Elliot Moss
Welcome to Jazz Shapers with me, Elliot Moss, bringing the shapers of the business world together with the musicians shaping jazz, soul and blues. My guest today is Mary Bonsor, founder and CEO of Flex Legal, a platform connecting law firms and in-house legal teams with lawyers and paralegals on demand. While working towards her post-graduate law qualifications and as she says, desperate for work, Mary like many of her peers struggled to get a training contract in the legal industry as she said, ‘you needed experience to get experience’. Eventually she found work as a secretary for a shipping arbitrator but it was later while working as a qualified solicitor facing a Court deadline that Mary saw from her window a group of law students. As she said, ‘I knew from experience those students would have jumped at the chance to get legal work experience and I knew associates like myself were desperate for their help’. Suddenly the idea for Flex Legal was born. Co-founded in 2016 with James Moore an experienced software developer, Flex Legal is now home to thousands of paralegals and lawyers with clients including FST100 companies and as part of their mission to make the legal industry more diverse, inclusive and flexible for all their training scheme Flex Trainee helps socially mobile aspiring lawyers break into the law. I’ll be talking to Mary imminently and the music in today’s Jazz Shapers comes from The Crusaders and Randy Crawford, Mongo Santamaria, Young Blood Brass Band and here’s one of my all-time favourites, Jimmy Smith with the Organ Grinder’s Swing.
It’s great to have you, thank you. Mishcon de Reya has bought Flex Legal, that’s the first thing to say, that’s the first time in 12 years that Mishcon de Reya has been involved in any commercially anyway, involved in any of our guests. It’s brilliant to have you here. Why did you want to be a lawyer Mary?
Mary Bonsor
Oh very good question. So honest answer was I didn’t really know what else to do and during Uni I sort of thought about what I enjoyed doing which was problem solving and people and I wanted to keep studying so went to a couple of law fairs and thought, ‘yeah this looks interesting’.
Elliot Moss
Really? You thought that?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah, yeah. I was a terrible lawyer so I think looking back…
Elliot Moss
But what did you study at university?
Mary Bonsor
I did politics and sociology.
Elliot Moss
Okay. Two fine subjects there. I did politics and parliamentary studies, very close with a bit of Spanish involved. But your, when you were studying that was there an interest in the law? Was there an interest in the role that that played in the political system, the legislature and all those other things or was it more, I like the idea of being a lawyer because your father was a Barrister?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah, I think there was, I think most people go into law because they want to make the world a better place and they want to support people and help people and have a strong kind of heart for justice and things like that so I definitely felt that and thought law would be a good career where you can kind of do good, help society and earn a good living but then yeah, then when I qualified and practiced I actually loved doing litigation, really, really enjoyed it but just had the idea of Flex which thought if I don’t jump now I will get stuck in a career, a long career as a lawyer.
Elliot Moss
Was there a moment when you realised you didn’t want to be a lawyer as opposed to ‘I’ve got this great idea for Flex’. Had you already come to the, the conclusion you weren’t going to practice law?
Mary Bonsor
Not really actually more just financially I thought taking a massive pay cut again and it’s kind of pre-mortgage, pre-family, now’s the time to take the risk and what’s the worst that can happen. I can always go back to being a lawyer if this is a year which turns into a disaster.
Elliot Moss
And looking out the window, so I mentioned that little story, just take your mind back then. You, you were doing whatever you were doing, probably bored out of your mind – no you weren’t you were probably looking at some very interesting papers. When you saw these students, what was it that made you think ‘hold on a minute’ because that is the smashing together of two worlds. Just, if you can remember specifically, what was the trigger?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah so, so my law firm was next to Kaplan Law School so I would always see these law students outside and I remember when I was at BPP law school thinking ‘I’m right next to all these amazing law firms, I’m studying and working two hours a day I would jump at an opportunity to get some experience, why is it so hard when I’m right here and keen and hungry to, to walk into the law firms’ and so then when I was looking out the window and could see these students I was like ‘there they are’ like where’s the tech solution to say, ‘come and help me, I’m paginating lots of bundles’ so thrilling work like that, ‘come and support me’ and that was the sort of moment, the lightbulb moment I suppose.
Elliot Moss
I go back to that time, that idea of putting students into law firms and then you talked about tech and technology which again in terms of the legal world, technology and law haven’t been fantastically good bedfellows. Of course technology underpins any big business and it does in the law but not in a transformational way. So just talk to me about James and what you were trying to build from a technology point of view to connect opportunity with talent?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah so why I loved James, so we interviewed about ten different people when we were trying to bring in a CTO or a tech person and what was really interesting is 9 out of 10 said, ‘I know exactly what you want, I’ll build it in two months and away we go’ and me, I didn’t really know what I wanted, I was like I’ve got the idea but I really don’t know how it’s going to work from a technical perspective and then when I met James, he was the only one who said, ‘I don’t know how to build this, I’m probably going to get it wrong however I’ll build you a minimal viable product and if you like it, I’m then in but I’m in and I want to be a co-founder and let’s build it together and learn’.
