the law and be a solicitor. And I think also at about that time, I remember watching a program, and there was some clip on it, it might be in the news, about a lady who had not got the money that she was supposed to have from her solicitor or something or other anyway. I remember thinking that was manifestly unfair and that sort of thing really shouldn't happen. And I suppose it was at that point my interest in going into the law was peaked. And so I started looking at law degrees, whatnot.

SPEAKER_04 10:23

So that could be a weird like move because I think a lot of the time when people go into law, they go into law because they go, I get paid loads of money. I mean, obviously we we know this is the misconception, but you know, it it's what people believe. You know, it's like accountants, solicitors, lawyers make millions easy. It's like it's the exact opposite, is bloody tough and yeah. Money m the money doesn't quite flow like it's it's supposed to do.

SPEAKER_00 10:52

Doesn't. I think it depends where you work. If you go and work for one of the big boys in London and you're prepared to, you know, put the hours in. I mean, these guys, when they're trainees and you go to one of the what they call the magic circle firms in London, um, literally you're like working, you know, I mean they're expected to charge.

SPEAKER_04 11:10

Yeah, if if they if they're not have billable hours of you know 16 to 20 hours a day, it's like you're slacking.

SPEAKER_00 11:15

And there are pods, they sleep there as well. There are places for these trainees, paralegals to stay. So yeah, I mean, I think there is a misconception that if you're gonna go into the law, you're gonna come out earning hundreds of thousands of pounds every year. I know you know in some places you do, in some places you don't. I think I think people probably saw it as more of a vocation 30, 40 years ago than probably now.

SPEAKER_04 11:41

But you did it because you care about people. The same as probably why you want to do nursing. Until you realise you didn't care about where you care about someone being ill, but you care about like people being treated unjustly.

SPEAKER_00 11:53

Yeah, I think maybe it's because I'm a middle child, but it's more as fair, and I think you know I wasn't treated fair, so no, well, you know, it's it is about a concept of fairness, isn't it? Yeah, you know, and people coming out with what they should have, whether it's uh, you know, fairness in divorce proceedings or a decent award because they've had an accident, or you know, Scott acting for parents in children's proceedings and making sure that children are okay at the end of the day.

SPEAKER_04 12:22

Okay, so you've left law school. She's got a two. Because that's the thing. She's got the Desmond. The Desmond is completed. And then what happened?

Claims Culture, Regulation And “Farmers”

SPEAKER_00 12:32

So during my degree, I did what was called a sandwich course. So it was a four-year course as opposed to a three-year course, which meant that I did two periods in industry. So I did six months at a firm called Steed and Steed in Sudbury, who are no more, because that's where I was living, and so that was easy. And then I did my second stint at Bateswalls and Braithbait, actually. Okay. So that was in 1987. Did nine months there, went back to uni, finished my degree, and then went back. Well, I you then had to do a year after that called the legal, it was now called the legal practice course, it was the Law Society Finals, and so it was literally just cram learning for a whole year. You you got like a stack of papers six inches thick, you had to learn them for the end of the year. You did exams from Wednesday afternoon to the following Wednesday afternoon. Um, so that was like a week. So you we did this practice course, and then after that you go into a firm to start your training contract.

SPEAKER_04 13:33

So which area of law interested you originally?

SPEAKER_00 13:36

When I did my second stint at the firm I'm at now, I my principal who was brilliant actually, he was he was a great guy.

SPEAKER_04 13:45

Was that Bates, Wells, or Braithwaite?

SPEAKER_00 13:47

Neither of those.

SPEAKER_04 13:48

Okay. Cool.

SPEAKER_00 13:49

None of those, I should say. Tony Smythe, his name was. And he did a com in in those days, there were smaller firms, did a complete mixed bag of stuff. So he did, you know, criminal law, you know, I used to trot along behind him to the magistrates' court. Um, personal injury law, he did consumer law, debt stuff. I mean, he did all sorts of stuff. Um, what I was really interested in was the personal injury work, accident work where people were having accidents, and then you pursued a claim of compensation and got some money for them at the end of the day. And that I really liked doing that. So when I started my training contract, I was doing a caseload of personal injury work from day one. So the day I started my training contract, I was told this is what's going to be your caseload, go away and do it. So it was a bit of a baptism of fire to some extent. But that was my that was my bag. I spoke to the clients, did their statements, liaison with the other side.

