Narrator 0:01

Welcome to episode four of Leading the Deal, where we explore one of the most compelling growth stories in legal services. So family law has scaled from a regional firm into an £80 million national leader, but not in the way you might expect. CEO Ken Fowley joins us to share how disciplined execution, strong culture, and a focus on organic growth have driven that success, while also proving that private equity and law can deliver real credible exits.

Jeff Zindani 0:31

First of all, Ken, really appreciate you speaking to us today on our Leading the Deal podcast series, an audio podcast series. And I know how precious time is, so it's it's great just to have you on to talk to obviously the listeners. Can I just give a potted history for everybody? Because they might not know anything about Kent. They might not know anything about Stowe. And if you don't, well, frankly, you should, and I certainly will after, of course, this podcast. Stowe really has got some fairly humble beginnings or origins. Back in 1982, it was founded by Marilyn Stowe in Leeds, and it really operated as a pretty respectable conventional regional family practice, and growth was certainly sort of organic, pretty incremental, until a big event in 2017 when there was a private equity investment from Livingbridge. And what I'd love to talk to Ken about today is obviously his journey and the journey of Stowe. So I think first of all, Ken, can you perhaps just tell listeners about you really and about your your journey?

Ken Fowlie 1:47

Yeah, sure. Jeff, great to be with you. Thanks for the invitation. Uh yeah, so I've been a part of the legal profession now for a bit over 30 years. So I qualified as a lawyer in 1995 in Australia. So Australian by birth and qualification. The first firm I worked at was Slater and Gordon, which will be known to, I'm sure, many of your listeners. Personal injury focused, consumer-facing law firm. I started there as what was then an article clerk, so effectively a trainee, and spent a little over 20 years at Slater's working first in Australia and then latterly in the UK. So I started my career as a personal injury lawyer, did a whole range of different litigation while I was at Slater's, was given huge opportunities to not only practice as a lawyer, but also lead lawyers and learn about law firm management. Eventually came to the UK with Slater's in 2015 as the leader of the UK practice, coincident with the transaction where Slater's acquired the legal services assets from the Quindell PLC, which turned out to be a really difficult period for the business. And I stayed with the business through that period, finishing up at the end of 2018 and started at STO in the middle of 2019.

Jeff Zindani 3:12

You go from a personally injury lawyer in Australia to the UK, heading up the operations in the UK, or were you in a different role? What was the sort of role at that point?

Ken Fowlie 3:24

My journey as a lawyer, you know, was fairly conventional in the sense that I practiced, then started leading small teams, larger teams, eventually sort of national teams. Slater's went through a period from, I suppose, the around 2000 of uh growing a lot through acquisition, and we joined forces with lots of similarly placed and uh similarly valued firms through that period, first in Australia, and then we acquired the Russell Jones and Walker business in the UK in 2012. At the time, I was actually living in the UK. I was on a sabbatical, I was doing an MBA at the London Business School, which really marked a bit of a pivot for me. So up until that point, I'd been uh a legal professional, still working on the tools. And then from 2012, after I finished my qualification, I went into full-time management roles, first leading aspects of our Australian business, and then uh I came over, as I say, at the time of the completion of the acquisition of the legal services assets from Quindell to essentially head up that combined business. So I was looking after all of the Slater and Gordon business in the UK. At the time I was a main board director at Slater's and had been since about 2007 when the business floated on the Australian Stock Exchange. So I was a sort of shareholder and senior manager of Slater's from the uh sort of mid-2000s through until I left at uh the end of 2018.

Jeff Zindani 4:54

It's probably fair to say that was pretty pioneering stuff at that stage, wasn't it? Because we did have a kind of connection, because I used to be an equity partner, Russell Jones and Walker. That time, of course, getting listed, of course, was something very unusual, very different to what was happening in the UK. So all of this was very pioneering, wasn't it, really, at that point?