Elliot Moss
And he was the only person who said that out of the ten.
Mary Bonsor
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
How interesting.
Mary Bonsor
Which, and I just thought god that’s like such an interesting way of thinking about this problem and…
Elliot Moss
In other words, if it works, then we’re going to do it.
Mary Bonsor
Yeah.
Elliot Moss
And if it doesn’t, cheery bye.
Mary Bonsor
Then cheery bye and, and we haven’t lost anything um and that I suddenly was like, ‘you’re the one, you’re amazing’.
Elliot Moss
Yeah.
Mary Bonsor
That was exactly what we need.
Elliot Moss
And not everyone would have been like that, I mean there would be other people that just went, ‘I’m going to instruct you’ in the way that lawyers talk, ‘I’m going to instruct you, you’ll do what I say and thank you very much’. Why do you think you’re a more open minded kind of person because again I know many lawyers Mary, as you know, and, and they’re very clever but not all of them are very open or thoughtful about that kind of vibe. Why do you think you are like that?
Mary Bonsor
So it could be my upbringing, I had a dad who was a politician and a mum who was a kind of a, a opposite of you, of my father so having lots of different opinions in our household was never a bad thing but it meant that we had to kind of listen to all the sides of a story and hear each other out and possibly that has always been in me of trying to listen to what someone else is saying and thinking they probably know more, it’s not hard, they probably know more about this than I do and it is worth kind of doing it together or listening to them and each bringing our, our kind of view point to get to a better solution.
Elliot Moss
Do you think also it’s that you’re, I know you’re the youngest of five. My mum is the youngest of five and I always felt her relationship with her parents was different to the older siblings in a way that by the time they get to the last one and I know you’re a twin as well but by the time you get to the last one you’re like, it’s kind of a bit more liberal and do you think there was a bit of space for you to kind of be even more open?
Mary Bonsor
A 100%. We, we got away with murder in a lovely way but it you know, I don’t think, I don’t think my parents ever knew what I did for GCSE, A levels, Degree.
Elliot Moss
Really?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah they wouldn’t, they just weren’t interested in that. I think they were as long as we were happy and…
Elliot Moss
Alive.
Mary Bonsor
…alive.
Elliot Moss
I know, ah the 80s, weren’t they wonderful. The 70s was kind of similar. Are you around yet, are you back, yes you seem to be.
Mary Bonsor
Yeah, you’re doing okay.
Elliot Moss
You’re doing okay, you’re in one piece. Stay here for much more from Mary Bonsor my Business Shaper, she’s the founder of Flex Legal and she’s talking all about why families are quite important in the journey of an entrepreneur. I’ve heard that before here on Jazz Shapers. Much more coming up from her in a few minutes but right now we are going to hear a taster from the Mishcon Academy Digital Sessions which can be found on all the major podcast platforms. Mishcon’s Marth Averley and Matt Robinson talk about equality, diversity and inclusion with regards to recruitment and how employers can recruit in a fair but diverse way.
You can enjoy all our former Business Shapers on the Jazz Shapers podcast and you can hear this very programme again if you pop ‘Jazz Shapers’ into your podcast platform of choice. My guest today is Mary Bonsor, founder of Flex Legal, a platform connecting law firms and in-house legal teams with lawyers and paralegals on demand. We say it now and I am sort of half joking as I say it, I always do when you know you say the thing that the company says it does, that little moment, that conversation with James and that sense of ‘well I can build you somethings, let’s see if it works’, talk to me a bit about your own technology journey because I am really fascinated by tech but I don’t code, I don’t know how to build an API, I don’t know how to do anything except I do know what the benefits are. Talk to me about how you’ve sort of created a relationship with technology and why, why it’s so important for you?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah so the bit where I think me and tech played, kind of interlinked was often James, as we were scaling and growing the business, often James would watch me and when things started to take too long that’s when we’d bring in the tech solution so really a good example is, and you look back now and I sometimes find it really fun going back in history and looking at the way you used to do things but sending out time sheets, really manual and when that used to take me a whole day of jus Google forms, pinging them out to candidates to fill out, James would be like, ‘okay it can’t, this should not take a whole day of your time, let’s now automate this’. So my kind of relationship I suppose with tech is, is always try something manually and then see what’s taking too long and then use tech when you’re being inefficient and always, always kind of try it manually before you build the solution because I think so many people build a tech solution without really testing it and knowing if that’s what you need and want. So we sort of, we reversed that and James would just watch me and then, and then build it when we knew it was a problem.
