“People from your council estate don’t become lawyers”

An interview with Barry Matthew, CEO of Lexjam Consulting

Takudzwa Musavengana

In this wide-ranging interview, successful lawyer-turned-CEO Barry Matthews discusses his career, education, motivations, SQE reforms, social mobility and inequality.

A visit to the Careers Office, whether at school or at university, can often be a daunting, uncertain prospect. The advice that you receive can be invaluable, but students also run the risk of being demoralised; of being informed that their qualifications aren’t strong enough, or that their ambitions are simply too ambitious. So, when Barry Matthews plucked the courage to visit his secondary school Careers Officer to discuss his ambitions of pursuing a legal career, only to be crudely told that “people from your council estate don’t study law, unless its in the library of a prison”, he may have been forgiven if he had decided to pursue a different path. Instead, he took the words as motivation, and, over the course of the ensuing decades, made a mockery of the Careers Officer’s disparaging advice.

After graduating from Durham University Law School, Matthews began his career as a trainee international law firm Hogan Lovells, where he qualified as a lawyer, specialising in media and sport. He subsequently transferred to ITV, initially working for Granada Television and ultimately rising to become ITV’s Director of Legal Affairs and Third-Party Sales. His position entailed General Council responsibilities over two divisional teams, ensuring the compliance of advertising content with regulatory standards, and maintaining ITV’s sales agency sales agency relationships. By 2014, the calibre of his work and the dexterity of his execution had resulted in Matthews being crowned as the ‘Legal Business Rising Star’ across all industries, and in 2018 he was named in the BIMA 100 as a Champion for Good. This year, Barry Matthews’ ambition and drive, coupled with the desire for a new challenge, led him to set up LexJam Consulting, which he fronts as Chief Executive Officer. In its short history, LexJam has already worked both domestically and internationally with law firms and trade bodies on high-impact business development and strategy, broader development programmes, and legal technology education initiatives. In addition to all of this, Matthews sits on the board of the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and previously sat on the boards of the Broadcasting Committee of Advertising Practice and Clear Cast Limited.

Despite his distinguished career, Matthews has not lost sight of his roots and the way they impacted his experiences, particularly early on in his journey. Recounting his experiences at Durham Law School, he remarked that “no one there believed that my name was actually Barry; they thought it was short for Baron or something. It was hard to fit in, coming from my background”. He started playing rugby, a sport he described as his “saviour”, and he credits it with bridging the gap between himself and his peers, many of whom hailed from prestigious public and private schools where rugby was the sport of choice.

Matthews’ background has also influenced his desire to challenge prejudices and assist people from disadvantageous circumstances by helping to create a level playing field. He led the ‘Developing Future Leaders’ programme at ITV before founding the Legal Social Mobility Partnership scheme in 2014, which was converted to a registered charity and renamed to the Social Mobility Business Partnership in 2018 (SMBP). The charity provides opportunities for sixth form and college students from lower income households to gain industry-wide work experience, which concomitantly exposes them to a wealth of information and other opportunities. With 130 organisations signed up to the initiative and a base of 500 students from an initial 20, the scope and impact of the project has continued to grow substantially. When asked why he was so passionate about social outreach, Matthews replied “after growing up on a council estate, where nothing was expected of me, I understand the obstacles faced by young people in attempting to enter the commercial world with limited networks and information”. He also cited the impact of Brexit as a factor in “crippling opportunities,” and stated the importance of “addressing inequality”. In Matthews’ view, this is not about “demonising private school kids”; instead, the objective is “levelling up kids from the other side of the spectrum.” Jess Organ, who runs SMBP’s operations full-time, is used to receiving thanks from grateful students who’ve participated in SMBP programmes. Project management can be a difficult, demanding role, but for Organ, “all the hard work is worth it when a student, of their own accord, emails us telling us how we have helped them to change their lives”.

In discussing the barriers to successfully pursuing a legal career, Matthews was keen to highlight the impact of prejudices held by employers, and in particular, their tendency to concentrate on hiring almost exclusively from Russell Group universities. Recalling his efforts to try and catch the eye of law firms while at Durham, Matthews remarked “there were weeks when I didn’t pay for a single dinner. I would just go to a different event organised by a different firm each day and have the exact same buffet at the same hotel.” Matthews used this anecdote to exemplify the plethora of firms targeting Russell Group students, thus giving these students a much broader range of opportunities for networking than students at non-Russell Group universities. It could be argued that such a situation is inevitable, given that Russell Group universities will typically have tougher entry requirements, and that this is simply a natural case of the elite being attracted to the elite. Nonetheless, Matthews believes that individuals should not be solely judged on results that they obtained when they were 17 and 18, and that non-Russell Group students should still have an equal opportunity to demonstrate their competencies to firms. He noted that the Russell Group ‘brand’ is often confused as a ‘badge of teaching quality’ where in fact it relates to the research conducted; hence totally irrelevant when looking at the calibre of student passing through its doors given most of them who will go on to practice will never have anything to do with the research conducted by their institution of study. He states that, as a result of firms honing in on Russell Group students, “there is a talent puddle, not a pool,” as talented non-Russell Group students, who are just as competent, if not more so than their peers at Russell Group universities, are consequently not considered.

It is because of these circumstances that Matthews, as a non-executive member of the SRA, is a strong advocate for the SQE. The SQE is a law examination reform, set to come into effect from late 2021. Under this new system, in contrast with the LPC and GDL, aspiring lawyers will now sit a set of central examinations; The purpose of the SQE is to provide a uniform measure of candidates (irrespective of place or form of study) and guarantee of a threshold competence at entry. Matthews believes that the upcoming reforms will allow students to compete on a level playing field by ‘disaggregating’ the exams from the form of study and enabling employers to compare candidates fairly as they will be able to assess their ranking in their cohort through a combination of the mark they achieve and data published by the SRA.

Matthews was also particularly passionate about the treatment of paralegals. He commented that “all too often paralegals are convinced that if they work hard for a year or two, they will be given the opportunity to apply for an entry role as a lawyer at the firm they work at. However, all too often the opportunity never arises and they are no closer to qualification as a result of all their hard work. In his view, the SQE will help to level the playing field for paralegals through its relaxation of current work experience requirements and clear guidance on what their employers will need to do to enable their time to be counted towards their QWE requirement.

Matthews believes the SQE will encourage those who are not applying from a low income background. This can also benefit employers, as the “puddle” becomes a pool, and standards are raised as a result of an increased number of competent candidates from a more diverse range of background.

As the conversation drew to a close, I asked the question that is typically on the minds of students hoping to enter the legal profession; “what do I do to make it?” For Matthews, this was straightforward. When applying, “you have to know why you want to work at that place, what interests you about them, and what you want from it. These are questions you will really need to know the answers to. You will need to understand what the role is and what the people in the team do before you apply and go to interviews.” He then paused for a brief moment, before imparting what he described as his most important pieces of advice. “Firstly, there is absolutely no substitution for hard work. But, above all, you have to enjoy what you’re doing.” Barry Matthews’ inspiring journey from a council estate to a CEO, is testament, both to the veracity of his advice and to the importance of self-belief.