Orlagh Kelly: James Whiting, CEO of Doughty Street Chambers, thank you very much for joining us on the Get Briefed podcast today.

James Whiting: Thanks for having me, Orlagh. Honoured. And surprised.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, no, we're delighted. You've got many titles at the moment, not least a relatively new title of co-chair of the LPMA, I believe. And we'll come on to talking a little bit about that and what the LPMA plans are for the year. But to give anyone who's listening maybe a little bit of an idea about who you are and what your background is and get to know you a little bit better, can you tell me a little bit about your professional journey to becoming CEO of Doughty Street?

James Whiting: Well, a very, very, very long time ago, it seems like a lifetime ago, I was a trainee and junior solicitor for three years. And in all honesty, it's probably not the best way to start a legal podcast, but that was just not the right path for me at all.

And I was fortunate enough one evening to see a couple of people on TV who'd rebuilt an orphanage during the conflict in Croatia and Bosnia. And I just wrote them one of those silly letters you do when you're in your mid-20s saying, you know, what can I do to help? And ended up going and working for them as their deputy director. Deputy director of nobody, by the way, there were three of us — it was a great way to start. I was kind of suddenly thrown into travelling all over the world and we were basically trying to help kids who'd been orphaned or abandoned after war or disaster. And that was incredibly exciting and, you know, I learned that we were doing completely the wrong thing — we were building orphanages and we should be closing them down, so that's what we ended up doing.

Orlagh Kelly: Why was that?

James Whiting: Well, because, you know, to put it very simply, kids need to grow up in a loving family, not in a warehouse. And I went out to Romania in the mid-90s and I'll never forget walking through the orphanages in Romania and just seeing kids smashing their heads against the side of a cot because they weren't being stimulated in any other way. So there's just this rhythmical hitting of themselves and that kind of thing. What I'm proud of at that time is that rather than just kind of closing the odd orphanage, we actually worked with the European Union and the Romanian government — and I'm talking about a tiny organisation — and we worked with a county council to actually close all the orphanages in the whole county. And that was 10 large orphanages and convert into a complete suite of family care systems from fostering and adoption to prevention of abandonment and all sorts of things involving religious leaders and everything. And it all cost less than running the orphanages, so within I think a few years the number of kids in orphanages in Romania had gone from over 100,000 to less than 10,000.

And we'd been visited by ministers from eight different countries to come and see this one county and what we'd been able to do. It was amazingly exciting, so that was a very kind of, you know, it was a really amazing time for me. And anyway, then I went to Hay Festival a few too many times and started thinking too much and got the environmental bug, so I ended up as managing director of Friends of the Earth for a few years.

And actually that was after being at the New Economics Foundation, an economic and environmental think tank. Then had 10 years as chief exec of another startup-ish charity called Malaria No More UK, which was trying to get governments all over the world to back the malaria campaign, because people don't really know that much about malaria because it only kills really kids in the world's poorest countries who don't have a lot of power. So that was a very exciting thing to be part of for 10 years. And then I got a call out of the blue from a very kind head-hunter who I think had just searched LinkedIn for law and charity. And because they were doing it for Doughty Street, I think they wanted someone with quote unquote values. Not that I think being at a charity means you have values, but...

And they said, you know, would you be interested in coming to run a chambers? I'd never even dreamed of going back into the law. I just didn't think it would ever happen. But then I kind of looked up this chambers and just suddenly realised, wow, this is really exciting. You know, Doughty Street is something very special.

Orlagh Kelly: And talk to us a little bit about Doughty Street and thinking about it from the perspective of you, I guess, as a relative outsider, not understanding the work that your set, as it is now, does. What was it about the work and the ethos of Doughty Street that made you go, wow, this is exciting?

James Whiting: Yeah, I mean, it's just the fact that more than 50% of the time that barristers spend here is on legal aid work. Immense amounts of pro bono work are done at Doughty Street to the extent that despite Advocate very kindly asking us to write it all down, we can't write it all down because it's pretty much what everybody does — a lot of their time as opposed to just something that you might do on the side. And it's just the range of things that are done at Doughty Street, from work on court of protection to defendant work in crime to climate and environment, environmental justice, to work on international human rights, particularly around — you know, we're doing a lot around the Israel-Gaza conflict and, you know, on both, if you like, sides of the spectrum actually.