SPEAKER_04 14:42

Do you feel the area's changed?

SPEAKER_00 14:45

I think the law has changed. When I qualified, I was doing a mixture of personal injury and then family work. Because of the way that the court rules have changed. We are so massively overregulated now, I think. It's really difficult now to keep on top of, you know, more than one area of law. There are still people that do that, but I think, you know, it it's all changed huge amounts in the last time.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

That was so important.

SPEAKER_04 15:20

But I think like originally when you had like injury lawyers, injury lawyers was like, yeah, okay, you've just been told to use this machine, your hand's been chopped off. Do you know what I mean? It was it was proper like, yeah, you're really injured. And now it's like, oh, by the way, did that paving slab accidentally like have a little lip on it? And you're off your nut drunk, you trip over the thing, it's like, oh, hang on, I have to sue someone.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah. Yeah, no, I think that's right. I mean, you know, there was case of some legal aid lawyers up north years and years and years ago, and I think they were found to have, you know, jumped on that bandwagon and and ran a load of unjustified claims, which meant, of course, that all of that then has a knock-on effect because they then withdraw that bulk of legal aid, so you can't get legal aid now for pursuing an injury claim. But you're right, I think any tiny thing people will make a claim for.

SPEAKER_04 16:13

I think the gauge is probably, you know, it was when it originally came, it was almost like, you know, and I I I'm going back probably 90s or whatever, where you go, you know, if someone did something and they'd go, Well, that's my stupid fault, done. Then it's almost, oh, hang on a second, no, you should be, you know, and there's probably people who could have claimed but didn't, because they went, Oh, I should have watched what I was doing, or I wasn't paying attention, or yeah, I was a bit tired that morning, that's my fault. Whereas now it's almost like now it's gone so far the other way, it obviously has to just sway back again.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

Yeah, I think it's stoked up by these firms who set themselves up as what we call claims farmers. Yeah. You know, and they'll advertise, and then and that's the other thing.

SPEAKER_04 16:55

You've got various radio stations, social media, it'll pop up or, you know, adverts on your social media, encouraging you to make a claim, as you say, if you've tripped up on a paving slab or does it irritate you, seeing there's how tightly regulated you are, that there's firms out there that can probably, you know, absolutely put two fingers up to all the guidelines and things they're supposed to do and just go, ah, it doesn't matter, we'll just go on social media and do whatever we want.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

Does it irritate me very slightly, but I think life's too short for that, isn't it? I think you what what you have to concentrate on, I think, is doing what you do and doing it well and having a reputation for doing it well, which I think is what we do. You know.

SPEAKER_04 17:36

Do you ever have to clear up the mess of those things?

Business Ethics And Overregulation

SPEAKER_00 17:39

Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'll we will get some claims that have not been dealt properly, dealt with properly. So, yeah, I mean, or or I I think the thing about some of those claims farmers is that they may not necessarily look at claims in as much detail as other firms might turn a claim down because they haven't got time to deal with it properly, and it might come to us, and then you look at it in a bit more detail, and and you know, we can then successfully pursue it and get compensation from a client.

SPEAKER_01 18:11

How familiar does that sound? I when people come to us.

SPEAKER_04 18:15

I relate it the other way around. There's one that keeps appearing right now, and it literally is anyone who's in our profession just sees it instantly and goes, This is a scam. And it's an advert that will can keep coming up on social media, and now I'm talking about it, and I'm gonna say even more, which will say, Are you a director of a VAT limited company or VAT registered limited company? We can get you back a minimum of£50,000. And what they're doing is they are filing a fake VAT return. They take the money and go 50-50 with the client, HMRC, pay out the money and then go, hang on, we want to investigate this, and they've gone, vanish. And so you've got a client with a£50,000 liability with$25,000 in the bank that will happily say, look, if I'm not supposed to have it, have it back. And but HMRC obviously go, Well, we gave you 50 grand.