Elliot Moss
Do you think you’ve still got that focus on what it is you were trying to do when you set the business up because it gets harder as you get bigger and if you’ve got it, how have you maintained it?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah I, I think we really do and I think we are a very purpose driven business. So anyone who joins Flex we always tell the story about a boy called Josh who was the first candidate who ever came on to our platform and the same day he signed up to Flex, he signed up to be an Asda lorry driver because he couldn’t get any legal work experience. We then placed him three times into a big bank law firm and now his career is absolutely flying and he’s a qualified lawyer and off he goes and that story and that purpose is absolutely key still to anyone who joins the business, anyone we interact with and it is all about helping people with their careers.
Elliot Moss
Mm. There’s a whole big piece in, in your business which is around inclusivity, around social mobility. Is that again back to family life and the sense of you want to do something of value?
Mary Bonsor
Absolutely. I, I feel very lucky and privileged with the upbringing that I’ve had and it makes me want to strive and do more for people who haven’t been as fortunate as me and I think the legal world is a bit mad in that it’s, until recently, it was still a bit of a boys network and quite, you had to be quite privileged because of the cost to get into it and actually breaking down those barriers and allowing other people to come into it is so, so important.
Elliot Moss
Mm. But you’re very positive Mary, some people get very angry. Is there a steely anger that, that’s underneath the kind of the positivity that drives that we’re going to do it. I’m just interested in are you really as, you know you talk about it in really positive terms, other people might say ‘it’s a disgrace this industry is stuck in the 17th century and it’s still about privilege’.
Mary Bonsor
So what, my view and I think I am a very positive person and actually I think being positive is one of the most important traits as a founder because you’re always going to have a plate spinning but my view is, ‘what’s the point in that negativity. Why, what do you get out of it’ whereas if you can spin a negative scenario to something positive and you can get something good out of it then that’s a great result.
Elliot Moss
Over the last few years you’ve obviously been growing this business and you’ve hit a point now recently – I mentioned at the beginning that you eventually have been acquired as it were – why? Why was it important for you to look for another commercial partner?
Mary Bonsor
So I think when you get angel investors or investment you are sort of setting your path as a founder to an exit at some point. You have a duty to those investors to give them a return so I always knew that would be our pathway and then timing just felt right. So Mishcon approached us, learned about the firm, very entrepreneurial, it felt like a very good fit and at the same time my co-founder, James was going off to set up an AI business so actually it was so serendipitous and lucky that everything sort of fitted into place. It just felt like the right time.
Elliot Moss
Yeah. Had you been looking for a while though to find the right suitor?
Mary Bonsor
No, in a very lucky way we were profitable, we were growing so we were in no rush. We’d had a few, a few offers along the way but it didn’t feel quite right and then when this one came along it just felt like a good fit.
Elliot Moss
And do you still enjoy it in the way that you did Mary, back in those early days when you literally had nothing and James and you would sit there and make stuff?
Mary Bonsor
Yeah I do actually. So I handed over the reins of CEO quite recently and that was because the company needs someone who is a much better manager, a much better process driven person and what that has done is it has freed me up to keep that entrepreneurial energy of ‘what next for Mary, go and just make it happen, launch something new, get it off the ground and then we’ll roll it back into the business’ and that’s the bit I love so I feel quite lucky again that I sort of got a role which feels me with energy and plays to my strengths.
Elliot Moss
And the bit in the middle between setting it up and between now where you are rediscovering and being given the space to, to go play and go build again. How did you manage to develop the, as you just described it, the sort of the processie stuff, the more corporatey small c stuff. Did you have to just work at it?
Mary Bonsor
Absolutely. You work at it and you learn as you go and so I am a real loser but I love reading management books and when we go on holiday my husband looks at me and he’s like, ‘oh god just stop, get the Jilly Cooper out’ and I am like ‘no’.
Elliot Moss
You might learn more from Jilly Cooper than some of these management books. You know I’ve read a few of them but, but in all seriousness, what is like the, is there a big thing that you’ve learnt from all this stuff that you’ve read because I think there is value in it but, and it’s different for every individual, but for you, what have you taken from it? You went ‘okay I really need to focus on that’.
Mary Bonsor
Yeah so I think reflecting on me, I love people and I am a bit of a sort of chameleon of trying to please people I speak to which is great in a sales element in bringing people on the kind of journey but where it’s like bad is where you’ve got to have difficult conversations or like conflicts can be a good thing if it’s in the right place and energy and I used to find that quite hard, conflict and you know, be like ‘no we need to agree on everything’ and actually that’s probably what I’ve learnt the most is conflicts great and as long as the conflict is in the right space you then can kind of like united having like battle views and different opinions so I think that’s where I have probably taken the most lessons from, is comparing it to my, my own like strengths and weaknesses.
