Orlagh Kelly: Today's guest on the Get Briefed podcast is James Pereira KC from Francis Taylor Building. Having very rapid success in his early career at the bar, winning awards and taking silk at 42, James is going to talk to us about moving into a career at the bar, coming from an immigrant family and the personal challenges that came with being a high-performance individual. So welcome, James, to the Get Briefed podcast. It's great to have you here today. Thank you.

James Pereira KC: Good to be here.

Orlagh Kelly: You featured as one of the guests at our recent leadership conference at Gray's Inn and we were delighted to have you there. You spoke about some really incredible topics, a journey that you have been on yourself from the start of your career. Can you tell us a bit about your background and your start at the bar and why you decided to go to the bar?

James Pereira KC: Sure. Where to start. I come from a family of doctors. So that's probably the starting point. My dad's from India, was a surgeon. My mother from Ireland was a nurse, and born and brought up in the countryside in Suffolk and East Anglia in England. And in that kind of classic Indian immigrant way, my Dad kind of said, well, if you're not going to be a doctor, you're going to be a lawyer.

So that was really — I mean, seriously, that was really it. And I absolutely loved sciences and I wanted to study sciences, but he said, no, you know, law. And then I remember thinking when I was about 16, 17, that the bar had one quality that I really value, which is that you stand and fall on your own feet, on your own, you know, abilities. And that for me gave me an opportunity that I knew I'd really value — that you didn't depend upon anyone else for your career progression, that you were kind of self-sufficient, self-employed, had that freedom. And I appreciate, you know, everyone needs to be given a leg up and everyone needs to be given opportunities. But once you're given your opportunities at the bar, certainly as I've found it and I see it, you then stand or fall on your own performance. And I like that.

I think that's probably my earliest memory, pre-university memory, that really sparked me. I can even remember the room I was in in my house and looking out the window up at the trees one evening, kind of dreaming about this world that might happen. So there we are. And I then studied law and hated it. I hated every moment of it. I found it absolutely dry, dull, boring. And then I took a year out and then did a master's in environmental law because I wanted to do something that would bring back kind of nature and science and those things I was interested in. And then got a pupillage in chambers that specialised in that, and I got kind of the minimum number of offers I needed for pupillage and took them both. And then I got one offer for tenancy and grabbed it and didn't look back really.

Orlagh Kelly: And so was that in your early 20s? So really your career path was degree, master's and then bar straight away.

James Pereira KC: Yeah, I took a year out and lived in Portugal, taught English there. Which I loved actually and still love that place. But yeah, basically that was it.

Orlagh Kelly: So you started off as a baby barrister, really a baby in life almost at that stage. How did you — when were you called to the bar?

James Pereira KC: 1996.

Orlagh Kelly: Okay, and can you describe — you know, we're now almost 30 years since then — what was the bar like back in the mid 90s?

James Pereira KC: Pupillage is petrifying, absolutely petrifying. I would avoid contact with certain people who... It's difficult to... When I think how it is now for people, and we're all pretty friendly and open, and I think really, certainly in our chambers, pupils are treated as equals for the time that they're there. Everyone knows that they may or may not be taken on, but they're treated as equals.

I really felt, rightly or wrongly, that every moment was a test. And you were only there for as long as you kept passing the numerous tests of the day. You didn't succeed by your good performances, you just had not to fail by your bad performances. And I hated every moment of it.

Orlagh Kelly: So you didn't like your law degree, you didn't enjoy your pupillage and yet here we are nearly 30 years later with KC after your name. We're going to have to explore this a bit. This is definitely some interesting journey.

James Pereira KC: I can tell you kind of at a high level what that's about. And it's something that still interests me now. That's really about: what are the rules for crossing the threshold of the profession from being an outsider to an insider? And how do people — what does the culture say to people and how do they feel when they're going on that journey?

And how much of yourself do you need to leave behind to cross that threshold? And how much of yourself will be welcome within it? And if you do navigate that initial crossing successfully, at what point can you then bring yourself fully into being?

And that still absolutely fascinates me now. And I find — and personally, I think there are lots of issues around that, which are linked to performance and stress and stuff. And that's really a question about culture.

