Meet The Disruptors: Dan Fox of Johnson Hana On The Five Things You Need To Shake Up Your Industry

Challenge convention. Similar to the above, but this isn’t necessarily something people actively dislike. It might be something they do without considering it, because it’s always been done that way. Challenge it. Challenge why. Challenge why it can’t be better.

As a part of our series about business leaders who are shaking things up in their industry, I had the pleasure of interviewing Dan Fox.

Dan Fox founded Johnson Hana in 2017 with his brother, Alex Fox. Their mission was to make the lives of lawyers better and happier and to help overworked in-house lawyers who are bogged down with routine, process heavy legal work. Johnson Hana does this by freeing lawyers of the rigid working schedules traditional to the legal sector, allowing them to work flexibly. This benefits both Johnson Hana’s legal consultants, who can work in ways that suit them, and also clients, who receive access to a greater pool of legal talent throughout the world.

Thank you so much for doing this with us! Before we dig in, our readers would like to get to know you a bit more. Can you tell us a bit about your “backstory”? What led you to this particular career path?

In 2011 I qualified as a barrister at law in Ireland. All barristers in Ireland have their own business and like any business owner, and getting off the ground is hard. There is no money, in fact, I was loss-making. Early on during my apprenticeship, I got an opportunity to work in one of Ireland’s largest law firms doing a really volume heavy review project for a large bank, who was the client of the law firm. For me it equated to delirious happiness because I was now earning €16.50 per hour, and I could afford coffees over lunch! However while I was working in the firm, I observed a few things.

Firstly, I saw that there was a huge amount of really volume heavy, routine legal work being given to very big, expensive law firms. There were young barristers doing the work, junior solicitors, contract solicitors, paralegals and even partners. There also seemed to be chaos internally in terms of how the project was being run. People like me were coming in at random times, quality not being checked, productivity not being monitored. Having found out how much the bank was being charged for my time, I did the maths and realised pretty quickly that big law firms were adept at cutting major margins. At that moment, I began thinking that there had to be an opportunity to help banks and other buyers of legal work to cut costs and deliver a more effective model.

The real Eureka moment came after that, albeit during the course of the same project. It was 7pm and I’m having coffee at the machine, and I bumped into a full-time solicitor who was working on my project. She was crying and so I asked her why she was upset. I was pretty much a stranger, but she was really confessional. She told me that she had recently had a baby and that she didn’t feel she could keep up the hours in the firm. She later told me that while she was earning around €110k a year, on an hourly basis she was paid less than minimum wage.

This was the moment when I knew the law system didn’t work here. I wanted to find a way to capitalise on the gap in the market for volume heavy legal work provision but bigger still, I wanted to find a way where I could create a more balanced working framework for those working within the legal apparatus.

Can you tell our readers what it is about the work you’re doing that’s disruptive?

We’re the first company operating within the legal ecosystem globally who truly puts the wellness of our lawyers above all else. We have created a community of legal professionals who believe in the power of working in flexible ways, and our momentum is increasing as we drive the adoption of a new talent engagement model.

To put it plainly, we are tech enabled and leverage state of the art tools to reduce human input and we provide rich data and insights to legal teams to help refine their internal reporting and processes.

But the bigger piece here, the more meaningful piece, is the talent and how we can make their lives better and happier. We started at Johnson Hana as a company working with Irish lawyers only. Today we work with legal professionals across different continents and these people get to hone their skills in some of the world’s coolest companies and they can do it remotely from anywhere in the world.

The upshot of our model is that we’re proving that even lawyers can be happy, but only when they get to work within the ecosystem in flexible, dynamic ways. We now have countless examples of lawyers who chose Johnson Hana because it allowed them to leave their private practice, 100 hour per week, €100k per annum salary, €20 per hour roles. I think it’s fair to say that this level of flexibility was unheard of before we came along and made it happen!

To answer your question, I believe that to drive such a significant shift, in a sector as famously resistant to change as law, is pretty [expletive] disruptive!!

Can you share a story about the funniest mistake you made when you were first starting? Can you tell us what lesson you learned from that?

I suppose the funniest mistake, as these things often are, was borne of naivety. I knew that I was going to be driving a fundamental change in legal work, and I knew in my bones that it was what lawyers wanted, that it would make the legal world better for everyone. But I didn’t expect the level of resistance , or the fear that it seemed to instill in some of the more established players.

To give an example, we were once invited to speak on a panel about the increasing role of technology in law, something we know a great deal about, and could provide practical examples on. Also featuring on the panel was a solicitor at a large Irish law firm. He objected to our presence on the panel and ultimately got us removed from it — and this is the funny part — with a line (I’ll never forget) “I don’t think the firm would be happy with me participating in a panel with not just a direct competitor, but an organisation which is a competitor to all law firms.”

I loved that line. It reminded me that we must be making an impact. A dent. A transformation.

But to answer your question, what did I learn from it? I learned that what we were doing was worrying people in the establishment. This was gratifying. This reminded me that change was being advanced.

We all need a little help along the journey. Who have been some of your mentors? Can you share a story about how they made an impact?

I have to give special mention, here, to Dan Kiely who founded with his wife, Linda, the global customer support outsourcer, Voxpro, which sold for circa €150 million a few years ago.