SPEAKER_00 19:05

So And the trouble with that is that it's then punitive for everybody else, isn't it? Because, you know, in our industry, for example, you've then got the insurers who lobby the government to say you need to cut out funding for whatever it is, or make the rules more difficult, or make the cost regimes more difficult, which makes making a profit more difficult because frankly we're a business, we're not a charity. At the end of the day, we've we've still got to run a business. But all of that sort of stuff has knock-on effects because the more regulation you have, the more difficult it becomes to run claims for your clients and then to run a business and employ people.

SPEAKER_04 19:44

Yeah, true. Do you know what I think everyone should do? I I like this idea, right? I'll I'll run it by you can tell me if you think I'm right or wrong. If you want to drive a car, you need to pass a test to show you're competent to drive a car. If you want to borrow money, you know, for a mortgage, you have to prove you can afford it, you have to prove this, you have to prove a good record of credit. If you want to run a business, you can go on any website and click a button and you run a business without any understanding of how to run a business. And you could go along and get into so much mischief and yet most of the time you can just walk away from it. I think so much there should be a business license where people have to have a general understanding of law, tax, you know, ethics, responsibilities, responsibilities, and just go, yeah, you have to do this to be able to actually be a director or a sole proprietor.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

I think that would be quite a difficult thing to to put into force. I I think it it in it sounds like a good idea. I do think there are downsides to that though, because I think you'll have some people who are natural entrepreneurs who couldn't probably couldn't address any of that stuff. They might just not be minded enough to think about what's the law, what's the accountancy stuff, what are the regulations.

SPEAKER_04 21:01

Yeah, but I don't think I don't think to be an expert in it, but I think just to understand, I mean, that this is the silly thing. It's got so bad that we have to, on a confirmation statement for a limited company, we have to get the director, or when it's formed at least, we have to get the director to certify to say the activities that they're going to be doing in their limited company is lawful.

SPEAKER_03 21:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_04 21:22

And you go, sorry, someone who's decided to break the law and set up a limited company, they're really going to object to putting your tick in a box, aren't they? Absolutely. Oh yeah, definitely. Lawful, sure, whatever. But yeah, it's a render. But again, if you ask someone that said what's lawful and what's not, most of the time they won't even know.

SPEAKER_00 21:37

No, I think they probably wouldn't.

Would She Enter Law Today?

SPEAKER_04 21:39

Do you know? And you just think, well, this is insane. You know, and and and that's the thing. I don't think people have to become an accountant or they don't have to become a lawyer. But to understand things like, you know, you understand that if you employ staff, you must pay them, or if you do this, or you know, you must make a deduction and give it to HMRC. It you it it sounds silly, but we See so many people, it's like, oh yeah, yeah, well, who's so-and-so? Oh, well, they said they're self-employed, so we just pay them a set money every month. It's like, yeah, you know you have to make deductions and HMRC. No. And you and you just go, but there's no one to tell them. There's no rule or regulation to do it. People just go and do it.

SPEAKER_00 22:18

No, but then I suppose there's also the argument, isn't there, that if you anybody then starting up a business might think, bloody hell, that's just too scary. I can't be bothered with that. Guess what?

SPEAKER_04 22:28

I would like to see I would like to see 20-30% of people who run businesses not be allowed to run businesses.

SPEAKER_00 22:34

You know, I suppose that's the other thing about, you know, going, you know, back to where we were about youngsters going into the law, or anybody going into the law. You certainly do not, especially now, I don't think, appreciate the extent to which we are regulated. Yeah. Before you go into it. Because I think if you did, and and having seen that change.

SPEAKER_01 22:56

And you must over 36 years you must have seen.

SPEAKER_00 22:58

We are so ridiculously overregulated. I I don't think I don't think you would. And certainly I don't think you would necessarily, and I think that's uh the difficulty with some firms now, is that finding somebody that wants to take on that burden in terms of then becoming the person that has to make sure that all the regulation is, you know, adhered to.

SPEAKER_01 23:19

Would you do that?

SPEAKER_00 23:20

Would you get into it now? No. The way it is now? No. Would you not? No, I don't think I would necessarily. I think I'd probably, and it's completely different to nursing or law, I'd probably go into something arty, I think. Oh, okay. Because my dad was a signwriter. Okay. So he was a proper old-fashioned signwriter, you know, he used to paint, actually paint signs. And I quite liked art at school, so I think actually if I could go back, I would probably do something more. Yeah. I think so.