Orlagh Kelly: And so — I mean, I've heard you talk about this so articulately at the conference that we had, and I think it's a fascinating topic, but thinking about an audience who possibly haven't heard of these concepts before — can you give a little bit more detail about what you mean?

James Pereira KC: Yeah, yeah, sure. So on this particular question of joining, crossing the threshold. We all have values which are born out of relationships. And the primary giver of our values is our family and our upbringing — principally our family. Or if we're adopted, or brought up in care, our place of primary care gives us our values and it tells us, for example, simple things like: how safe is it to ask for help? If I have a need and I make a request, will it be met? Is the world a safe place to explore or does safety come from standing in line?

And to illustrate that, imagine you're brought up in a family where one parent is violent, say, or depressed. I had that in my upbringing. You may then encounter an environment where you may wish for something as a child, but you may learn that it often doesn't get listened to or gets rebuffed.

It tends to — not everyone, there can be different responses to that — but a classic response to that would be to think, well, the world can be unsafe, and therefore I must tend to my own needs, and I can't safely rely upon others. That's a natural response to that. Other people may react differently, and we're talking in generalisations, but I'm just trying to do that to illustrate what you've asked.

And there are all sorts of other values, you know. What does it mean to be English? What does it mean to be an immigrant? Another common thing for children of immigrants like myself is, you know, you see your parents work very hard to succeed — and the Indians and the Irish are great examples of that, great contributors to the places where they go. But then as a child, you think, gosh, how am I supposed to live? Am I supposed to work hard like my parents did? Or am I allowed now to take the fruits of their labour, to take the opportunities that they never had? And what does it mean for me to enjoy those with pleasure, when I look back and I think they didn't have an opportunity to enjoy their lives with the same kind of pleasure?

And so there are all sorts of ways in which our relationship to the world is influenced by how we're brought up. So then you join a profession — doesn't matter what it is that we're talking about — you join a profession, you literally step through the door of the chambers on day one carrying all your values with you. And so when it comes to thinking of a professional thing like, should I ask for help? The model you have of asking for help is the model that you will have had perhaps growing up — when I should really only ask for help if I'm really desperate, because it's probably better for me just to get on with it myself. And some of these can be great values for the bar, right, as well. But other people may have learned that as soon as they feel a need for help, they should reach out and ask for help and it will be provided. And they may have a different response. And then people will react to those approaches in different ways.

And so whenever any of us step into a different world with its own rules, we're trying to navigate — is this world one that mirrors the world that I've been brought up in? And if not, what are the rules here? And how do I navigate those rules? Because if we want to belong in a profession, we belong in a profession broadly speaking by following the mainstream rules of that profession — you know, excellence, diligence, grit, determination, being good at advocacy, all of those qualities. And then there are kind of hidden rules as well, like don't turn away work, burn the midnight oil, you're only as good as your last case. There are all these kind of hidden codes as well. And these all form a kind of cultural soup at the bar.

So on a very high level, everyone entering the profession wanting to cross the threshold is carrying with them their own rules and cultural soup from their own upbringing and life biography. They then hit another culture. And the question is, how well do these two things meet? What in myself is going to help me in the bar? And what isn't going to help me?

Coming from an immigrant family where hard work is a highly valued quality — great for the bar. Absolutely fantastic. You could sit me down all day, all night. I diligently work because that's what I grew up thinking was a good way of being. And the bar rewards that. Growing up as I did in my family, feeling a little bit isolated, working alone — absolutely fantastic. Getting on and doing things myself — absolutely fantastic.

And then flip the coin over and you have other things, like making mistakes. For me growing up, you know, if you got nine out of ten in a test, the question was what happened to that one? You got 90%. What about the 10%? And so my capacity for dealing with failure — not great, right?

So then you lose a case or you don't spot an authority or something like that. And suddenly your whole world caves in. And partly that also reflects bar culture too. That's a very common trait among barristers. And then also there's a cultural thing — is it safe for me to enter the bar as a part Indian, part Irish person? Or do I have to enter the bar as — I was lucky to be an Oxbridge graduate at least. How much of one's identity can one bring?

