Orlagh Kelly: Andrew Love, Senior Clerk from 5RB. Thank you for joining us on the Get Briefed podcast. We're delighted to have you here.

Andrew Love: Thank you. Thank you for inviting me to be on it.

Orlagh Kelly: And as we may reference throughout the podcast on and off, you were a great speaker at the Briefed Leadership and Wellbeing event that happened in April this year. And you talked very personally with a lot of courage about your career and where alcohol intersected with your career in chambers and where you decided to go with that. And I'm keen to talk about that. I think we've had phenomenal feedback from people who listened to your very personal story, who felt inspired by it and incentivised essentially to try to make some changes themselves. So I absolutely want to try to capture that again for the broader audience that we have right now. But before we get into that, you're almost 30 years at 5RB — is that right? Did you start there or were you somewhere else before that?

Andrew Love: I started there, yeah. Seventeen and a half, introduced to the world of barristers' chambers in December 1995. Hadn't got a clue what a barristers' chambers really was. Had been to school, got a minimal amount of GCSEs, enough to start A levels, didn't enjoy starting the A levels and ended up finding myself playing cricket — and then consequentially just happened to find myself being interviewed for a job as a junior clerk. We had friends of the family who were solicitors who just happened to see an advert when they were in a conference in one of the chambers in Lincoln's Inn, and the rest is history, as they say. No comprehension of what a clerk was. But suddenly got introduced to the world of barristers, barristers' clerks. It was a very different world, back in '95, which you might just remember Orlagh.

Orlagh Kelly: I do.

Andrew Love: We didn't necessarily all have computers. We certainly didn't have the internet. I think we might have had pagers rather than mobile phones. And yeah, it was just the initial junior clerk introduction.

Orlagh Kelly: Were you on the trolley? Up and down.

Andrew Love: I was on the trolley. I learned to love my trolley and go backwards and forwards to the High Court. And to be honest, there were many people that I met at that time and shortly afterwards that are now still extremely good friends with — who are senior clerks or deputy senior clerks. And so it was a rite of passage thing. And it is always quite important to be able to send the junior clerk down to court in the pouring rain with probably too many boxes on a trolley. And at least say, I've been there, seen it, done it. But it was great. And that was probably what really — after a couple of years, my old first junior said, if you can stick a couple of years of being the junior clerk, you'll probably make it and you'll do all right. So I owe him quite a lot. He was probably right.

Orlagh Kelly: It's wonderful to hear from you, and I've heard from other people who would be your colleagues, really, that those relationships and friendships that started back in the mid-90s — and for some people even earlier, in the 80s — have just continued. They often talk about the barrister, in the barrister profession — it's a collegiate profession. But the sense that I get from the clerking world is that it's very collegiate and very small, but there's a great atmosphere of helping each other out.

Andrew Love: Yeah, I think that's right. Invariably — I mean, I'd be wrong to say that everyone who started as junior clerk in '95 is still a clerk now, because there are a significantly greater number who fell by the wayside or thought that there were different or better opportunities elsewhere. But yeah, the very, very strong relationships of like-minded people — I mean, that's possibly where it all started, I guess — like-minded people meeting at the Devereux opposite the High Court for a drink every Friday lunchtime. And back then as junior clerks, we had one eye obviously on the clock and had to be back pretty swiftly, and invariably, subject to who your senior clerk was, you'd have an hour, an hour and a quarter at best. But yeah, definitely the relationships and friendships that I've got with people, which obviously then translate into good business networking opportunities — there's a lot of cross-referral, as you'd know, across the bar.

And we all had something in common in that we all felt we were working pretty hard. We all had barristers — all very different characters — but they had certain wants and needs and, yeah, it was always a good opportunity to catch up and probably have a bit of a moan.

Orlagh Kelly: About the barristers?

Andrew Love: About the barristers, yeah — obviously — but we try not to make it all about them.