Building A People-First Family Firm

SPEAKER_04 23:53

So you and Chris. I didn't learn anything, but you know, how how did you go from like was it just a natural progression? Like so you've obviously gone and joined Bateswell's.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 24:04

How have you got to like being the Queen and the Suprema?

SPEAKER_00 24:08

Queen. The final boss, as I'm calling as I'm called, which I I hate. How did I do that?

SPEAKER_04 24:15

Mel no. That's like Mel's magic pillars, isn't it? You know, I'm gonna call her the final boss on now. Yeah, okay.

SPEAKER_00 24:20

I know, I shouldn't have said that. Yeah, you definitely shouldn't have said that. No, I should have kept completely silent about that. It's out now and it's not my eyes.

SPEAKER_04 24:26

It's either that or she's absolutely been studying all the podcasts and she's just gonna go, what would I love everyone to call me? What do everyone now on?

SPEAKER_00 24:34

They seriously do call me that, they do. Okay. So how did I get so I became a partner in 1998?

SPEAKER_04 24:43

Okay. So that must have been pretty quick.

SPEAKER_00 24:46

I suppose it was. I mean, I was whatever age I was then. I'd had I'd been offered my mother 12. Yeah. 12. 11.

SPEAKER_04 24:55

That's it, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I had actually been offered a partnership the year before, and I was literally about to go off on maternity leave.

SPEAKER_03 25:03

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Um, with my first child. Um, and I was offered a partnership, and you know, that I suppose, yeah, that was quite a big thing then, and it was all very flattering. But, you know, you're going off, you know, having your first baby, you don't know how you're going to feel when you come back. And I, you know, obviously I was going to go go back to work, couldn't afford not to, but I wanted to go back or the have the potential at least to go back part-time and sort of suggested that I might want to do this. And I was told, well, you either come back full-time or there's no partnership. So I said, No partnership, thank you very much. So I turned it down because I wanted to be able to have that option. Um, because you do. So went back to work, was doing four days a week, and then the following year I was offered a partnership again. And I think it was on the basis that there was a guy who was about the same qualification as I was, who was also offered a partnership. And I think they kind of realised that they couldn't offer him one and not me. That would be slightly poor. So I became what was then, you know, like a fixed-share salaried partner in 1998, and then our then partners retired in 2007, I think it was. So I took the firm over with a guy called Andy Tall and another partner at the time, so it were three of us.

SPEAKER_04 26:25

Bizarrely enough, I feel like I know Andy having never met him.

SPEAKER_00 26:29

Oh, he's yeah, he was quite well known. I know it's a wonderful in the property world.

SPEAKER_04 26:33

No, so I I have my Nan and granddad and mum and stepdad who all swore by oh yeah, Andy at Bateswell's Bateswell's for everything.

Trials, Advocacy And Personal Service

SPEAKER_00 26:44

Yeah, yeah. Well he's a low he was like, I mean, he started off life, I think, at Turner, Martin and Symes. So he'd always worked in Ipswich and had always done residential conveyancing, which is not something I ever wanted to do. It just made me weep, actually. It was just, oh my god, so dull. So that that was his bag. So he yeah, so we took the firm over in about 2007. Well, what I mean by that is that you then kind of buy out your partners who then retire, take it over, and then and then move it forward. Yeah. So that's kind of how that evolved. But I mean, again, you know, I I suppose by then I'd got married, got divorced, had two kids, got remarried, had another child, as you do. Well, indeed. So I kind of fell into a partnership by default, really.

SPEAKER_03 27:36

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

You know, it wasn't something necessarily that I had ever envisaged when I started out on this road, you know, and I remember when I was about 11 or 12 doing the ironing at home, and I remember my dad.

SPEAKER_04 27:47

As a partner of boats, obviously. Of course, obviously. I'd sweat it up by then.

SPEAKER_00 27:50

She should have been there a year by now. But my dad said, Oh, you'll make someone a lovely wife. And that's kind but that's kind of do you know what I mean? That sort of thing sticks in your head. So you never really kind of think I'll be a partner of a law first. Yeah, no, absolutely. You know? That's kind of how you're talking about.

SPEAKER_04 28:07

So hang on, so you've gone through so you've now gone through also two marriages, one divorce at this point? Okay.