We have a children's rights group, immigration, actions against the police, just an incredible array of things, from working on Grenfell to COVID — you name it, pretty much. I saw a Saturday paper a few months ago and realised that on the first four pages, I think we were involved in about six of the different headlines. But of course, you never see Doughty Street because it's all behind the headlines.

Makes you proud to be part of it.

Orlagh Kelly: Yeah, and you have a lot of high-profile matters, as you've mentioned, that you have your barristers working on probably day and night, given how complex and on occasion quite volatile as well. It's incredible to obviously understand that a lot of that work will not be paid work — it is really either pro bono, as you've indicated, or publicly funded work, which is not inevitably the highest paid work that's available at the bar, and yet you're able to attract such talent to come and work under the brand of Doughty Street. What is it that you typically look for in your members — for anybody listening, members of chambers are the self-employed barristers — how do you typically attract the talent and, I guess, the value set that you need to do that and progress?

James Whiting: Yeah, that's a lovely question. I mean, we get some extraordinary people applying to us for pupillage and we're very, very fortunate that we're able to select some from some incredibly high-calibre candidates. But, you know, in terms of recruitment straight into tenancy from other places — I think one of the things that I've been trying to do is to really make sure that we are recruiting really, really high-calibre people, but also people where it's going to be financially sustainable for chambers. That is part of my job, is making sure that whilst we're doing this incredible work, it actually works financially for chambers and therefore we need to be sure that we've got a good mix of people coming in. But I think, you know, one of the things that I've learned from working in charities is that you really have to get out there and shake a few trees and, you know, it's no good just putting out an advert and sitting back and hoping for the best. I think, you know, this is not a — I mean, I hope I'm saying the right thing here and it's okay — but this is not a big world.

And in the bar, a lot of people know a lot of people, and therefore you know it's quite possible for a team to contact their solicitors and contact other barristers and find out who the best people are, or maybe they already know, and just say, you know, would you be interested? Obviously we put out advertisements etc., and then we have a really fairly rigorous interview process etc. You know, it's all done — we're actually tightening it up as we speak and it's, yeah, it's really exciting. I think that Doughty Street should be attracting the very best. I hope it will and I hope people look at us and want to be here. That's part of my job really — that in three or four years it's almost more difficult to get into Doughty Street — we really are attracting the very best and hopefully people who have the right ethos but who are also attracted by the fact that I think this is a very professional chambers.

Orlagh Kelly: And so, I mean, it's interesting to me — law really wasn't for you way back in the mid-90s whenever you had done your degree and sort of started down that pathway. You've gone through an amazing and very interesting journey, unlike what a lot of law graduates would ever experience at all. And I'm interested to understand what skills did you acquire through your main career working predominantly with charities that you feel serves you well in your current role at Doughty Street?

James Whiting: Yeah, I think the first thing I'd say — and I mean this in all due modesty — is that it wasn't really that the law wasn't for me. I wasn't for the law. I would have been a terrible solicitor. Because I'm not — it's easy to say this, but I'm just not good enough at looking at all the detail. I'm not driven by wanting to go into all the detail, if you know what I mean. That doesn't mean I'm not conscious of detail — I realise it's important — but it's just, you know, I like building things. That's what I've discovered. I love, love building organisations, and that's what's been my passion over the last 25 years: how to take something that's got the kernel of something really beautiful and just say, okay, how do we have real world-beating impact with either this very small organisation, or indeed a very august organisation like Doughty Street, and just really, really kind of get to the nub of where you can improve things and develop things. And I certainly learned from charities that if you get it right, you can do extraordinary things. As I say, there were three of us at that first charity, but we ended up unquestionably influencing the deinstitutionalisation of childcare in many, many countries around the world, which hopefully affected — well, I know it affected — tens, if not hundreds of thousands of kids' lives.