Orlagh Kelly: And so starting in 1995 at 17 and a half — you've already mentioned, you know, there was a routine of meeting at a local pub for a quick pint or whatever at lunchtime. What was the working world, particularly when it came to alcohol, in the mid-90s at the bar?

Andrew Love: I mean, from what I remember — because it was an introduction to the world of clerking, and for the reasons I said — the lunches were quite short and it was quite snappy. But it then became sort of Thursday and Friday nights meeting up with other people. There was a sort of general drinking culture in my chambers on a Friday night — not in a heavy sense, but it was just a really good opportunity where, at a time that barristers were in media law and in court a lot — I mean, we had double and triple-booked diaries then, and there were jury hearings for defamation actions then. So there was a different level of excitement, I guess, because there'd be juries, you'd be waiting for a jury to come back. And as a junior clerk, my responsibility was to ensure that champagne was purchased from Oddbins or from wherever it might be, that it was in the fridge, and — trying to learn how to open a bottle of champagne. A boy from Essex hadn't seen a bottle of champagne, I don't think. So that was all a bit of a learning curve, but it was social. At that time, I never really thought it was excessive, or it didn't feel excessive. It was a lot of fun. There's no doubt about it.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. And intrinsic to really how most people operated at the bar at that time.

Andrew Love: Yeah, yeah. And it was — I don't know. I mean, there was no social media. There were no WhatsApp groups. There were no email exchanges. It was, if you wanted to have a chat, you rang someone or you saw them in person. And because working habits — I think it was more or less mandated by heads of chambers and the then senior clerk — members and clerks from all of chambers did not work in other locations. It just wasn't a thing.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, and so the world has changed a lot. So can you tell us a bit about how you progressed through your career?

Andrew Love: Well, I can try. Yeah, after those couple of years probably doing the more basic tasks, I was very fortunate that opportunities opened up for me within my current set, where I was just perhaps demonstrating that I could cover the basics — and then you're encouraged to perhaps take a phone call or two more, to actually run potential cases, if you like: i.e. receive instructions, allocation of instructions, liaison and negotiation on fees. But then again, it was another part of the social world — every single day we were down in listing offices. So you didn't know your listing for the next day unless you went to the courtroom — sorry — to the listing office, and the then clerk of the lists. He would wander into the room with the listing book probably under his arm, he'd put it down, the first thing he'd do is spark up a cigarette, and then we'd all be stood there probably smoking, whether we really wanted to or not, waiting for him to start reading things out for the next day. So it was there that I started to build further relationships, friendships — you had to demonstrate an ability to persuade a listing officer not to list a matter the next day when your counsel was otherwise engaged — it was there that I started to build really strong relationships. And then as I grew in experience, I got greater opportunities to probably work with some of the more senior barristers. And I guess it just snowballed and I went from sort of first, second junior to joint first junior to deputy senior clerk. And then in about 2013, my then senior clerk — very wisely, I think — said, at 60, I'm going to retire and they gave me an opportunity to work towards that. So I was very lucky. I mean, there's no doubt — I owe a lot to Kim, who was Kim Jones, who was my senior clerk then and throughout the entirety of my time at 5RB. Because it's quite rare that you actually get a sort of succession planning in chambers. It doesn't normally work like that. But nothing prepared me, really — I mean, as much as I thought it was preparing me — for then suddenly becoming the number one.

Orlagh Kelly: And what's that like and what are the challenges that maybe you haven't really understood until you stood in those shoes?

Andrew Love: I mean, let's be honest, it's pretty frightening. I mean, I would imagine that — many of us over the last how many years have learned this term "imposter syndrome", know, limiting beliefs — I imagine that that was a thing back then, but we just didn't know it as that. And I remember standing outside a pub with one of my now quite senior juniors having a beer, having a cigarette, and she said to me, you know, it's all going to change when you become the number one. And I didn't really understand what she meant.

But it was in the sense that when there is a problem — whether it's if you're making a mistake or doing, whatever it is, it's your responsibility. So where before, I think I probably had the luxury of having Kim, that if there was a big, big problem, I'd say, okay, great, I'll have a chat with Kim and I'll come back to you. Whereas whatever the problem, it ended up with me as the senior clerk.