SPEAKER_00 28:13

Yeah, only the one. I'm still only on the one.

SPEAKER_04 28:16

Hang on. So I'm gonna ask this question. Everyone probably knows this, but I have no idea. Chris. Husband?

SPEAKER_03 28:23

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 28:23

But don't have his name.

SPEAKER_00 28:25

No.

SPEAKER_04 28:26

Okay. No, I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_00 28:28

No, or do you know what it was?

SPEAKER_04 28:29

I don't know if you the two had just never got married or what it was, but I'm like But it feels like you two have been together for ages and purchases for a week.

SPEAKER_00 28:38

Yeah, no, well, it partly by design and partly because when I had my first son, I then changed my name to my former husband's name. And he was also a lawyer in Ipswich, actually. Okay. So then of course I'd tootle off to court and they'd say, Oh no, how's your and I'd oh no, no, no, no. So I changed my name back again to my maiden name, which is what head is my maiden. And I just thought I can't, I'm not doing it all over again.

Skills That Matter: People Over Paper

SPEAKER_04 29:03

I'm not gonna keep changing my name. Honestly, it's like 28 quid now on a driving licence, soft disk and not doing it. It's just hard work.

SPEAKER_00 29:11

So but actually it does make it kind of easier, really, us having having different names, I think, because I'm in charge of all the compliance and whatnot of work. Okay. So I th I I think not having the same surname does make things slightly easier. Yeah, there's less of the whole but you would say that because I mean he doesn't mind, it's it's not really ever been on the radar, you know.

SPEAKER_04 29:33

Okay, and so and so it was then like domination. So no, no, no, we're not talking about Chris anymore. I'm talking about in the in the law field.

SPEAKER_00 29:42

So there's a whole different show, isn't it? Well, indeed. I've an X-rated one.

SPEAKER_04 29:46

So you've you've gone up to this. Now, Bates Wells, uh, and again, I'm gonna show that I am clueless on this, so you can steer me as you need to, has always felt very much like a warm family firm. And I and I don't necessarily mean it's run by family, but it's always felt like that, you know, you see lots of solicitors and it's like, oh well, they've got these aspirations of, you know, let's go and take over the next building and let's go and expand and do this. And Bateswells has always kind of felt that nice, safe, warm, happy family firm.

The Case That Changed A Child’s Life

SPEAKER_00 30:18

I think we are, and and we very deliberately tried to, I think, nurture that impression as well through some clever marketing over the last three or hashtag Helen Couch. Indeed, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, we used to have probably offer a slightly wider remit of service than we do now, but what we know that we are not, that's not very well, not very good grammar, but anyway, you know, we're not a big, shiny, we don't have a big glass, shiny building. We, you know, we don't, we're not a corporate, we don't have a corporate image. But what we do very deliberately try to uh, you know, put put forward is that we look after people's personal legal needs. So I I I was watching the Take That documentary over the weekend, and I think it was about angels, and I think Robbie Williams was saying hatches, matches, and dispatches. And I I thought, you know what, I really like that because I think we are a bit like that, you know. We it it's from early needs through to, you know, end of life planning and all of that stuff. And it's about what people need on a personal level, you know, as they go through buying a house, you know, getting a divorce, that's not a good thing. Um, sorting out their children's arrangements, sorting out their wills, their life planning, what do they want to do for their kids, all of that kind of stuff. It's it's what everybody needs in their everyday life. And I think that kind of translates into the way that we operate in terms of how we react with our clients, but also how we operate internally. So we're not, you know, I've I've we've got a young lad that's just starting with a paralegal. And I swear to God, he's have you got a pod for him?

SPEAKER_04 32:01

Tell him to do 16 to 20 hours. Welcome to the new magic circle.

SPEAKER_00 32:05

There you go, you sit down there in the baseball, which is where I started life. Yeah. But he is the best dressed person in the office, I swear.

SPEAKER_03 32:12

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:13

Blessing me puts on a suit when we get when he goes to Hadley with Zoe. He's just so smart. What I mean by that is that we're quite informal, motherfuckers. But I think it's the direction that business is going. Well, it is, and I think also post-COVID, I think we're slightly less for even less formal than we were. And that's kind of a very deliberate thing. I think actually clients like to know that you're human and you've got your own stuff going on, and and you know, if they come in to see us, they see us, they don't see a team, we deal with their thing. Well, it's they see more.