Elliot Moss
Who’d have thought the positive person actually now is saying conflict is great. Final chat coming up with my guest today, that’s Mary Bonsor and we’ve got some Young Blood Brass Band for you too. That’s in just a moment, don’t go anywhere.
Mary Bonsor is my Business Shaper just for a few more minutes. So 2016 you build the thing. 2024 you sell. You’re still here, you’re still smiling, a very smiley person. I am sure you can hear that when Mary speaks but genuinely a very, very positive person. What’s the next chapter going to look like for you? Where’s it going Mary? What are you worried about? What are you still trying to fix?
Mary Bonsor
Good question. So it’s a very good question and, and the honest answer is I don’t know. I haven’t quite, quite worked it out. Hopefully I don’t get fired by Mishcon and you keep me.
Elliot Moss
I couldn’t possibly comment. Of course we won’t.
Mary Bonsor
I, I’ve definitely got other ideas and I think that’s a true founder who has a million and one ideas so hopefully over the next year it’s doing more offerings for Flex who are launching a company secretary trainee programme and a, hopefully a data protection officer programme and um, trying to create different roles within legal which is something we’re very passionate about and then after that who knows. I almost can’t think too far ahead, it’s you know, one to two year plan is plenty for me, yeah.
Elliot Moss
Plenty. And just the art of creation, especially in an industry which is ripe for change and has been and is going through huge change and will be accelerating as we go through the next few years. How do you come up with the ideas? Where, where does the initial hold on a minute that needs fixing thought come from?
Mary Bonsor
So always speaking to people. I love hearing people’s stories and um a kind of good example is launching this new co sec offering, I’ve spoken to 89 company secretaries and just said, ‘tell me about you, I’m so intrigued about your career, your story, how you got into this role, what are the challenges, what are the opportunities’ and then when you speak to a few people you start hearing the same things and you go, ‘ah okay, there’s a bit of a gap here and I think we can do something’ and um, and that and then putting it together like a jigsaw puzzle and going back to them and saying, ‘what do you think about this now, I’ve heard what you said’ and if they say, ‘yeah great idea’ you’re on to something and that’s the, that’s where I get full of excitement and joy.
Elliot Moss
Do you think if you went back in time to when all of you were kids that your parents at the kitchen table would have said Mary’s going to be the entrepreneur? Do you think, was that spoken about then because I imagine you weren’t a different person then, you were still asking lots of questions, you were still intrigued by the answers because obviously the kids, or your siblings are doing different things, writers and data people and all that and you’re the entrepreneur.
Mary Bonsor
Yeah I think then…
Elliot Moss
Was that in the cards?
Mary Bonsor
…I think it probably was. We, I’m laughing because I was always trying to do something whether it was selling elderflower at the bottom of you know, in the local town or um we created a show called ‘The Nerdy Show’ where I mean you know, I’m not even going to tell you what it involved because it was terrible but you know, it was a way of trying to get some money from people who’d pay a fiver to come and watch this show. So I think, I think it has always been within me probably.
Elliot Moss
Well there’s that but basically it’s you, it is you rather than it sort of…
Mary Bonsor
Yeah, yeah.
Elliot Moss
…you didn’t develop it, it was always there.
Mary Bonsor
No and I think that’s probably true of most founders actually like I don’t think it works if it’s not authentic and it’s not um and it’s very obvious if it’s fake I think so yeah it’s definitely, I’m definitely an ideas person and probably annoys the rest of the company.
Elliot Moss
I didn’t want to say.
Mary Bonsor
Growing ideas.
Elliot Moss
There’s a lot of, there’s a lot of irritated people. Of course that’s not true. It’s been brilliant chatting to you, Mary thank you and just before I let you disappear, what’s your song choice and why have you chosen it?
Mary Bonsor
So my song choice is by Horace Silver and it’s Song For My Father and my father died last year so I always like the thought of him sitting in a car probably smoking a cigar as he drives along listening to this song, thinking he is a bit of a gangster.
Elliot Moss
Horace Silver with Song For My Father, the song choice of my Business Shaper today, Mary Bonsor. She talked about being open to lots of different opinions mainly to do with her childhood and how the family discussed and debated all sorts of different things from the left to the right of the political spectrum. ‘We got away with murder’ she said of her childhood and I think that’s a critically important point to understand what makes an entrepreneur and entrepreneur and that sense of freedom to really express themselves and do whatever they want. Being positive is one of the most important traits in a founder and that ability as she described it to turn something negative into something positive and finally the point about conflict. Conflict is good in the right spaces. That’s it from Jazz Shapers have a great one and I’ll see you on Saturday.
We hope you enjoyed that edition of Jazz Shapers. You’ll find hundreds more guests available for you to listen to in our archive, to find out more just search Jazz Shapers in iTunes or your favourite podcast platform or head over to mishcon.com/jazzshapers.