And then, you know, Malaria No More. Again, when I joined there were just five or six of us — there were a lot more by the end — but, you know, we ended up having a summit in London where we had the King, we had Bill Gates, we had various presidents and so on, and 4.5 billion dollars was given to the malaria campaign around that summit. And a substantial amount would not have been given had it not been for all the work that was done around that summit. So, you know, that challenge of how you can take a very small amount of resource and turn it into something really, really impactful is what excites me.

And coming on to what that actually involves — I think it's really quite, in a way, the essence is quite simple. Obviously strategically, you need to be incredibly focused, which is a more tricky thing at a chambers, I have to say, than at a charity. But both of them require brilliant people and both of them require committed people. Everything — and you know it's a cliché — but everything comes back to finding and motivating and liberating great people, and just allowing them to be the very best they can be. Everything that has been done at those charities, or is done at Doughty Street, comes down to the people that make up those charities or make up Doughty Street — and in particular, you know, the senior leadership around the senior management team, the chair and vice chair here. They've just got to be great people and they've got to be people who are prepared to question themselves, be hungry, and have that kind of self-awareness, that willingness to ask whether — not just be so arrogant that they know they're doing everything right — but actually have that kind of hunger. No matter how great Doughty Street is, we should always be asking ourselves how can we be better. And that means we've got to embrace change, and that's not always an easy thing in chambers. But that's something that I feel very strongly. I don't think there should be very many sacred cows. Because our clients are too important, particularly at somewhere like Doughty Street and certainly at the charities that I was at.

Orlagh Kelly: And so, building on that — given that this was really your first foray into the world of the bar, and on occasion people can find it quite a different type of industry, relatively niche, run in a way that's very different on the basis that there aren't many industries where most people are self-employed but working as a team — what challenges have you seen that you're able to talk about, not to point the finger at Doughty Street in any way, but just generally in the industry, and thinking about your role on the Bar Council management committee and the LPMA, where do you see some challenges for progress and therefore opportunities to change?

James Whiting: I think one of the things that must be difficult and kind of hard to get to understand for many outsiders like me, or people coming in, is I love the fact that I'm working somewhere where there are 175 people who are self-employed. I think that's so exciting. I would far rather, frankly, be working somewhere where there are 175 self-employed people than somewhere where everyone is employed people.

I think there's something really, really vibrant about that. But also, you know, I've never worked somewhere where the staff are providing the service, if you see what I mean. I've always worked in places where it was one team — everybody was absolutely clearly one team. And I've struggled with this a bit in chambers, and I'm sure that, you know, lots of people do.

And I know that — you know, when I argue, for example, I believe, and I think it's contentious, I know that — but I believe that it would be advantageous to have a few staff members on the management board, voting on the management board, not just advising it. Clearly a minority — it has to be a minority — I absolutely believe that. But I think this is — I mean, I understand that barristers are paying a percentage and that is for a service. But, you know, we have senior members of staff who have been at Doughty Street for years and they are so committed and they give their lives. You talked about people that work into the weekends and work at night — I wish they didn't, but occasionally they do, just as our barristers do. They are part of one organisation and I think the more...

Where I see things really working well within our chambers is where you have practice teams who work with their practice managers and senior practice managers and the marketing staff and others as one team. It's not kind of, you know, we're here and you're providing a service and if it's not good enough, we'll give you a bit of a kick. It's: we're all part of this and we're all trying to work towards one thing. And you just see the teams that are doing that, and it's so fantastic to see.

And I just think that's the way that chambers should be as well. And I hope that's the way that it goes in the future. Because I think that — talking to Harriet Harman about her review — I'm jumping from one thing to another, but I think the two things are so intrinsically linked. The whole power imbalance is within the bar and within chambers, from the judiciary downwards. The more that these things can be linked up and people can be working collectively towards goals, the less likely you are to have the kind of hierarchy and the imbalances that allow for misbehaviour and almost enable it, I think. So I think there are very many positive reasons for this. I think it's good for chambers, but I also think that it can be a real protection actually to have one team.