SPEAKER_01 32:44

What they're coming in for is so personal. Well, it is. For them to feel that comfortability as soon as they walk in the room is so important.

SPEAKER_04 32:50

So, do you guys do a load of trial stuff or not really?

Laughter, Humanity And Awkward Evidence

SPEAKER_00 32:54

We yes, yeah. I mean, if we've got a case that that needs a trial, then you know, you take it to trial. I mean, as far as a client is concerned, they really go to client to trial. It's costly, it's stressful, it's lengthy. But if you need to, absolutely. Yeah. I think we've had, you know, various trials in relation to personal injury claims. Scott probably is at court more than the rest of us because he does primarily work relating to children's issues. And again, Gemma, from what you were just saying, you know, he a client will come and see him, he'll take their instructions, you know, does all their studies and will go to court through with them. Whereas with a lot of firms, you know, you'll take it to a certain stage and then you'll get a barrister in it. We still do. Yeah. We still do use them, but he does a lot of his own advocacy as well. So, you know, it is about making sure that our clients have got that personal link with whoever it is that they come to see. And if they come to see me, it will be me that deals with their case. It won't be farmed out to a team of minions. You know, we will deal with their stuff from start to finish. And that's, I think, what kind of sets us apart from these bigger firms because they have a whole massive team, you know, and you've got the partner, and then you've got an associate, and then you've got a paralegal, and they'll all do their bit.

SPEAKER_01 34:12

Um, but but And that one person could have spoken to five or six people at that point.

SPEAKER_00 34:16

Yeah, but yeah. Yeah. So that's kind of how we operate.

SPEAKER_04 34:20

Amazing. Okay, we're gonna do some quick fire stuff for you.

SPEAKER_00 34:23

Right.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

Okay. Right, so quickfire number one.

SPEAKER_03 34:27

Yep.

SPEAKER_04 34:27

And and Jem's already stolen the thunder from this one because I was gonna do the if you could have life over again, would you do the same thing? Oh, sorry. And you've already got that one. Okay. Question two Would you suggest someone get into the legal profession?

SPEAKER_03 34:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_04 34:43

And what and what would their drive have to be to do it? To make a difference or to earn money?

SPEAKER_00 34:50

From a personal perspective, I think it would be to make a difference to offer a service to somebody who needs it, to make a difference to their lives.

SPEAKER_03 35:00

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:01

That doesn't sound too trite.

SPEAKER_04 35:02

No? No, no. At the end of the day, this is this is your personal answers. There's no there's no right or wrong, but it's the same as like, you know, when you have people in nursing and they go along and say, Do you know what, you have to want to care. If you're here for the money, you may as well just stop your profession now 'cause my sister is a nurse and you know they do amazing jobs. They do, but they have to care. Yeah. Do you know I was I was with I was with my friend last Friday and she's an HCA and a nurse and cares for the elderly. And she said that they've got someone in there right now. You know, I I I'm gonna try and leave politics out of it, but I get quite emotional because it's my friend. Um and she said that because that person is kind of protected as an asylum seeker, he keeps having people bring knives in for him. He's got knives in the room and there's nothing they can do about it. Gosh. And that was like, you know, and he's abusive, he's insulting, he you know, everything else. And then she's like, Yeah, and I said, honestly, just get out, report it, do whatever you need to do.

SPEAKER_00 36:04

That's really scary, isn't it?

SPEAKER_04 36:05

It's horrible. It's horrible, but there she will be, you know, and and even if you kind of take that out of the equation and just say, imagine someone with Alzheimer's or whatever that kind of thinks that this nurse coming in to look after him is actually there to rob him or whatever, but they'll take abuse, they'll take this, they'll take that, and they'll still deliver the top level of care that they possibly can.

SPEAKER_00 36:26

And there aren't enough of them, and it it's a bit like any public service, and you know, I include the court service in this. There is there's not enough funding. So the you know, the court system is on its knee. So you'll get, you were talking about a trial a minute ago, you'll have personal injury trials where somebody's waited sometimes a year, 18 months for their case to be heard, and then it will be pulled last minute because there's no judge.

unknown 36:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 36:52

So we we had a notice for a trial in the other day, and the trial of this is gonna be four or five days, but not until May next year. And they've been waiting for that date for about a year.