Orlagh Kelly: And as you've said, do you have to leave some of that behind or dial down some of your own intrinsic characteristics in an effort to be successful?

James Pereira KC: I think initially in those days, everyone did initially. And then as your feet get firmer under the table and your confidence grows and you really learn that you actually do belong here, then you can bring more of yourself — because your fear of exclusion by bringing yourself lessens because you feel well enough established. And I think one of the great things that's happened to bar culture in the 30 years that I've been at it is people now need to leave less of themselves behind at that initial stage when they're still asking to belong, when they're still doing their training. They don't have to wait until 10, 15 years down the line to say, you know, by the way, I'm gay, or by the way, I'm, you know, mixed race, or whatever it might be.

Orlagh Kelly: And can you think back in those early days, 1996, 1997, and thinking about your heritage — were there actual things that you...?

James Pereira KC: I was asked at my interview for pupillage, Pereira, where's that from? You know? And I was lucky in that I was brought up without any real sense of racial divide or tension or difference. And it was only when I went to university that well-meaning friends would say, but you know, being mixed heritage or whatever, you know, you might have difficulty in the bar and things like that. Something that would never have dawned on me, right? Anyway, but I went to interview. So I was carrying this awareness and they said, Pereira, where's that from? And I'd already thought what I was going to answer. So my father's from Goa, which was a Portuguese colony, but my name is Portuguese, right? So I said — which is kind of true — Pereira, well, it's a Portuguese name. And I thought, you know, got through there. And then the guy said, whereabouts in Portugal is your family from?

And then you think, you know, what am I going to do? Do I make something up? And I knew the country pretty well, so I could have made up anything. Or do I tell the truth? And so I thought, you know, kind of now or never. So I said, actually, my father's from Goa in India, which was a Portuguese colony. And the response I got back from this guy was, Goa. Well, I've never heard of that.

And it felt to me — and I'm saying it in the way it felt, I can't accurately say whether that's the tone he said it in, but it felt that way — it felt really dismissive. And I literally felt as though a big black hole was opening up underneath my chair and I was being dragged down into it. Literally in a moment, my whole world collapsed. And I'm getting emotional about it now because I can remember how it felt. And then something really lovely happened. Someone else on the interview panel said, you've never heard of Goa? Well, you should go there. It's absolutely beautiful. And it was like someone had thrown me a rope and I scurried back up. And I kind of figuratively sat back on my chair and got on with it.

And here's the twist in the story — two things. One is I got an offer from that chambers and those are the people I've practised with ever since and they're absolutely lovely. And the other thing is that a few weeks after my pupillage started, the same person who'd asked me about Portugal said, Pereira, can you come into my room? I need to talk to you about something. And I was thinking, my God, what is it?

And then he sat down and he produced a letter in Portuguese. And he said, you might remember me asking you about Portugal at your interview. Well, it's because we've got this timeshare in Madeira and we keep being sent these letters from, I think it's from the electricity company or something. And I was wondering if you'd be able to translate them for me, because I don't know what they're about. And I suddenly realised it had absolutely nothing to do with kind of racial prejudice or anything at all, but actually a very genuine kind of curiosity because this guy had something going on in his life where Portuguese was relevant. And it was a great lesson to me about self-sabotage, to be honest, because for every story there is about prejudice or discrimination or any of these things, that same story also has a different narrative, which is: and what part did the storyteller play in the events, and how much is the projection of one's own beliefs about how people are? And it really opened my eyes to the dangers of walking around expecting things to happen when very often they're happening for entirely benign reasons.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, that's a really interesting story. And I can't help but wonder — had your friends at uni not put the idea into your head that you would have had an issue, would you not necessarily have picked up and attributed meaning that wasn't there? And in which case that could have sabotaged intrinsically — it's the thought process and your own reaction that was potentially going to cause the problem.