Orlagh Kelly: And of course when you mention Harriet Harman, what you're referring to is the review that she's currently carrying out in terms of the potential for bullying and harassment at the bar and how, if there is an issue with that, how that could be addressed. And certainly, at Briefed, we develop a lot of training on topics that the bar typically asks for or needs or are expected to complete, and consequently we do a lot of quite in-depth research to make sure that we understand what the topics are and that it resonates with anyone that decides to do the learning. And it is interesting that the theme of bullying and harassment, and particularly moving into sexual harassment, has been very prevalent probably in the past 12 months. Interesting that there's new legislation that's come in in England and Wales around preventing sexual harassment for your employees and all of the anticipatory steps that businesses of all types need to take — layered upon the fact that a lot of the stories in the legal press are centring around misbehaviour. And I guess if with a quick scan you would start to see that there are power imbalances — and it's typically, if it includes the bar, it'll inevitably be quite a senior, probably male figure and inevitable mentions of many, many pupillage individuals or pupils, and that type of thing. And it is an interesting, again an interesting industry how we typically progress in our careers. I remember being a pupil at the start and not really knowing anything about what was going on and really having to take leadership and example from the people around me. Now I was very lucky — I had a great pupillage supervisor and all of the people that supported that. But in the event that you can see that there's an opportunity to leverage that to your advantage if that's the way that you're inclined, certainly. And do you have any ideas about — well, I think your suggestion of course, for everyone to feel like they're on the same team as opposed to being somewhat isolated — on the same team but not really playing at the table — might be a way that things could move forward. Is it something that the LPMA will try to promote or educate chambers on the potential to do that, do you think?

James Whiting: Absolutely. The LPMA did its own study before my time, under Gemma and Claire, into bullying and harassment and submitted that to Harriet Harman's review. So the LPMA got involved well before the review, but it was fantastic to meet Harriet and her immediate understanding of the link between power imbalances — I know it's kind of obvious perhaps, but the importance of really addressing those power imbalances because without that I think it's very difficult to see how things are going to change significantly.

Having said that, I think that one of the things that we're very lucky with at Doughty Street is that because we're actually a larger chambers — you know, we have 170-odd members — I'm thankful for the fact that that allows us to have a few specialist staff. And I think it's really important that we have a head of people who is very much there, and she's a fantastic people person — which sounds obvious but it's not always the case with heads of people, because they have to deal with such difficult things. But she's someone I think is incredibly approachable and that was always really important for me, because I want members of staff or junior barristers to be able to feel they've got someone they can go and talk to if things are... because I think that's often incredibly difficult. It's all very well saying, you know, go and talk to a senior barrister or whatever, but that can be a really difficult thing to do.

Orlagh Kelly: And so then just to clarify — your head of people at Doughty Street is not just for your employees; that person's also available and works with the members as well, as a resource that they can lean on or use in the event that they need to.

James Whiting: Absolutely. One of the other things that I think is really important — I may just say — I think is transparency. I've seen, it's been really interesting on the LPMA, just to hear other chambers, including how some of the CEOs are kind of treated by their senior barristers, which I find, let's say, surprising at times. And I don't know how they do it sometimes.

I think one of the things that I think is really important — I've listened to this debate between the Bar Council and the BSB about diversity and how much we need to actually enforce versus rely on more voluntary measures — and it's a really interesting discussion.

But what I do think is incredibly important is for each chambers to be really transparent about how they're getting on in terms of diversity and in terms of bullying and harassment. Let's be open with people at AGMs and share data on these kinds of things for our chambers, because that's the kind of thing that really starts to make change happen, I think.

We certainly have a fantastic EDO, Maya Sikand KC, and she really drives this kind of transparency so that we're always reporting on how we're getting on on various measures. Our fair allocation of work measurement is extremely detailed.

And we're looking always at every little sector of our barrister membership to see how it's going and everything. I'm really proud that our clerks are actually referring work more to women and to barristers from more diverse backgrounds. So, you know, that's just great to see and great to hear. It doesn't happen so much from the solicitors, unfortunately, but that is something that I think the Bar Council and the SRA, and no doubt the Law Society, are working on.