Ken Fowlie 5:15

Slater's was the first firm in the world to take capital through public issuing on and being traded on the stock exchange. You know, it wasn't the first thing that the firm had done, which was both entrepreneurial and and sort of groundbreaking. It it had been one of the first, if not the first, firms in Australia to advertise on television. It really was a pioneer in terms of large-scale mass-taught class action litigation in Australia. So, I mean, when I joined in the mid-90s, it was a pretty dynamic organization, albeit pretty small, but very much punched above its weight with a really compelling culture and some unbelievably talented people who were very committed to the cause of their clients. It was a great place to learn how to be a lawyer, but it was also a great place to learn how to be a, I suppose, a legal entrepreneur. You know, I'm forever grateful for the time I spent there and for the people I worked with there and the clients whom we had the privilege to act for. It was um great experience. Not what I may have expected as I was kind of going through law school, but turned out to be a great place to land.

Jeff Zindani 6:20

Ken, you mentioned about pivoting from being, you know, on the coal face doing the work and then obviously into pretty senior management role. Let's just try and talk about what happens next, because obviously you then join, don't you, or start to look at other things and and stow, just talk us through really. It's a big change. You go from a personal injury lawyer understanding that market really well. Okay, it's a consumer market, but going into the family sector is something to me, obviously, very, very different to your the experience that you've had in the past.

Ken Fowlie 6:54

During my career, and it's hard to pinpoint when that happened, but certainly probably after I became a board director at Slater's in the 2000s and took on more and more senior roles, I probably became as interested in um how professional firms work and you know how one connects all of the dots which make for a successful human capital business. And that was the reason when I did my sabbatical, I didn't do a I didn't do a legal qualification, I did a business qualification because at that point I was probably more interested in the dynamics of organizations. And it just happened that my industry, if you like, was legal services. And back then it felt like and still feels like legal services was an incredibly great place in which to deploy some of those skills and some of those learnings around how to lead an organization successfully in the delivery of services to clients. That was the journey. When when I finished at Slater's, it had been an unbelievably rewarding journey through the whole of my career. You know, the last several years had been difficult and had been really challenging. You know, I learned a lot about myself, but in a sense, I'd also sort of come full circle with Slater's and it was time to look for a fresh challenge. So you know, when I came out of Slater's, I didn't have a something definitive in mind. I wanted to cast a reasonably wide net in terms of thinking about what I'd do next. One of the things I was interested in doing was I was interested in continuing to work in professional services. I was also interested in working with partners in the sort of financial sense that were interested in a project to try and do something different. By that stage, I'd worked in a firm that was in public capital markets. I'd also, in the tail end of my career at Slater's, worked for a private capital sponsor. Whilst it was challenging, I found that dynamic really rewarding because you were working to a particular goal and aspiration. You know, the thing about working at Slater's over the long time, one day was never the same as the next. There was always a sort of, we were always trying to do something. There was always an ambition and aspiration. And so when I left Slaters, I wanted to try and replicate that in another setting. And I was introduced to the team at Stowe through various networks and started getting to know both the team that were running the business, the management team running the business, and also the team at Livingbridge that were involved with the business. Interestingly, I had had experience at Slater and Gordon of being involved in a family practice. So we had a family law offering at the end. Oh, okay. Right, okay. That's it, that's interesting. Yeah, in Australia and also in the UK. And at different points in my management career, I'd had responsibility for that practice. Actually, at Slater's in Australia, we'd tried to do some different things in terms of how we faced the market in family law. Um, we looked at different ways in which we could deploy some of the skills that had been developed in the claim space around sort of workflows and pricing and stuff like that. And so I had some experience of working in the family sector. I always thought it was an area which had a lot of potential in terms of doing things a bit differently. When the opportunity presented, and as I got to know the team better, it seemed like a pretty logical kind of continuation of the path that I'd already been on.

Jeff Zindani 10:27

What I kind of interested in is how a pretty small sort of regional firm goes to what, now over 90 plus locations? I mean, is that right? Have I have I got that right in terms of opposites?

Ken Fowlie 10:44

Don't hold me to the exact number. We have a wide coverage of England and Wales, and we now have partnerships also in Scotland, in Australia. The practice has grown pretty significantly over the course of the last sort of five or six years.

Jeff Zindani 10:57

Was there a kind of an inflection point from your side when you joined in 2019? But was it just steady progress all the way through? Or was there something where you went, okay, I think we're onto something here?