James Pereira KC: I think that's absolutely right. I don't think I would have had that thought had it not been introduced to me. And it's a really important thing for anyone who's involved in cultural change at the bar or anywhere else — that when we tell stories, it's really important that we tell stories, if we're well-meaning, from a place that can empower people rather than a place that is all about the problems that we ourselves face, without an ending of daylight to it. And it's really important that — because I'm not suggesting that people don't suffer or that there aren't prejudices out there — but there's a difference between me telling a story in order to draw people in and ask people to join in sympathy for me as a victim, and me telling a story to show what I learned and how the profession really is and what can be done about the problems that we face. And you're right when you ask that question. I wouldn't have thought these ways had it not been put in my mind. And I think there's a lot out there personally — people read about, you know, the bar is like this, or the bar is like that, which is part of a story perhaps well-meaningly told by people as an expression of their own experience — but it's not necessarily helpful to people who are wanting to join the profession, because they come with all sorts of preconceived notions that don't support them.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. Well, that's really interesting. And so through your pupillage interview, despite that bump in the road, you did your pupillage — and I'm trying to recall my own pupillage some 20 years ago — but essentially it was full of fear about various things. And I think that a lot of pupils, a lot of barristers, can probably connect with that unknowingness of what you're really doing. And I think of, you know — even where you're going on occasion, I remember I think back, I just followed my master, as we call them in Belfast, just unknowingly, not even knowing where I was going. And one day I practically followed him into the Gents because he wasn't communicating about where he was going. I had to scoot back out again. So I just recall giggling about that. But I mean, even that was horrifying, you know, as a young girl at that stage — so silly. But it is a time in the career where hopefully it has improved over time, where people are feeling more confident. But you know, you're at that stage of a career really where you don't know anything. You don't even know what you don't know. You're so young at that stage. So what kind of area did you start off in? I appreciate you had done your environmental law master's — is that where you started to do your work?

James Pereira KC: So I used to do a little bit of kind of criminal and CPS prosecution and stuff like that just to get some advocacy experience. But mostly it was planning and environmental cases. And I was really lucky to learn from some really good people doing really exciting stuff in chambers. You go through that period where you're doing some stuff on your own, you're doing some stuff helping other people, and you eventually find your feet. I think for me, it probably took about ten years until I felt I kind of knew what I was doing.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, absolutely. And so your career keeps going and I know we've mentioned already that you're a KC now. Can you have a talk about how you got to that process? Do you think striving for that was part of your intrinsic culture, which was always to be the best and be better?

James Pereira KC: Yeah, I think so. I mean, I'm ambitious and I think most people at the bar are ambitious in their own way. And silk is one of the few times you actually get a badge of approval, right? You get taken on and you're told you're a tenant and your name goes up and you think, okay, enough people think I'm good at this. But then you practise, and okay, you've got your earnings and your client following and all the rest of that.

There's so much variation at the bar and different clients for different people that I think silk is probably the only other time where the profession, through an assessment process and everything, can turn around and say, yeah, you are actually kind of excellent at what you do. So for me, that was important and a big motivator. Really big motivator for me.

Orlagh Kelly: You do have — I recall — you do have a more personal journey alongside when you took silk. Whatever you're comfortable to share — it has taken you to where you are now and we are going to talk about how you operate now.

James Pereira KC: Yeah, I don't mind sharing these things — one, because they're true, and two, because if people can learn from them, then so much the better. I took silk in 2014, and I was at that point married, had three children. And we'd been, as a lot of married couples do I guess, having trouble for a little while and couldn't get over that. And things came to a head in 2014. I said I wanted a divorce, left home, caused — as these things do — pain within the family. And at the same time my practice was kind of pretty, you know, white hot, and I'd won various awards in previous years and so on. I hadn't really realised how much of a pressure pot I was operating in because I'd just got very used to being under pressure the whole time and performing well under it, I think.