It just sort of changed overnight. You know, she retired and then I became the senior clerk. Yeah, it was daunting, probably quite frightening. And it took quite a while. That was 2016 that I took over. And I think probably — I mean, this might — I don't know — probably the last couple of years, only now, almost 30 years in — it'll be 10 years in 2026 — only now, probably this last 12 months, I've really felt absolutely comfortable. Don't get me wrong — I don't have the answers for everything. I'm not the guru of clerking, far from it, but I actually feel genuinely comfortable. And that took a long time.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, I'm so interested to hear you say that because what you probably find is that anyone listening to this who's sort of coming up the ranks will assume that people in the senior clerk role will just know everything, and it might be somewhat reassuring to understand that it's a gradual process and no one really knows everything. You just have to know how to figure out the problems rather than...

Andrew Love: I think I probably thought I knew all of the answers. I think, you know, it's like anything — if you've had the experience, that's probably it. It's if you've had the experience listing something or dealing with a difficult barrister or a difficult client or difficult colleague or whatever.

Orlagh Kelly: A difficult barrister...

Andrew Love: Yeah — never heard of it. No, certainly not in our set of chambers. But it's something that's true. The experience helps build your knowledge, how you will deal with an issue. So you can be as well equipped — but as others have said, the diversity of what a senior clerk or any clerk might deal with is one of the — if there are some pros, and I think we probably all have to accept there probably are quite a few pros, we know we're very fortunate in lots of different ways — that's part of it. It's a diverse day and there probably isn't one day the same. There's probably never been one day the same that hasn't had some difficult issue or even a really good thing occur that you think, I've never seen that before.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, that's brilliant, isn't it? What a wonderful way to be able to go in to work each day and know that it'll be interesting, if nothing else.

Andrew Love: Yeah, well, exactly. You used the word interesting.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah. And so one of the things, of course — and we mentioned it earlier on — was the fact that you started out at 17, kind of moving into the world of chambers and into a culture where drinking was more predominant, and you've made some changes in the past couple of years around that. Can you tell us a little bit about your relationship with alcohol and that journey through the past 30 years?

Andrew Love: Yeah, of course. I mean, at 17, I was of an age where I was in a pub drinking at 14 and a half, 15, in my local sort of sleepy country town. It wasn't a village, but it was where you could go into your local pub, you go into your local sports bar, and people just serve you beer or any alcohol. And that was just what you did. You celebrated your 18th birthday in the pub. I never got checked for ID ever when I was in London. So my initial relationship was built on socialising, having lots of fun that always involved alcohol. So as I grew older into my twenties, thirties — you know, have the greater responsibility. I got married, I have kids, I am married. And the opportunities — I think this is where the change probably started to shift, particularly when I was given greater responsibility.

You start off with a relatively small group of friends at home and in London. That becomes wider and wider the more people you meet. You then have more barristers that you might want to spend time with or do spend time with. There are then more clients. And then by the end of it, even if you're in a relatively small set like ours — we might have 30-odd members at that time, maybe slightly less — and invariably someone might wander over and say, does anyone fancy a beer?

And I was often the one that would say yes. And I think maybe it's the same for everyone — as I got older, I probably found it more difficult. Certainly into my 30s it was fine, but probably when I turned 40, whether I was drinking more often or more in volume, I just found it actually more difficult to recover from whatever the drinking session was or wasn't. And when — this is something I addressed at the Wellbeing and Leadership Conference — what goes with it, and again a really powerful part and why being a clerk can be so enjoyable, is that you're provided with autonomy and often not too much micromanagement, which is important. You need to be not in a set of chambers where your heads of chambers or management committee or even your members are constantly worried about where you are and what you're doing, why you're not somewhere, you can probably use your time as you choose. But sometimes when you get the opportunities to go out for a lunch — the client comes to meet you and then gleefully tells you that they've booked the afternoon off — and then you think, okay great, I'll probably won't be dealing with the thing that I needed to at four o'clock. It becomes an afternoon that will become drinks, might even become dinner with a different group. And I just found that more and more difficult to process, especially when I was also spending time with friends away from the work environment. In theory I'm trying to de-stress. And I'd probably just reached a point, maybe as I turned 40 into my early 40s, that I had what I now know is probably anxiety — I was waking up some days going, oh my God, why have I done that again? You know, I started to even think about cases that my barristers didn't have yet.