Ken Fowlie 11:10

Look, I I think there are probably lots of eureka moments. Like any business that's scaling, it's never linear. There are always setbacks. Those who've worked with me will note that I often talk about the fact that you know we've been in we've been in plenty of cul-de-sac through the journey and realised that the path we were on wasn't quite right. We took some steps that turned out to be not the right steps for the business. So it's never a linear journey. You know, what we did as a team in like late 19, early 20, just before the pandemic actually was the team did a really good piece of work of sort of looking at what success the business had had up until then, why it had had that success, but also what some of the barriers to future progress might be. We adjusted some of the strategy, we brought a few new folks into the team. And literally as the pandemic was hitting, um, we launched into the business a slightly adjusted strategy, which was continuing to focus on growing the practice through connections with individual communities, but just had some slightly different elements to it. One thing we did during that period and have certainly done since is become more convicted around the value of digital marketing as a means of reaching clients and future clients. We built into the business a sort of an operating model which was a bit more scalable than the operating model that we were then working with. So bringing in sort of a regional structure and a little bit of and some layers into how we ran the business to enable us to grow and scale it. And then from there we got really, really focused on trying to execute that strategy effectively. You know, we as a firm had a relatively clear and simple strategy which we've tried to execute in a disciplined and consistent way over the last several years because of a lot of really smart, very capable people who work in the business and people who are very passionate about support for their clients, we've been able to grow the business through the successful execution of that strategy.

Jeff Zindani 13:15

That really does help actually, because obviously there's a lot of detail there. Um, but just one thing that I want to kind of pick up on is mentioned earlier on the number of offices you've got. And I think you've got more offices than any other law firm that we've identified. Why, in your view, was this kind of national, almost physical footprint so important? Because obviously you've talked about digital marketing, etc. There's a physical presence here, isn't there? There's actually clients who want to see lawyers. Can you talk me through that? Because this is this is fascinating, because it almost goes against, doesn't it, the kind of grain with a lot of law firms and I talked to a whole range of practices. A number of saying, of course, we don't need physical offices, Jeff. There's no need for that. So just talk us through that again, because this is really fascinating.

Ken Fowlie 14:01

You know, one of the insights that we gained as we understood our business better and understood the market that we were trying to speak to was that locality and proximity was actually important in terms of client choice. Yeah, there's a range of reasons, I think, which the range of reasons for that. Part of it is about convenience, but part of it is also about trust and a client choosing someone that is part of their community. Our strategy was not built on an article of faith, it was a strategy which was built on what was effective in terms of growing the business. So the reason that we have the physical footprint that we do is because it's effective in helping us to connect to existing clients and and also to future clients. You know, we're not running a property business. Most of the locations that we work out of are are locations where they're in the custody of others and we're working with those providers of space. And I suppose since the pandemic and and the changes that have happened around the management of property, it's probably helped our strategy because those opportunities are now the ability to have a presence in a location without necessarily having a long-term lease in that location. That's an opportunity that probably wasn't as available ten years ago as it is now. It's not a rationale grounded in some sort of blind faith. It's a rationale grounded in our understanding of what our clients are telling us through the information they share with us, through the data that we gather, and then fashioning a strategy which is responsive to those client needs.

Jeff Zindani 15:38

And particularly given the nature of the work you're doing. So it kind of makes sense. Okay. But as I said to you, I think there are many who are almost thinking in terms of, well, we don't need this anymore. And they've actually in the could be in the same sector as your yours, and they've done the opposite, which is fascinating.

Ken Fowlie 15:54

That's an entirely legitimate choice as well. And I can understand the insight upon which you could base that decision. It comes back to the comment I made earlier. I I think good legal, you know, law firm strategy is is about effective execution of a sound idea. That was the insight that we gained from sort of knowledge of our client base and what they were looking for from us, and and then we had to try and execute that idea effectively in a way which was not only meeting the client's need, but also our colleagues' needs, and also doing it in a way that was sensible commercially.

Jeff Zindani 16:25

Bearing in mind the number of offices, different regions, how do you maintain kind of consistency from a client experience point of view? Because lawyers in Manchester are not the same as well, they're obviously lawyers, but they're not the same as, say, in Bristol or Exeter or London. Has that been challenging? I mean, talk us through if you can. Have there been issues there from a practical point of view in maintaining that kind of consistency?