So here's one thing that we all do, which we probably shouldn't entirely — lots of people tend to view their performance as an indicator of how well they are doing personally. And I was performing very, very well, but I was being eaten away on just about every other level. And things came to a head — I was on a train in November 2014 with a junior guy up for a case and I passed out, I collapsed. And I remember turning to my junior and saying to him, what time are we supposed to meet tomorrow? Because we were going up for a series of cons in Newcastle. And he said, oh, 9.30. And I said, well, can you just email the client, let them know we'll be there at 10, because I should probably have a bit of a lie-in. And he looked at me — his name's Jack Connor, and he works now as parliamentary draftsman, a lovely fellow. Bless him, he said to me — he'd just been taken on — and he said to me, what are you doing? He said, you've just been told you should go to hospital and you're saying that all you need is a 30-minute lie-in. And I'm really grateful to him for having the presence to say that. And it's also a lesson for anyone younger at the bar to know that anyone can be a leader at any point. And what I needed at that point in time was for someone just to tell me the truth of where I was. And also give me permission — you know, one of the consequences of the hierarchy of the bar is that although juniors naturally think they are somehow being led by leaders, also senior people in the profession are very mindful of the impressions they're creating for their juniors. And so there's a kind of unspoken ping pong going backwards and forwards.

And I guess there was a part of me thinking, you know, I'm the leader, I'm supposed to be able to do this, so I will carry on tomorrow. And it was nice for Jack just to turn around and say, no. So he got on and did the work for the week. I went home and lay in bed. And I started just looking back at all the times where I felt pretty exhausted and told myself I couldn't keep doing this. And finally, actually, I let myself think that maybe this was the warning sign. I wasn't entirely convinced, but it seemed to be pointing that way. So then I went and got myself some therapy and some support. And of course, for me, it wasn't just work — it was, you know, my marital breakup and all the stuff that comes with that and all the changes I was going through at that time. And you know, one thing that strikes me is it didn't even dawn on me that I might need more space or time to deal with those things that were going on at that time. It didn't dawn on me to be proactive in my self care. It's true that I could only ever be reactive. And so in that sense, it was a blessing, right? I mean, nothing harmful happened to me. I just happened to pass out.

Orlagh Kelly: But of course — I mean, it's certainly, when I'm listening to you, I can think of lots of other people in the profession, high-performance individuals who it wouldn't appear leave a lot of bandwidth for anything else in their lives. And certainly not at a time where there might be catastrophic things to think about in terms of illness or other events that happen. Everyone — it certainly feels, having been in and around the profession since the early 2000s — that you have to be on all of the time, giving everything of yourself, and everything else outside of your job has to drop off and be inconsequential or run itself. And maybe this is one of those hidden messages that we pick up on. I think about almost every barrister I talk to — they work weekends and work evenings. And if they're female and they've got dependent children to think about, childcare work starts after kids go to bed, which is not necessarily normal. I don't think I can think of another profession where I've come across that singular focus on work. And one of course thinks then about the personal effect that has. So whilst there's a big push at the bar to try for everyone to look at wellbeing, intrinsically, if we don't address the fact that there's an unwritten and unsaid expectation that you give everything to your job — how can we then really prioritise wellbeing as a profession and an ecosystem?

James Pereira KC: Yes, and that goes back to where we started the conversation, which is about what are the kind of hidden rules that you discover when you cross the threshold into the profession? Well, that is one of them. And it's also a consequence of the nature of bar training, which is another thing that I'm kind of focusing my efforts on trying to reform. With some exceptions — technical advocacy is one of them — bar training operates by way of observation and absorption, on the assumption that what you're seeing generally is the way things should be or is good. There isn't much, certainly in my experience both as a pupil and what I see now, there isn't much questioning of practices in the pupillage, pupil supervisor, pupil-round-chambers experience. The assumption is that what you're seeing is good and proper and the way things should be done — now learn it and do it yourself. And of course the current generation, the younger generation entering the profession, have completely different expectations and will look up at somebody senior — maybe about my level of call, I hope not me but maybe others — and think, gosh, you know, if that's what success looks like, I don't want that. We're lucky in our chambers, we've got a number of female tenants who are also parents and who have managed to navigate having children and then coming back to the bar and are very successful. And I think and hope that gives a good account to others coming up, that these things are possible and approved of and welcomed and supported and all of those things.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah. And so — I recall, just thinking about when you talk about bar school, the pupillage — I recall you describing to me before about high technical skills. I'm not going to paraphrase this because this is your expertise and not mine, but high technical skills are predominantly what is taught. Talk us through that. I don't want to misrepresent it.