And so I was beginning to worry — why have they only got those cases? And I'd be sitting on the train actually feeling slightly anxious about that. So I knew that that wasn't right. And I had accompanying health symptoms, let's just say — unexplained aches and pains where, despite seeing an array — I mean, I am at heart a hypochondriac anyway but seeing various doctors and probably not being completely truthful about levels of consumption of alcohol, whether a cigarette may or may not have been passed to me. I realised that I probably needed to think about it.

And then just by chance, beginning of 2020, I went out, drank quite a lot. And I'd already been slightly inquisitive about giving up drinking for periods of time — I'd completed sort of dry Januarys. I'd at best done 55 days of non-drinking before crashing and burning with a client quite dramatically. And at the beginning of 2020, I went out, I had quite a lot to drink, and I signed up to something called One Year No Beer. And that was something I'd had this previous interest in. I don't remember doing it. I only knew it because I woke up on the Saturday morning and had taken a pretty embarrassing selfie of myself and I'd paid a chunk of money on my credit card. And the rest is history again, and that meant that I was in theory committing to 365 days of no drink.

Orlagh Kelly: So January 2020 — of course, at that stage we can all think, early 2020, we didn't really know what was around the corner in March that year. So did you start the One Year No Beer challenge?

Andrew Love: Yeah, so I started the 11th of January, I think it was 2020. I can remember that. And the last act in chambers, I think, was something like the 16th of March, where it was Silks Day. And I had one of my new silks, which was amazing. And I stood in the pub with him and had an alcohol-free beer. So I was still not drinking at that point. And then we were told by Boris that we would very likely be going into lockdown.

From that point on — I mean, there were no silver linings from a pandemic, because we know obviously what that brought. But for a very social drinker who didn't really drink very much at home, that probably helped me build up some momentum to prove to myself, obviously, that I didn't need to drink, I didn't have to drink. And that there were lots of options — alcohol-free beers and alcohol-free spirits that were alternatives.

So yeah, I didn't drink throughout that year. I did my One Year No Beer, quite easily really. And then in 2021, when the world started opening again a bit — I think that was before Omicron, I lost track of the variants — but on my birthday, I had a couple of drinks, just went out and had a couple of drinks. And I didn't really think too much of it. When I signed up to this One Year No Beer, I didn't ever think I'd committed to never drink again, so I had a couple of beers, then another drink probably a week later. And then my deputy senior clerk Jamie left us and we had a leaving do towards the end of May 2021. And I went out, didn't really have a plan of action. Consumed six or seven pints of Guinness, spent the evening drinking, went home, remember it all. That was the slightly frightening thing — remember the whole thing. Consciously felt, well, you go — I can do it. And then I woke up the next day and it was probably the worst hangover I've ever had in my life. And that was the last time I had a drink, and that was the real moment where I just thought, right, you've seen all the benefits of 450-odd days of not drinking: being fresher, being better with kids, being better with wife, being better at my job. And so that's not me crowing — it was just that I was clearly clear-headed, my mind was set, I'd exercised throughout that period, I was eating better. And I just realised that that was probably the best route.