Ken Fowlie 16:49

Scaling a professional services business, a sort of a business that's heavy in human beings, is always challenging. How we have preserved, reinforced the culture of the firm is an important element in the success of it and reflects again the work that a whole bunch of people within the firm have done, starting with our people leadership, our professional, like our lawyer leadership. You know, a lot of people are very focused on that and appreciate its importance not only to the experience of people who work within the firm, but also to the kind of commercial outcomes. Like several elements of it. Firstly, you know, STOA is a very purposeful firm. You know, we talk about our purpose, we talk about our business values, and we talk about them in a hopefully a meaningful way. So, you know, I meet all of the new starters of the business, and when I have that time with them, I'm talking largely about what we're trying to do grounded in our purpose and our values. And that language continues throughout the time that we're interacting with colleagues. So that's the first part of it, and a really important part of it. Secondly, we have built a way of working, the Stowe way of working, which we try and attach and apply consistently across the firm. And again, that leans heavily on the quality of the leaders within the business and and their embracing of that style and and those methods, just reinforcing what we're trying to do through consistent leadership, you know, developing our leaders. We spend a lot of energy and resources on trying to develop good lawyer leaders within the business. You know, whether I mean that starts when people are very junior in their career and we start investing in their leadership capability and investing in in their personal development. So there's a whole range of different elements which in combination allow us to have confidence that as we grow the business and as we add colleagues to the business, those colleagues are still going to be, broadly speaking, singing from the same hymn sheet.

Jeff Zindani 18:52

Kent, you mentioned about values, and um, certainly from my experience, I don't think lawyers are particularly open and talk a great deal sometimes about values. It seems pretty obvious to me that when you're building and you've, you know, the firm has obviously been built over time, a family law practice, values are pretty critical to that sort of project. But in terms of just you know, your experience in the sort of legal services market, do you really think particularly partners in law firms are actually talking enough about values? Because isn't that pretty central to a people business?

Ken Fowlie 19:27

I can't comment on what other people may or may not be doing. I agree with the premise that I think in a professional services firm values are really important. And, you know, I've been lucky to work in two firms which were very purposeful and had a very high consciousness about the values of the firm. I think it it maybe helps a little bit that you know, whether it was at Slater and Gordon or more recently at Stowe, the cornerstone of both of those organizations is wanting to help people. You know, when I look at Stowe, you know, our purpose is when families break down, we help them move forward. So, you know, that that's kind of the centerpiece of what we're trying to do. It's the North Star against which we assess everything. At its heart is this notion of helping people. I think it's fair to say people don't become family lawyers because they want to be the richest lawyer in the galaxy. I think they become family lawyers most often because they care about people and they want to help people and they want to help people through a particularly difficult life stage. Um and it's a bit similar when you have people who are working in a consumer-facing firm like Slater and Gordon. People join that because they have a passion for helping people, whatever the circumstances, whether it's something to do with an injury or some employment situation or whatever. So that personal value set, I think a lot of people bring to the table to begin with. And then what we're doing as a firm is we're trying to harness that personal value set and point everyone in the in the same direction in terms of what we're trying to do in terms of our business values. Yeah, so we we do talk about our values, we focus on them, we think they're a really important element to you know what keeps the firm together and what helps all of us point in the in the same direction. So we as a firm, you know, we have three values which we talk about. Growth is our first value, and we want the firm to grow because by doing so we can help more clients, we can provide more opportunities to people. The second value that we talk about is that we have spirit, which for us about being a nice organization which is filled with nice people. We deliberately talk about that, not in a way we we're not ashamed about wanting to be nice to each other and to be, you know, as it were, good citizens within the profession. So that's the the second thing that we talk about and celebrate. And then the third is we achieve together. So professional services is typically, you know, it's a team based sport and the That's certainly the case within our firm. And so we talk a lot about how our success is really tied to the work that we do together, whether that's in client-facing teams and how our lawyers work together to serve clients, or whether it's how our lawyers and those who are supporting our lawyers work together to serve ultimately our clients. So yeah, we talk about our values a fair bit and hopefully it helps to underpin that sense of togetherness and a kind of collective spirit that we have in terms of what we're trying to do. It's hard to quantify it, but I'm sure it's played a significant part in the growth and success that the firm's had over the last several years.