James Pereira KC: Yeah, yeah. Just a little rewind, so people know where I'm coming from on this. So I got my therapy and stuff like that. And then I trained as a coach and got my coaching certification and trained in certain forms of family therapy as well, which I had received and it helped me kind of disentangle various patterns that I was running unknowingly. And so that got me into coaching and kind of helping others — mostly, not entirely lawyers, but quite a few barristers, especially with their own professional challenges — because mostly professional challenges come from, very broadly speaking, two or three places. One will be personal patterns that we just are walking around with that are somehow triggered or activated by what we're coming across at the bar, and that can be helpful or unhelpful depending. Another, which we've touched on already, is culture — how we clash against work culture. Different chambers have different rules, as well as the profession as a whole. And another, which is what your question was about, is about how we're actually trained.

So I think — it may have been at the talk we did — I put on a board a triangle. The triangle has three points to it. The starting point is technical skills. And that's what we're mostly taught. Think of university, bar school, pupillage — you're mostly taught technical skills, which is to say what's the law, and what does the stuff you do as a barrister look like? You know, what does a good cross-examination look like when you're in court making submissions to a judge? What does that look like or sound like? When you write an opinion — what does that look like? But what we're not ever taught, generally, is any of the back-of-house stuff, like how do you arrive at the point where you can comfortably and sustainably make it look like that, again and again, day after day, irrespective of what mood you happen to be in or what might have happened with your partner that day or whatever it might be.

So it seemed to me — and then there's a whole other thing to do with the fact that we actually have clients, we don't exist in a vacuum. So the other bits of the triangle: you've got technical skills, which is what most of us spend most of our time training on. You've then got relationship skills. So everything we do is about relationship, I think. When we're cross-examining, you're entering into a relationship with the witness. When you make submissions, you're entering into a relationship with the judge. When you meet a client or a team, there are relationships being created. You can even say the same thing for inanimate objects. When we undo the ribbon on our case, we are entering into our relationship with our work, with what's at stake for us.

So relationships is another thing. And then the third point on the triangle is presence. How do we show up? Because if you're going to stand up and do a cross-examination that looks technically proficient, and you're going to stand up and do a cross-examination by creating an appropriate relationship with the witness, the first thing that you've got to do is show up.

You've got to walk through the court door, you've got to sit down at your chair, you've got to stand up. And in that moment, there is always a question: how are we showing up today? And for most people, that is a passive question. I'm going to show up the way I am because I'm in a bad mood today, so I'm probably going to show up a bit tetchy. I'm in a good mood today, so I'll probably show up joyful. I'm tired today, so I'm going to show up tired.

But actually that's a question that ought to have an answer that is purposefully designed by us. How am I going to show up today? Okay, well, this case needs this and this witness needs this. So when I stand up to cross-examine that witness, I'm going to show up like this. Or I've got a meeting with a client who's gone through a terrible thing. How am I going to show up? Okay, I'm going to ease my energy back. I'm just going to listen for the first 20 minutes so that they can vent and we can create a space to discuss. So I'm not going to show up as the active, strident barrister who's got all the answers. I'm going to be softer and create a space. And there are all sorts of different ways of showing up. And presence is also about how we deal with the bumps on the road of the day — what happens when the client complains about us, or the witness answers back, or the judge says, why are you asking that question? Or, I've heard enough from you, Mr. Pereira, how much longer have you got? That's also about how we show up. How are we going to deal with the interactions? What are we going to bring in our energy and our presence?

So that's what presence is about. And to finish the answer — a lot of my time now, what I'm working on with coaching and training is those other two bits of the triangle. How we resource our presence, how we resource our relationships, because the technical skills bit is really well taken care of already.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah. And so I find that fascinating. One of the things that I kind of lament is missing through the legal education to get to the bar is anything to do with entrepreneurship or running a business, which are passions of mine — and I can't quite understand how people start their own businesses and almost don't know that they're even starting a business. That's where I feel like there are real gaps.

You've raised my angst now when I think about all of the other things that we could be taught as law graduates, et cetera, that would make our legal careers, whichever direction they go in, much more positive and rewarding. And I know when we talk about rewarding, people typically think barristers and other lawyers, it's all about money, and that's the key driving factor. But you've got a different theory around that, don't you?