Orlagh Kelly: And so you mentioned obviously the fact that there's the potential for a core duty to change and there's a consultation ongoing at the moment by the Bar Standards Board to create a positive duty placed on barristers to make sure that there isn't any discrimination. We talked a lot about that on a recent podcast that I did with Kathryn Stone, Chair of the Bar Standards Board, and there has been some controversy, some online discussions about it. Not everyone has agreed on whether this is necessary or not or if in fact it's a good idea or not.

Do you have an opinion that you're happy to express?

James Whiting: I'm probably going to slightly duck it because I think you have to really understand — not least because I saw the debate in its full open at the LPMA conference, and it was, you know, it's a vigorous debate, let's say, between the chair of the Bar Council and the chair of the BSB. And I'm really glad it is. And I'm glad they were so open about it — it was actually really impressive from both of them. But it's a live and important discussion. I think, you know, we have to accelerate. We have to accelerate. If the measures that are currently in place are really going to deliver that acceleration over the next five years in terms of the diversity of the bar, then so be it. You know, if we don't need to have greater enforcement, then so be it. But if not, then, you know, I have a real sympathy with what Kathryn is trying to deal with and I think she's someone of vast integrity and I have huge respect for her. So the bar has to reflect the society that it's in. The judiciary has to, in time, reflect the society that it's in or we're just not going to engender the trust that is absolutely required for access to justice.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely. And so you did duck it.

James Whiting: Well, I ducked it, I know I have ducked it. But I guess one thing that I realised is that having been in my position for two years — I've listened to a lot of your podcasts, by the way, and they're absolutely fantastic. People should listen to them and they should listen to the ones with people who've been working for a lot longer than two years. Because, you know, it's just not enough time for me to have strong opinions on things like this. I just think that whatever makes sure that the bar, over the next five years, as rapidly as possible becomes more diverse — when, you know, I hear one of the chief execs of another chambers saying, doesn't matter what we do, we still end up with three pupils from Winchester College — you, you despair a bit and you kind of think, well, hang on. So as the LPMA, one of the things that we're going to try and do — or we're certainly talking about — is how can we get together as a group of chambers, not as singular chambers, to really work on outreach and really make sure that outreach from the bar is strategic and is really impactful, that we're getting the maximum from all the time that people are giving to outreach. So, I mean, we've talked, we're talking with Sam Mercer and others at the Bar Council about this, but I think that's a really good role for the LPMA to play because, you know, we're working with eight different charities on various aspects of outreach. We have vast numbers of pupillages so do other chambers. Why aren't we doing these things and really talking about it and doing it together?

Orlagh Kelly: I mean there is an argument that it needs to be led by the profession as a whole rather than individual organisations therein. Certainly at Briefed, we get a chance to talk to a lot of sets of chambers about what they're doing on many things, and equality and diversity is a big topic. They are, to my mind, trying very hard. Certainly in the conversations we're having, people are really trying very hard. They really want to make a difference. They really want to see pupils coming in and creating a profession that is more obviously diverse, but they do struggle to get the results from the efforts they're putting in, and there does appear to be somewhat of a disconnect — whatever that is, I don't know the answer to it — but on occasion it can feel like the bar gets a bad rap, a bad reputation, as if it's not diverse enough and no one cares. And that's not what I see in my experience on the ground. Almost everybody I talk to cares significantly, puts a lot of chambers money and a lot of resources and time and effort into doing lots of different things to try to improve the situation. So it would be lovely for that to coalesce in a way that was impactful. And certainly the LPMA might be able to take a great lead on that, which would be fantastic.

James Whiting: It was nice to be encouraged by Sam Mercer of the Bar Council. It was great that she didn't just say, well, the Bar Council are doing all of this, you guys haven't got a role. But she said, actually, you really have. So that's a lovely challenge to have and something that we definitely want to step up to.

Orlagh Kelly: Absolutely.