Jeff Zindani 22:45

It's probably a bit low-key, but it's actually really powerful. It's almost an evangelical message, isn't it? Because it's kind of cementing those values, will cement, it's quite cohesive, isn't it? It's actually trying to bring everybody together around that. So thanks for sharing that, Ken.

Ken Fowlie 23:00

People would say who work for the firm, and we are a large family law firm. We obviously are a family law firm that you know has been backed by private equity for almost 10 years. And so people come in with certain expectations about what that sort of organization is going to be like. You know, what I would hope people experience within the firm is that it's actually an incredibly friendly, supportive environment where people do work together and are interested in each other's success and celebrate each other's success. And that quality, that spirit, that recognition of how important it is that we work together to achieve our goals is something that we guard really jealously. And I would hope that people still feel that as much today as they did five, six, seven years ago.

Jeff Zindani 23:46

Let's move on to um really the world of private equity, what we've seen and I've seen, of course, over the past decade or so. In my view, real hype almost around not just private equity, but other investors flooding, literally flooding the legal sector. But the reality is something different. The activity has been more selective and we produce data from time to time on what's actually happening in the sector. Really, from a practical point of view, there's been less activity. Why do you think that's been the case, Ken?

Ken Fowlie 24:18

I suppose a couple of thoughts. I mean, I think that the legal profession is by its nature a pretty conservative profession and tends to move quite slowly. To that extent, it's not surprising. One of our colleagues, Crispin Passmore, who is known to the sector, has this anecdote which he tells we spoke recently and he reminded me of it, which was these sort of changes, these sort of structural changes happen much more slowly than people expect. So he was giving me the example the other night that it wasn't until I think he told me like the 1960s that all factories in England were were electrified, even though the Industrial Revolution started probably 70 years earlier. And the point that I think he's trying to make through that is that these sort of big structural changes like actually take a long time to take effect and to bed into an environment. And when you layer that on top of the inherent conservatism of the practice of law, I actually think that the progress that's been made in terms of external capital investment probably isn't that slow, really. Lily, over the last couple of years, there's been a little bit more interest. I think in a micro level, the reason why it perhaps doesn't happen as often is finding the right combination of investor and firm is actually a difficult, it's a bit of a needle in a haystack task. What investors are looking for, finding the right firm, the right size, the firm with the right sort of aspirations, the right team, all of those elements, like it takes a long time and there's a high risk that that perfect combination or a good enough combination isn't going to be secured.

Jeff Zindani 25:59

Do you think there's a probably a much more attractive proposition when we're looking at consumer sort of facing services? Because if we look at the investments that have been made, I mean we look recently with another personal injury firm, Express list up in Manchester, an 80, 90 million pound law firm, same with Fletcher's, obviously same with Stowe. It seems to be really that stronger investment thesis really around those types of businesses. Do you think that's probably where the action's going to continue, or do you think it will move over? Or is it, as you said, it's just a kind of a much more slower process than people expect, but it will happen.

Ken Fowlie 26:36

Yeah, I mean, I I do think that the profession will will have a different shape in ten years than it has now in terms of its mix of ownership. Like I think that there is an inevitability to it. It will it will remain a kind of mixed profession. There'll be some partnerships, there'll be some corporations which are funded in with different models. So, you know, I I think that's likely. So this continuum will happen. On the question of, you know, consumer versus other models, there are some attractions of the consumer-facing law firm in the sense there's probably less kind of key person risk, there's the opportunity to build um brand and brand salience, there's a sort of resilience to demand. But I think it's fair to say also that there are investors who are probably not as attracted to consumer-facing services businesses as they are in to sort of business-to-business services businesses. So, like I think different investors have different criteria and different things that they're looking for. So I wouldn't say that there is a sort of a universal, unchallengeable advantage to one vertical versus another. I I certainly think there are a lot of investors who like the resilience and the growth of business legal services, growing complexity in terms of business affairs leading to more legal need, you know, the growth of the sort of small to medium sized sector, meaning that there's sort of it's a growing market that you can lean into and obviously a very high level of fragmentation. So I think all of those sort of macro considerations are present in both the consumer-facing world and the business uh-facing services world. I think different investors probably have a different preference for the types of business that they're invested in, which is why I think you'll see a growth in both in terms of private investment.