James Pereira KC: Yes, absolutely. So when we think about professional services — if you're in what I might call the helping profession, where you're helping someone with a problem, you know, doctor, charity worker, lawyer, therapist, coach, things like that — on the surface, we are exchanging our skills for money. And if you were to read a brief for a barrister, it would say, you know, these are the questions you're being asked and your clerk, or however it happens in different jurisdictions, will have agreed a fee, and in return for the services you get the fee. That's all true. And that's what we call in coaching and therapy exchange — it's a relationship. And one of the fundamental organising principles of relationships is exchange. Healthy relationships have balanced exchange — you keep that dynamic in some form of balance. It happens in personal relationships too — you take it in turns to do the washing up or whatever it might be.

But of course there are other things that we bring with us, that we knowingly or unknowingly get from our work — and hope and expect from our work — other than the money. A classic one would be purpose. A lot of people, some successful people, might say they're purpose-driven. Their purpose is to do this. And really the fact that it makes them a good lot of money as well is a kind of additional benefit, but they're driven by their purpose. And there'll be reasons why they've got that purpose, and why that's important to them and what it means to them. And that will come from their own biography.

So the way I think of it is: we've got what's kind of above the line, which is legal services, money, I'll give you this, you give me that, done. But we've got things that are below the line within us, which are what are our own personal motives for engaging in this in the first place? And this is where we then come across things like imposter syndrome, for example. Some people will find they are motivated to do well because it gives them a sense of approval and being worthy and being valued. And the fact that they're being paid the money for it doesn't actually do it for them. If you ask anyone who feels like they're about to be discovered as an imposter, you say, well, hang on a minute, how long have you been in practice — ten years? Has a client ever refused to pay you for your services? No.

And that will not sink down into the emotional realm of yes, but I still don't feel valued. And so for that person, having a sense of self and value and validation and being seen and those kinds of things will be a motivator for them. For me personally, I had a difficult relationship with my father and until I had resolved that — which I did through therapy — but until I had resolved that, I was basically looking for love and approval from my father, which I felt I never had. And therefore, you put me into work and I just substitute client, or case, for father. So I'll do anything I can to do well on the case and hopefully get the approval of having done a good job. You know, that's the kind of love I needed. And then, of course, all that happens is you either don't get the approval, so you work harder and harder, or you do get the approval, but it wears off until you go for it again. And it's the same with imposter syndrome. And there'll be all sorts of other reasons why people are engaged in this way. And the reason it's important is because these are motivators which are our own. And the question always for us is: how much of what I'm doing is for my own benefit, and how much of it is for the client's benefit? And how much of this is professionally required of me, and how much of it am I imposing on myself?

And you can see quite quickly that if, for example, you have what might be called a kind of typical immigrant mindset of I must work all hours because that's what my parents did, one can quite easily find oneself working all hours — not actually because the bar is requiring it of you or a case is requiring it of you, but just because one feels that's the right thing to be doing. The internal hidden sentence would be: I'm being loyal to my values and identity and my group as an immigrant by working selflessly hard, because that's what we do.

And so you can also see why, if we don't deal with that pattern or at least recognise it, it's very easy for people to become burnt out, or keep suffering spirals of ups and downs with their work, thinking it's the profession. When it's actually them and their interaction with the profession. And for so long as people point the finger at the profession, they are missing the area that really needs attention, which is their own internal mechanisms and values and so on.

Orlagh Kelly: And so two thoughts occurred to me there. One is: all of the initiatives and the consultations and the suggestions and the well-meaning efforts around improving the profession are potentially set up for failure on the basis that each individual intrinsically doesn't understand what of themselves they're bringing into the profession. So that's the first thing that would occur to me. So is that essentially saying those efforts are somewhat futile?