I'd say that's the last time. And I look back now — which is, what, in excess of three years — and there were real concerns. One of the things I know that you've said to me before, about maybe something you're going to come on to, is about this: can a clerk, senior clerk, whoever, operate successfully in a world without drinking? And that was one of my biggest fears. I used to say to like-minded people that I've met through that process — but I can't do it. I mean, I'm in a world where you do business over lunches with wine and beer or whatever. And I don't know, I suppose I was doubting whether I had the ability to go into that environment without a couple of — what is it — nerve settlers. I think, I don't believe I was a very confident person. I certainly — like many people, probably — am the introvert rather than the extrovert, which many people can't comprehend with clerks. Because one of my friends said, we're the fun people. Like, clients don't want to spend time with the barristers, it's us that they want to see. Well, that's not exclusive, obviously, but we probably are quite entertaining. Maybe I was too entertaining when I'd had too much to drink. Yeah, so that's how I found myself where I am now today, I guess.

Orlagh Kelly: And so yeah, the title of your talk back at the conference was Can You Even Clerk If You Don't Drink? And you find yourself doubting that. But you know, it's been three years in an open world where you're not sequestered at home essentially. How have you found that and how have you navigated it?

Andrew Love: I think that the early days were still tricky. The brain's a very complicated thing and your assessment and assumption that — I don't know why, it sounds again very egotistical — but that you walk into somewhere and everyone's looking at you and what you're doing. You immediately just think, if I'm not drinking, someone is going to call me out. Someone's going to ask why, what's wrong, have you got a problem? You know, lots of different things.

And much of that, ironically, was bred from the fact that I was that person. I said this before — I was the enabler. I'd wander down the corridors of my chambers trying to scoop unwilling barristers and clerks to come to the pub with me, with the promise it would just be one. It was never one. I mean, I never really — I don't know at what point that switched. I mean, my general view as a social drinker was, if you're going to go to the pub, go and do it properly. Don't go to the pub and just think you're having one — you might as well not bother. So yeah, I found that quite difficult initially. And on the whole, very, very rarely, one or two sort of jibes from friends of mine about when am I really going to drink again, you can't be a non-drinker. But it very quickly passed.

I mean, I do not probably spend anywhere near as much time in the pub as I used to — a very good thing. Maybe again, post-pandemic, the friends that I used to see on a Friday lunchtime every single week without fail — we don't meet up every Friday anyway, because we're invariably working in different places. So yeah, I found that quite tough. But I guess when you've been to your first Silks Day when you've been on your first holiday, where actually apparently there are things that you can do other than utilise the all-inclusive to its fullest — which, you know, having a drink with breakfast or whatever it is. Weddings — I mean, I'm not a sober dancer and that's just not happening, and I don't think anyone's too worried about that. But yeah, it took a while. But you then realised that there were a lot of clients who didn't want to take the afternoon off and really did have a call at three or wanted to stick to water. So yeah, that's become much easier.

Orlagh Kelly: And I'm guessing through the three decades there has been a real sort of switch in all professional environments away from the boozy lunch in any event — just not as acceptable anymore.

Andrew Love: I guess it has. We will all know people who've worked in banking, sort of Canary Wharf, and that happened a long time ago. I remember going to meet solicitors who are based over at Canary Wharf, and we were the only table in the restaurant that had a drink. Lloyd's of London — Leadenhall Market used to be awash with brokers and underwriters and those that were going to go into Lloyd's and conduct business, and that changed. And I think actually probably the legal world is maybe the last sort of large-scale enterprise, but it has changed. I mean, you notice that the flexibility of working — people's levels of professionalism — and that's not, I don't think, questioning that there are still going to be lots of people out there, clerks, barristers, solicitors who enjoy having a good drink over lunch or whatever. And that's — I mean, I don't know if I'm envious, but it's possible. I mean, it's possible to have an off switch. But I think it's not easy. Yeah, I guess that we're sort of slowly catching up there.

Orlagh Kelly: And what would your advice be if there's anyone listening, for example, who has maybe been thinking that they could benefit from cutting down or cutting out alcohol but they're concerned about the environment that they're working in? Do you have any advice for people?

Andrew Love: I mean, I found it probably easier because I was of a certain age, I was a senior clerk. I've said to people who've asked — I'm not sure whether I could have done that when I was in my 20s or 30s, which doesn't really sound very positive. But I don't know, I think that people have got stronger minds maybe than even I did. I mean, I've always been accused of being a bit of a sheep.