SPEAKER_04 37:05

That's crazy.

SPEAKER_00 37:06

It is bonkers because there is there's just not enough money. There is nothing. I guess the same thing. Yeah. You you you know, with with with children's work, you'll get you'll make your application and you may not get a first hearing until three or four months. And and by then, somebody may not already have seen their children for three or four months. It's it's just it's nuts. It it it really needs a good over here, uh a good overhaul. I think I think everything does. It does.

SPEAKER_04 37:39

It's I mean, you know, we can go back to nursing and just you know, I remember someone looking after my father-in-law and she said the problem is is that we're almost driven. The fifty percent of our work is filling out paperwork.

SPEAKER_03 37:53

Yep. Well, it's bureaucracy and regulation.

SPEAKER_04 37:56

We're there literally. All we are there to do is to try and care for the elderly, which is the right thing to do, to be there for them, with them, help them and support them.

SPEAKER_03 38:05

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:05

Or go and fill out a tick box exercise.

unknown 38:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 38:08

But unfortunately, if they don't fill out the tick boxes, it's Well, and and social care.

SPEAKER_00 38:13

I mean, you know, they they see this in care cases, but you know, they spend so long on the bureaucracy, because they have to, that it then detracts from the care that they're able to give the clients.

SPEAKER_04 38:24

Nuts.

SPEAKER_00 38:25

It is.

SPEAKER_04 38:26

Okay. What would you say are the optimum skills to get into your career?

SPEAKER_00 38:31

I when we look at a CV, I like to be able to see that somebody can read and write, so decent s English skills, decent analytical skills, because you have to be able to, you know, look at what the law is, but also then be able to apply that to whatever situation you're being asked to advise on. Excuse me. Also, I think really, really importantly, it's probably more important than the other two, the ability to relate to people and to talk to people. And I think certainly, you know, the training that I had from the print my principal was that he was able to talk to anybody on any level, whoever they were. And I think that's a really important skill you have to have. Because if you can't do that, you can't relate to clients, you can't talk to them, you can't get the best out of them, and you can't get their instructions. And if you haven't got their instructions, you can't do a decent job. So you have to be, you know, it's it's a people profession. We're offering a service. So you have to be able to have the confidence to talk to people. And and again, you know, I I think social media, text, all of that stuff detracts from people learning to talk to people. So I I think, you know, having being open enough to be able to learn to talk to people is really important.

SPEAKER_04 39:50

Okay. And my final one, and the first thing I'm gonna do is can you just pull the mic in front of your face? Thanks. Um, is my it's my favourite way now to wrap up the show, and I've called it my favourite way to wrap up the show since I've done it once. But it's but it's become my 2026 new favourite way to wrap up the show. Denise, looking back on your career and your history, what is that one moment where you've gone along and said, I'm so glad I do what I do?

SPEAKER_00 40:17

I had I was involved in a care case about 12 or 13 years ago. So what I mean by that is a case where the local authorities have concerns about somebody's parenting of a child, and I was acting for a grandma, and it started with a baby who had been fatally wounded, and it was a really upsetting, and my youngest son was about 18 months old at the time, and I remember reading the papers and being in tears, and my husband said to me, Yeah, do you think maybe you should give this case to somebody else? I said, No, it's really, really interesting. I really want to keep it. I was acting for grandma, and we wanted to offer a home for that child's brother, and against the recommendations of the local authority, social services, you have a guardian in care proceedings as well, who makes recommendations as to what they think a judge should do in relation to a child. And even against the recommendations of the guardian, who's a bit like the angel Gabriel in in care proceedings, the judge still said, No, actually, I think this child needs to come and live with grandma. And that was by far, I think, my standout case, actually, because it was a really traumatic case. Um, everybody was really emotionally invested in it. And obviously, doing that work, you have to try and step away. But everybody was really emotionally invested in that case, and it was a really, really good outcome. So I think that is by far the one that stands out for me. I mean, there are very, you know, there are various amusing things that have happened in various other cases over the years, but that that's definitely the standout one.