Dan has been instrumental in my career to date for his support, his guidance, and his belief in my vision. He is obviously a giant in the Irish business world in particular but he also built a business to transform customer experience for the world’s most innovative businesses and talent was at the fulcrum of his success.

His backing as an investor, from very early on, gave us the foundations we needed to grow the size we are now (and there is still plenty more growth to come yet!).

I remember reaching out to Dan for advice via LinkedIn and that day he rang me — we organised a coffee. I was pre seed funding, and had nothing but an idea and he immediately said he would invest in the business. His belief, his courage, enabled me to raise my first funds in that year.

In today’s parlance, being disruptive is usually a positive adjective. But is disrupting always good? When do we say the converse, that a system or structure has ‘withstood the test of time’? Can you articulate to our readers when disrupting an industry is positive, and when disrupting an industry is ‘not so positive’? Can you share some examples of what you mean?

I love language and to me “disruption”, the word, is neither positive nor negative. It simply means sudden — or radical — change.

Obviously, it’s considered pejorative by parents or teachers trying to achieve harmony. As disruption might not be conducive to good learning.

Whereas in the business world “disruption” has come to be a complimentary noun as it is really only positive disruptions that break through. There is such inertia in the system that for something to be truly disruptive it has to dramatically improve on what went before.

In fact, the only examples I can think of, from the business world, of “negative” disruption, come from overregulation. Sudden anti-commercial regulation can have a stifling effect on business, which is clearly a negative. The obvious example to cite here would be the red-tape created by Brexit. But, by-and-large, we’re fortunate here in Ireland, in that we operate in a relatively business-friendly regulatory environment.

In terms of the flattering phrase “withstood the test of time”, to me that just means a business that has been able to change with the times. After all it is not the strongest of the species that survive but those most adaptable to change.

Can you please share 5 ideas one needs to shake up their industry?

Number one — identify the “but”. Most industries have an “it’s great, but.” Working in law was previously only for people who could adhere to the rigid schedules and long hours it demanded. We’ve now changed that.

Number two — challenge convention. Similar to the above, but this isn’t necessarily something people actively dislike. It might be something they do without considering it, because it’s always been done that way. Challenge it. Challenge why. Challenge why it can’t be better.

Number three — the disillusioned are your friends. In every industry there are those that have been pushed out of it, or are being pushed out of it. They are great at what they do but they’ve lost their passion. If you’re a disruptor, you have the power to reignite that passion. They were lost before, but they can now be superstars again.

It’s what we’ve done. Great legal minds, freed to apply their brilliance in the sector, that were previously shut out of it.

Number four — you need other people. This isn’t exactly radical. But the creativity, the spark, the innovation, they only get you so far. I’m a disruptor, but I need the right people around me. This doesn’t happen in a vacuum. There are teams of brilliant individuals behind me implementing the good ideas and workshopping the ones that need work. I pride myself on what I bring to our business, but I don’t do it alone.

Number five — give yourself a break. This is probably the easiest to say and the hardest to do. I can’t sit on my hands. It’s in my nature, and I’m sure in the nature of many disruptors, to fidget. To break things, to make things, to shake things. But I’m not superman. I need to stop and take stock sometimes. So I’m going to give this advice to everyone, because it’s good advice, but I know I’ll struggle to follow it myself.

We are sure you aren’t done. How are you going to shake things up next?

Well we’ve disrupted, fairly thoroughly, the legal market in Ireland. But it’s a big world out there…

Do you have a book, podcast, or talk that’s had a deep impact on your thinking? Can you share a story with us? Can you explain why it was so resonant with you?

It’s hard to pick just one thing because there are so many, but Malcolm Gladwell’s The Tipping Point is one I often find myself recommending. It discusses how one person can build a movement, and how small things can make a big difference (in fact that’s it’s subtitle). It also shares some of the science and psychology behind how movements are built.

The reason I find it so resonant is that it discusses how, in the David vs Goliath fight, the “smaller guy” can have advantages too.

I also find it offers some interesting insights into how big historical changes have come from relatively inauspicious instigators.

Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Can you share how that was relevant to you in your life?

I don’t really go in for “Life Lesson Quotes”. Life is too varied for a single quote to apply universally.

That being said, I’ve always been fond of a line from the song Everybody’s Free (To Wear Sunscreen) [released in 1999].

“Whatever you do, don’t congratulate yourself too much

Or berate yourself either

Your choices are half chance, so are everybody else’s”

I think it serves as a reminder to stay grounded, and not to hesitate too much over choices.

You are a person of great influence. If you could inspire a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be?

I believe, personally, in the power of music. Your most investigatory readers might even be able to find the odd recording of a band I was in floating around online — a reminder of another life.

But, and I don’t mean to sound flippant, I really think that music can change lives. The discipline to play, it’s like a meditation to me. I’d encourage anybody who can to pick up an instrument and play, just for their own pleasure.

How can our readers follow you online?

LinkedIn. Something we’re really pushing at the moment is the breadth and scope of our content on LinkedIn, and it’s not just me, we’ve Thought Leaders across the business. Give us a follow, you won’t be disappointed!

You can find them here: https://www.linkedin.com/company/johnson-hana-international/

And me here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danfoxbl/

This was very inspiring. Thank you so much for joining us!