Jeff Zindani 28:29

Yeah, it's definitely the case for those people listening that there's been a greater interest, a greater appetite in corporate sort of legal services. And we've seen that last year. We'll be publishing more about that probably in sort of April with a new PE white paper. Yeah, let's just move on to the secondary buyout. I mean, it's a very controversial issue, this, for a lot of people in this sector, particularly sort of law firm owners who are looking to perhaps do something with an investor, etc., and they may have actually their equity tied up. It's also the case with investors who are thinking, hold on, what's our exit strategy? Because obviously on day one, they need to convince an investment committee that there is a clear exit strategy. But obviously, a lot of people are saying, well, actually, that's not so straightforward, but aha, we've got with Stowe, I think, a real success story. So can you talk us through really the the change with Invest Corp back in 2024? I think that was, wasn't it?

Ken Fowlie 29:30

Yeah, no, no. Um Livingbridge effectively sold their interest in the business in the summer of 24. And we have since then been partnered with Invest Corp, which is a global middle market alternative asset manager. They've been, as Living Bridge were, terrific partners to work with, and we're very fortunate to have them involved with us and on our board. They bring great experience to bear not only in the UK and Europe, but also in North America. And so they've been a real asset to the firm. I understand the concern that people might have about what happens to this business, but I think it's one of those situations where looking at what happens in adjacent industries and perhaps taking a view that yes, law is its own thing, but it's at the end of the day, it's an industry like many others. And if you look at what's happened in many other industries, whether they're human capital, professional services types industries, or if they're other industries, you know, there is a pattern which I think law firms can point to as being likely a pattern that will follow in legal services. So, you know, it is entirely unremarkable for a business that is owned by private equity to be sold and for a further another financial sponsor to become involved. You don't need to be involved in private equity very long to realize that it's highly stratified and there are lots of different investment houses with slightly different mandates and and slightly different check sizes that they want to write. Exactly. I'm very pleased that we were able to not only complete our journey with Living Bridge, but also continue the journey of the business with a new partner. You know, I'm glad that it provided a proof point to people in the market generally that that's actually a pathway that is available to legal services businesses that are privately backed as it is available to any number of other businesses that are privately backed. But I think if you take a second and think about it, it should be a reasonably unremarkable thing because it's something that happens literally every day in a whole bunch of other industries which are not that different to essentially the industry that we're in.

Jeff Zindani 31:40

Ken, I'm glad you've explained that because obviously for lawyers to understand all of that is is not always straightforward. To me, it's a pretty obvious one. It might mean in the future that there is a third exit. Who knows, given the obviously the scale of the business.

Ken Fowlie 31:56

It's a given, Jeff, that you know, Invest Corp are not going to be our partners forever. There will come a time when I say this to the team, and the truth of it is that private equity are successful when they work with the management team to grow and improve a business so that they are able to sell the business effectively for more than they paid for it. And that's the essence of the private equity model. And so, yeah, there will come a point in time. I don't know when that time will be, but there will come a point in time where you know our partnership with InvestCorp will end and Stowe Family Law will have a new financial sponsor and a new partner that will support the business's growth.

Jeff Zindani 32:36

What's fascinating is the way you're talking about this is actually for a lot of lawyers is what do you mean almost in the sense that this is happening? Because for a lot of lawyers thinking, oh God, the practice is being sold, you know, that sort of idea uh is almost an anathema, but this is actually good for the firm. That's the point. The firm grows as well. There's more staff, and that momentum you get with growth is quite exciting. I've worked in obviously law firms where there's real growth. When it's static, it's it can be quite challenging and all the rest of it. So it's quite interesting to hear how you've you've actually sort of put that really, because I think a lot of people will not properly understand what this actually means.