No, maybe actually I was the leader of the pack. But I think if you're really intent — if people are honest about it — I genuinely believe many of us have had the experience of not being prepared to say, actually, I don't really want to drink. You know, that's not a problem, is it? And a lot of the time it really doesn't seem to worry other people. I think it's just become habit. And I think many members of the bar would not necessarily insist that just because you're going out so frequently as a clerk, you have to drink. But every experience and every person's position is a very personal one. And that's where I think — in the conversations I've had with people after I effectively told people what I had decided to do — I've had quite a lot of people of similar age to me, maybe a few older and maybe a few younger, who have a similar level of tiredness. Which is — it's life generally, if you get married or even if you're not married, you have kids, the pressure of work. The one downside of alcohol — great as it was for me, it was great fun, I got myself into lots of different scrapes — but it's not designed to make you feel better. I mean, after the event, it is going to leave a bit of a mark on you. And I think probably some of the younger generation are much better at managing their stress. Hopefully it's a more open conversation about mental health in most places these days. And a lot of it is balanced for them — they seem to eat reasonably well and they seem to go to the gym and they're all quite active. But I think it's a personal thing. And I hope that senior clerks, heads of chambers, management committees are going to be receptive to someone who might just say, look, I don't really want to drink quite as much, or even at all — and understand it.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. Well, there's support to be had. Certainly I've come across quite a number of people who have made that change and found it really helpful — people in the clerking world. It is people of your age and generation, I think, who have just had enough. The body can't take it anymore, if nothing else.

Andrew Love: Yeah!

And I think that's right. And I didn't ever envisage that there would be a time where I wouldn't have a drink. And people still say to me now, does it mean you're never going to have a drink? I mean, I have no intention whatsoever to have a drink now because I just don't see the point. I mean, I've just been extremely fortunate. I'm going to sound extremely smug. I genuinely don't think that I would be anywhere near as good a clerk now. I mean, I genuinely feel I'm a better clerk. You know, I'm a better husband, better dad, hopefully a better friend to people, as a consequence of not sort of dulling my senses with alcohol and cigarettes. And I was an extreme — not the most extreme, I'm not going to start naming names, but people know who they are. But it's something that I think you can address, but it's a personal decision.

I don't think one thing that we've talked about before is — I think it's very difficult if the individual doesn't want to make change. I think that's where it's very difficult. I think you can't make someone change unless they want to. And I used to get that from family members — I'd perhaps get that from my wife, where she'd say, why do you do it? Or do you have to go out? And can you stop? And I was pig-headed.

I still am quite pig-headed, but I wasn't prepared to change until I realised finally in here that I needed to. And that took quite a lot. So I mean, others that have got in touch with me — and I'm very open, through LinkedIn or through the email address in my chambers, that if there's anyone who wants to have a chat, coffee — a few friends, people I know very well have got in touch, one or two that I don't really know have got in touch.

I'm very open to trying to offer some support and advice if I can be of any help.

Orlagh Kelly: Well, that's wonderful. That's great. And now that you're thriving and succeeding and meeting your potential, what does the future bring for you? Where do you want to go now?

Andrew Love: I don't know. Some careers — I think, isn't it the case that if you do 30 years somewhere, which is tame by comparison to some of the more senior clerks, many of whom you've interviewed already. But I don't know. I mean, it's tough because I will only be — what — 47, 48 when I've done 30 years. And in other professions, you get a carriage clock and you get a nice big fat pension, don't you? I've got an alright pension, but it's not big enough and fat enough yet.

Orlagh Kelly: Forty-seven's young to step away anyway.