SPEAKER_04 41:54

That's amazing. Do you know what I want to wrap up there? But unfortunately, Denise's just made another hook. What's the funniest one that's happened? I have to.

SPEAKER_00 42:03

She can't say, oh, there's been some really funny cases.

SPEAKER_04 42:05

And I'm like, all right, we've got to talk about it.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

Well, some of them are like, you know, in claims.

SPEAKER_04 42:10

And I've got a follow-up. Hang on, let's do the follow-up for that one. Have you ever looked back? So you know the story you're talking about with granddad and the grandma and the other sibling. Have you ever looked back to see how that child's getting on now?

SPEAKER_00 42:24

I haven't. Okay. Um, because you kind of, you know, you it sounds awful, doesn't it? But you l you lose contact with that client once.

SPEAKER_04 42:33

You kind of have to do the very best that you can at the time. Well, you do.

SPEAKER_00 42:37

You you have to step back and you have to do your best. I would love to know how he's doing, actually. Um I think indirectly I have heard that he was doing really well.

SPEAKER_04 42:47

That was amazing.

SPEAKER_00 42:48

Which is really good, actually, because you never know, maybe you get a thank you card on his 18th month. Maybe. Maybe. You never know. But it was an amazing case.

SPEAKER_04 42:57

Okay, and and now we need the funniest one.

SPEAKER_00 42:59

The funniest one. I had a client who I was acting for in a divorce years ago, and she brought in some photos of of her husband's equipment, shall we say? His personal equipment.

SPEAKER_04 43:18

Are we talking about Polaroids here? Or do you actually went to get them developed?

SPEAKER_00 43:23

I think it was the days when she'd have had to get them developed, actually. So she sent them off to Happy Snaps. Yeah, okay. God knows what the what the guy in boots will have thought or wherever it was. But yeah, yeah, yeah, no. So she she I I was seeing so she was sitting across the desk, she'd come in with her mum as well, actually. So she gave me this envelope with some photos in it because he'd he'd got into these various proclivities, shall we say. And she wanted, I think kind of she wanted to be able to prove that he was. It wasn't just what she was saying. And she gave me some photographs of his, as I said, his his equipment. In a certain condition. And I got these photos out and I was kind of like looking through them. But more or less. I was looking through them. And the trouble is I started to laugh. And I I had tears rolling down my face and I couldn't speak for a while because I was laughing so much. And I thought this is so bad, I really shouldn't be laughing. But she was really pleased that I was laughing because she said, she said, Oh, I'm so glad you were laughing because it it means that you're human. You can find it funny. And it is that kind of thing. A, it's nice that she thought that she could do that, but also that she said you're human, but it was. And actually, the other thing to go with that, I'd said to her, How do you know that it's his equipment? And she said, Because I recognize the carpet. So bless her heart. She brought in these pictures, yes.

SPEAKER_04 44:58

Can you imagine that where you'd like going to trial and have to hand around the jury?

SPEAKER_00 45:01

Yeah. Well, fortunately it didn't get that far. We didn't have to use the Well, of course it doesn't. It's the ultimate thing.

SPEAKER_04 45:06

It's like, yeah, Mr. So and so, you've got two choices. One, you can settle and agree to what we want, or two, these pictures are going across the jury.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

Well, do you know what though? I I did have a case where it was a children's case, and I was acting for a bloke who had given me all of these porn mags, and I had for various reasons, but he I I had to exhibit some of the pictures in a court bundle. So we had to photography them and then we went to town with our yellow stickers, the sticker over bits. So we thought, well, I can't we can't put that in our bundle and expose all those bits. Just to kind of you know demonstrate the idea, but yeah, yeah, yeah, that was uh slightly dubious.

SPEAKER_04 45:44

Who said the law was boring?

SPEAKER_00 45:46

There we go. You want a bit of family law, it's probably slightly more interesting than a lot of cases. I don't know.

SPEAKER_04 45:50

Apparently there's a lot of cases where people are pointing to different things.

SPEAKER_00 45:53

Well, indeed.

SPEAKER_04 45:54

Especially when you have those pictures floating around your table. Right, anyway. On that note, Denise, thank you so much for being here.

SPEAKER_00 46:01

You've been a pleasure. Thank you.