Ken Fowlie 33:18

Every law firm is owned by someone. Yeah. It may be more gradual, uh, it may have less of an impact in the moment, but the truth is that partners retire, new partners are added, partnerships are always turning over. And actually, you know, w one of the reasons, one of the very significant motivations when Slater and Gordon entered public markets back in the early 2000s was to assist with the management of essentially succession and transition between generations apart. And you'll know from your experience of personal injury firms that the nature of personal injury firms historically have there has been a bit of a sort of generational view of partnership because you've got people who are sort of invested together, waiting for those investments to, as it were, come good. They're being invited or asked to kind of invest again. And there comes a point at which you need to sort of get off that roller coaster. And public market entry for Slater's was about an alternative way of managing that succession, that transition of ownership. And so, yeah, I'm I'm sure people will say it's completely different. But at the end of the day, you know, the the arrival of new partners and the departure of old partners is about that transition of ownership. And that's all that we're talking about in the context of private equity. It just might seem a little bit starker and a little bit scarier, but at the end of the day, it's the same thing that's going on every day in law firms around the world.

Jeff Zindani 34:41

Can I sort of move on, Ken, to asking you about the growth sort of story? Because it's probably fair to say most people would think that a P-backed, investor-backed law firm is going to have a very clear external growth strategy, a buy to build type platform strategy.

Ken Fowlie 35:02

Is that the case with today? No, no, it's not actually. And there's sometimes a bit of a misconception about the growth of the business. So overwhelmingly, our growth has been organic. You know, what we have done is that we have, as we've recruited more clients through largely digital marketing, we've met that client need through employing people to serve those clients at different levels and with different experience. But yeah, it's been largely an organic story. I think it's part of the reason why we've been able to preserve the culture and strengthen the culture of the firm because we're literally hiring people who are buying into an already established culture. It's not a case of us combining different cultures and trying to find a common thread. In England and Wales, we've done you know fewer than a handful of acquisitions. And some of those have been really successful, and actually some of them have been less successful. And I suppose in each of them, there's always learnings about what it is that makes a transaction successful. But yeah, I as I say, it's a bit of a misconception that our firm's growth has been through sort of cobbling up or joining up a whole bunch of smaller family law firms. That's actually not what we've done.

Jeff Zindani 36:16

Let's let's just sort of um come to a bit of a close if we can. But I I want to kind of put you on the spot if I can, really. Let's just look back on on this kind of journey, really, your journey and sort of moving to Stowe, doing what you've done since 2019. What do you think is you're most proud of? What's is there something that stands out that you just feel because you don't take this the wrong way, of course, but you come across as being pretty understated actually about what you've done. Okay, sometimes I interview people and talk to them, and it's I find it difficult separating some of the marketing spiel really. But um is there anything you really stand out? You think, you know, I'm really proud of this.

Ken Fowlie 36:54

This is something I just feel really good about. The first thing I'd say, Jeff, is anyone who's worked with me will laugh when they say that you think I'm understated because um I can assure you that they wouldn't think the same. I think the thing that I'm proudest of is the I mean, there's probably two things. The first is the team of people who deliver the Stow Story every day. Like we have been unbelievably fortunate to have assembled a group of uh really talented, motivated people who basically do the heavy lifting. So I'm in a very privileged position to be able to talk about the business and I make a contribution to that effort. But there's a whole raft of folks who work at STOW who do an unbelievable job every day. Probably the thing I'm really proud of is how we found those people, how we've brought them together, how they work together to achieve the goals of the business. So, you know, that's the first thing. I think the second thing is, as I said, on the eve, as it were, of the pandemic back in 2020, we set out a vision and a plan for what we wanted to try and achieve for STOW over the subsequent sort of four or five years. Largely speaking, we were able to deliver on that plan. And that's something that I'm also really proud of because, like I say, I think for me, success in legal services is largely about how effective you are at executing a good enough plan. And we thought we put together a good enough plan. What I'm most pleased is that we were able to execute on that good enough plan um to get to the place we are now. We we now have a plan that we're looking to execute on, and so that gives you a lot of confidence that what you've set out to try and do you can achieve. You know, I think the people and the fact that we're able to make the progress we have, they're the things that are most pleasing.

Jeff Zindani 38:44

Kent, thanks so much for um spending the time talking to me. I'm absolutely 100% sure a lot of people will find this really fascinating and helpful at the same time. So thanks a lot for your time.

Ken Fowlie 38:56

Enjoyed it, Jeff. Thanks very much.