Andrew Love: Yeah, and I think that's probably right. And maybe because my senses aren't as dulled quite as much as they were, I really do try to now — as you get older, you know, people who have got more difficulties from an illness perspective — and you know, it's just the sad reality. And you do have to sometimes step back and think, well, actually, you know what? I'm actually really lucky to have what I've got and the opportunities. And it's — when you're in the bubble, you perhaps don't see it as much. You know, getting to go to Westminster with silks, eating in extremely nice restaurants paid for by other people — even just the experiences. And we also think that we've got a tough lot and we work hard like everybody does. And the rewards can be significant, financially as much as anything. So I don't know. I'm not going to say I've got it sussed because I certainly haven't. But I think I've got an amazing team around me in clerking and admin support at 5RB, amazing barristers — and that's not some shameless plug just at the end here.

Orlagh Kelly: You guys are going from strength to strength. I'm seeing some of the posts on LinkedIn around recent announcements about being rated in Legal 500, I think.

Andrew Love: Yeah, I mean, we're very fortunate, coming from a privileged position. We've got a number of specialists in an area of the bar where there are not a lot. I mean, some of that is consequential because there's not enough work to necessarily support 300 barristers at the bar. But I'm very fortunate. And I think, as a senior clerk of not even 10 years, I feel like I've got a lot more to do in a business development sense — developing practices and perhaps working with my team to offer some thoughts from experience. Slightly less compliance and training and data protection — I guess that's where, again, shameless plug, that's where Briefed comes in. Do I still call it Briefed, Orlagh? I don't know.

Orlagh Kelly: Yes, it's still Briefed. Yeah, we've got a lot of alignment around the things that we talk about and the things that your barristers operate in, which is always fun to watch. It's great for us, as always wanting to be experts yourselves but more from a consultancy basis. It's so interesting to watch any of our clients — including your barristers — actually be at the cutting edge of the legislation and the case law and the decisions that we're then sort of digesting and feeding back to our clients about what compliance they need to do.

That's always been a very exciting thing for me. I think about law — and particularly a lot of the clients that we work with in England and Wales — they're at the forefront of making the decisions that we then digest and tell clients about. But we know them personally quite often. And so why I always think GDPR — well, typically, law is usually quite slow-moving. It used to be, certainly when I was practising. But now it changes frequently, and to know the people who are actually at the coal face and representing the clients is really wonderful. I know you guys do a lot of good stuff. And so what's the key to success for 5RB? How are you such a successful set? Do you have any secret sauce that you're willing to share?

Andrew Love: God. I don't know.

I think we've been very fortunate that we've got obviously high-quality barristers. That's — I think every set in London has got, I hope, and I'm sure that is the case, that if someone rings as a client and wants to instruct someone, they're ringing the right people because they're a tenant in those chambers. We've been very fortunate. We've got amazing barristers from a technical perspective. I think at 5RB, we've been very fortunate that the characters — the approach, the personality, their interpersonal skills — I think, have to be a certain style, particularly dealing with the media law where, let's say, at its primary level, you're looking at something like defamation or privacy. You're invariably looking at either a celebrity or someone who's in a crisis. It could be a celebrity. It could be someone who's not. They've invariably, fortunately, got significant enough means to instruct barristers. They were normally media organisations, be it publishers, broadcasters, newspapers. And so you end up in a sort of world where you have to have technical brilliance, but you have to have empathy and understanding. And that's where I think we're very lucky. We've got barristers and newer additions who are all following suit. And look, yeah, we're in a very privileged — to use the word again — position that the area of law is very interesting. It's not as obviously densely populated or as competitive, perhaps, as commercial crime or family work. So I don't know. I mean, I'm hoping — I don't know, is it 40 and out or is it, yeah, maybe another 10, 12 years or so — and we'll see. But for now, I'm really going to try not to drive myself crazy about thinking what three years or five years looks like. Yeah.

Orlagh Kelly: Well, that's great. Well, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's been really interesting. I again think that people are intrigued by the story that you tell and there's a lot of courage it takes to talk about that level of personal information, which you demonstrated so well at the conference and again today. So thank you very much for trusting us with the story and trusting Briefed for that. And really, that was great. So thank you.

Andrew Love: Thank you very much. Thanks, Orlagh.