What's next for Doughty Street, for the LPMA, for James? What's on your horizon? What are you looking at over the next couple of years? I'm always reticent to ask that five-year plan question. I feel like in January 2020, anybody asked what's next — so much stuff came at us. We don't know. But assuming that all goes as normal, where do you see all of your interests being and taking you, and where would you like to go?

James Whiting: It's one of those interview questions I've spent my life asking thousands of people and you kind of hope that nobody will ask you. So I think, you know, in terms of the LPMA, we've got a great exec committee and I think there are some really exciting plans. One of the things I think we'd all love to see is more networks, so that the LPMA moves beyond just the chief execs and COOs of chambers — which it definitely is already. We now have a network of finance managers. We're beginning to set up a network of HR and compliance managers and all that kind of thing. I learned so much from meeting other CEOs and COOs of chambers when I first started. They were so generous to me.

And I think if we can create those networks between chambers, it's going to have all sorts of fantastic impact. As I say, with the LPMA, I think more work on outreach, on bullying and harassment — those kinds of things — I think there are some real opportunities for us. As far as Doughty Street's concerned, we've got a kind of three-year plan of development priorities over the next three years. One of the things that — I mean, there are many things I could say — but I think one that really excites me is there's so much knowledge within a chambers and it can be so atomised. You know, people come in, they go out. So one of the things that we're doing is we're moving chambers in the next couple of years, so that's a big one, obviously, for any chambers. But we're doing it with at least one major purpose, which is that at the moment we're in five buildings, on five floors in every building, and that just atomises you as well. And for junior barristers and indeed for junior staff, it can be really difficult to learn because you're not interacting with people.

We want to create far more opportunities for interaction and collaboration and really make that the value of the chambers. I think in the 21st century, that's the value of the chambers — to be somewhere for people's wellbeing, for collaboration, for learning, where you can come and really bump into all sorts of different people. You've got to have your private areas, but you've got that as well. And I think particularly for the junior members of chambers — we were talking about access and we were talking about diversity — so one of the things that we want to do is reduce rent for people in their first couple of years, so that it's not such a sudden change from pupillage — where you're getting a small stipend or salary — to suddenly paying the full percentage. So just small things like that. Also, trying to enable more feedback from solicitors who've already said to me that they're really keen to offer our barristers feedback, should they want it. But particularly between nought and five years — you know, I don't know about you, but I've grown up in organisations where having an appraisal was a normal thing and it was hugely important to your kind of self-knowledge and how you grew. I think if we can create some of those learning systems within chambers, using the knowledge that already exists within chambers, then I think there's a huge amount that we can do there to help develop really high-performing barristers who can really find their limits. So I'm incredibly excited about that and I'm incredibly excited about retaining our talented staff. And I know that can sound a bit naff, but it's so important to everything. We've got such fabulous staff at Doughty Street and it might not sound like the greatest of ambitions, but my ambition is that as many of them as possible should still be there in two years' time, because they're all growing and they're all developing and they're all learning and they're all ambitious. And I think if they can grow with us, then our chambers will grow with them — and the same goes for our barristers as well. So, you know, that for me is really exciting.

Orlagh Kelly: A lot of great plans. And so you mentioned that you're moving building — have you found a location yet or are you still at the shopping stage?

James Whiting: We're literally at the workspace design stage over the next month or two. And then the search starts from February onwards. So it's slightly nerve-wracking at the moment, but really exciting as well.

Orlagh Kelly: There are some wonderful refurbishments and moves that have happened at the bar. 42BR Barristers, Deka Chambers — they're wonderful. If you get a chance to get a tour I would recommend it. They've done a great job and done it really well. We talk a little bit about some of them on our podcast, so you can maybe get some hints and tips there.

James, it's been fantastic to have you. Thank you very much. I look forward to obviously hearing some more about all of the things that you're doing and maybe getting yourself and Gemma from the LPMA on to talk a little bit more about what you're looking to achieve in the next 12 months. And in the meantime, wishing you very well. Thank you. I'll talk to you soon.

James Whiting: Thanks so much, Orlagh.