James Pereira KC: I don't think they're futile because it's a dance between the individual and the profession. And for people to raise their own awareness and get help and put their hands up and say, I need support and all of those things, the profession needs to be standing there with its arms open. So it seems to me it's a joint responsibility and the measures that you're talking about create the fertile ground in which people can then feel it's safe to get help.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, because the second thing that occurs to me is we talk about crossing that threshold as, you know, quite often someone in your early twenties. And the awareness that you ultimately had about yourself, that you gathered through living lived experiences and therapies — I certainly wouldn't have, going into the profession, had any self-awareness of those pre-existing ideas that we have in our heads, those scripts, essentially, those games with a small g, that are played out, but just by virtue of the environment that you grow up in and their consequential impact — not only on you as an adult, but then in the culture that you step into, in this case the bar. So several things occur. First thing is it seems to me a fascinating thing to try to explore. But where do you explore that, if that's not something that you're involved in up until you're crossing that threshold?

Is there an opportunity to explore that during your career? I know that you've moved into coaching and that you've got an opportunity available for people that are interested.

James Pereira KC: Yeah, so I do one-on-one coaching. I also do group workshops with barristers — I do quite a lot at Middle Temple, which is my Inn — and we also do kind of in-house training workshops and so on. And then I do four or five of those a year — more kind of therapeutic workshops to do with family dynamics and so on. And so, I mean, what I'd say is — and it's probably also the answer to the question of why people don't get help until they're kind of on their knees. Because we all generally successfully navigate our own patterns in the day to day. And we brush up against the edges of them, but we can manage that. So I guess step one is: if people are managing fine, that's fine, irrespective of what their perspectives and values and patterns might be. You know, we've all got them and some of them work and sometimes they don't. I think it's for people who are finding that they're feeling something's wrong and it's not getting better. So, you know, for example, whenever they lose a case, they go into a very dark space, or whenever a judge picks them up on something, their world implodes, or whenever they have a quiet period, they get panicky about their work, at least kind of recurrently.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, that one sounds familiar to me. I remember that happening a lot. You know, be super busy and then one week would be quite quiet and I would think, well, my career must be over now — rather than remembering that this happens periodically and it will be fine next week. It definitely — I don't know what that was about. You don't need to diagnose me in some shape or form on the podcast, but that one certainly is familiar to me.

James Pereira KC: You're absolutely right. And everyone comes across these kind of recurrent themes. And it seems to me it's when things keep happening and they're unhelpful — those are probably the places to examine: what's really going on here? Because those are the places where change can make a difference. And so yeah, we tend to explore one-on-one and actually in our workshops. The way we do our workshops is we train people, say, on relationship skills or self-resourcing skills — how can you make yourself kind of stronger? How can you control the way you show up? But a lot of the processes we'll go through in groups will be processes involving self-reflection. And never underestimate the capacity of people to understand themselves — it's really hard to understand yourself on your own because yourself is almost invisible, right? But with help, both professional help and also just in relationship with other people who have similar kinds of problems. So when we get groups of barristers together, one of the things that's always absolutely lovely is — the profession has a reputation for being very guarded and we mustn't say this or I can't be vulnerable. But when you get a group of people together and you create a safe space around them and people start opening up, the capacity for people to help each other — either by saying, oh, I used to be like that, this is what helped me — or just to normalise. One person will think they're carrying this terrible burden and they'll say something. And everyone else in the room will go, oh my God, I'm exactly the same. And then you suddenly think, oh, it's not such a big thing after all. So in our group work, we encourage a lot of reflection and then teaching people tools, processes and tools, to help them do things differently. That's really what it's about. And like everything, it takes practice, and you get setbacks and all the rest of that.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, it's a journey. It's a life journey probably. Yeah. Well, we've come to the end of our time. I'm fascinated. I could talk to you all day about this. It sounds like I might have to talk to you offline to understand about my own little ideas and things, but it does strike me when I'm talking to you that I don't believe that many people are necessarily aware of the facility that you offer and that you are doing workshops. And I'm certainly drawn to try to figure out a way that we can make that more evident and that people who might need help that are sitting within different chambers can access that, at least on that initial level where they could be part of a group and start to learn. It seems like a very worthwhile exercise. So for anyone listening, we'll put lots of information in the links so that you can get in touch with James directly. It's been a fascinating conversation. Thank you so much. Time has gone very fast. And I look forward maybe to a follow up in a year or two and we'll find out how things are going and where the bar is at.

James Pereira KC: I look forward to that. Thank you. Thank you for having me.

Orlagh Kelly: Thanks very much.