In Conversation with…
Mark Stephens CBE
Why he was correct on Johnny Depp; the reason David Cameron awarded him his CBE; observing elections in Kenya; what is it about GB News that’s attracting those new to news – and helping uncover a child labour sweatshop in Turkey. David Leck talks to Mark Stephens CBE about all this…and more.
In Conversation with…
Lee Curtis
Lee Curtis of Simmons & Simmons on why it’s a great time for non-lawyers in the legal market; why lawyers need to get over themselves if they believe “sales” is beneath them, and how we’d all do well to stop being so precious and look outside the walls of our ivory towers. He spoke (refreshingly) to Centrum editor David Leck
Q. Your expertise spans numerous areas, but many of us know you as the “go-to” voice in media disputes and as an advocate for trusted news. This seems to be something taking up increasing amounts of column inches. From your side, how have you seen this evolve?
I think I had a real advantage over everybody else because, when I qualified in 1982, I got special permission from the Law Society to set-up my own firm. At that time, nobody in our profession would talk to the media. I, on the other hand, was very happy to do so.
I did a case for an artist called JSG Boggs who the Bank of England had accused of forging pound notes. I said to the Old Bailey that he was painting them and one of the ways I won the case was to marry a strategy of legal defence with poking fun at a ridiculous prosecution in the media.
I then did some interviews when the 1988 Copyright Act came in and, by chance, a producer on LBC who’d booked me was moving to Sky News and had me in his contacts book. As a result, I became a regular on the channel and was pretty much on-call for any story for which they needed a lawyer who understood the media – and was willing to speak out. It must be said there were a lot of people who didn’t much like this young upstart!
Happily, at the same time, the head of PR at The Law Society – Sue Stapely - recognised there were now lawyers around the country doing phone-ins and, in effect, representing the profession. She therefore decided to professionalise things and so we all came together; we had joint training and we used to meet every quarter to share experiences.
The key to this was clearly a profession being able to talk about complex legal stories in a straightforward way, that the public would understand. It was about demystifying it for the reader, listener or viewer and, happily, journalists, editors and broadcast media bookers began to think I was good at demystifying difficult issues and providing a decent turn of phrase, both for my own cases and on those being handled by others.
Another key element about this change is that one of the problems with lawyers is they had tended to find refuge in legal language and jargon that was a turn-off to others and, frankly, made for dull if not impenetrable copy or airtime. I just wanted to talk to someone as if they were an intelligent person in the pub or over dinner. And I guess I gained a reputation of being willing to talk about a case or issue when others wouldn’t.
If you take a later example such as the Johnny Depp case, I think I was a solo voice saying I thought he was going to lose because people were wrapped up in tabloid coverage, fan-fuelled social media outrage, and simply weren’t looking at the facts. I’m happy to speak out when I think something is right or wrong – regardless of whether that view is popular or not.
Q. That leads us on to the breadth and influence of social media and – looking ahead - AI and things such as Chat GPT. Perversely, do you think this might mean a new era in which we become more open to challenging news sources and our perceptions of that which is fed to us?
I have a robust presence on social media but it’s about me calling things out when I feel something isn’t right rather than being deliberately controversial. I firmly believe having an opinion garners interest, whether people agree with me or not - I don't really care.
One of the problems now is that people have become afraid of making a statement; of having an opinion; exercising judgment – and that can be especially true of lawyers who conventionally don’t like to be controversial. I always say to my juniors, if you're writing have an opinion, have a view, because nobody wants to hear “on the one hand this, on the other hand that”. They want to know what you think – after all, that's what we are supposed to be paid for: an opinion!
And we need to move away from this trend to view things only ever in black and white and of being afraid to venture an opinion in the often difficult and challenging grey middle ground. To me that’s where debate can be at its most powerful.
“One of the problems with lawyers is they had tended to find refuge in legal language and jargon that was a turn-off to others and, frankly, made for dull if not impenetrable copy or airtime. I just wanted to talk to someone as if they were an intelligent person in the pub or over dinner.”
“One of the problems with lawyers is they had tended to find refuge in legal language and jargon that was a turn-off to others and, frankly, made for dull if not impenetrable copy or airtime. I just wanted to talk to someone as if they were an intelligent person in the pub or over dinner.”
Q. We’ve seen numerous examples of organisations getting themselves in knots over headlines propelled by a certain branch of the media - one only has to think of Philip Schofield and Huw Edwards. You said at the time there needs to be a major change to how these types of stories are reported. How do you think that can happen given many consider IPSO a toothless body?
Huw and Philip were of an age where you couldn't be “out” and on light entertainment television unless you were camping it up like Larry Grayson or Julian Clary. And it was the same in Parliament with instances such as those faced by Keith Vaz, Peter Lilley and Michael Portillo, where it was sort of accepted they had these ‘lavender marriages’.
I do think there was a lot of homophobia about the way in which those two things (Edwards and Schofield) were covered. And in the case of Huw, it was clear when the story first broke that The Sun over-egged the facts with implied allegations of criminality. It was obvious that there wasn't enough for the police to investigate.
So, I do think the historical approach of taking down public figures based on their private life is passing us now. And I think it has sparked a debate about the way in which we look at these things.
There are, of course, numerous examples of geriatric actors and singers dating much, much younger women – and fathering children in their eighties when, in truth, they’ll likely be dead before the child has made it through primary school. Personally, I think there’s a real moral issue here but nobody seems troubled enough to want to talk about that?
Q. Is there more internal legal teams need to do in preparation for crises such as these – and the way in which they engage external counsel?
The smarter ones understand that whether you're a celebrity or sportsman, public figure, or a large corporate, you are a brand and you need to preserve the brand because that's where the value is. Those people have a team of crisis managers, the team gets to know each other so that when the time comes, they are as prepared as they can be. The less sophisticated folk kind of reach for somebody like me or for a PR company. At a time of crisis, that's probably too late.
I also think – and there are various examples - you can create crises and stories and demonstrate vulnerabilities by going for injunctions which invariably act only to exacerbate a disaster. Look at Ryan Giggs, for example. I think Schillings painted a target on his back by getting a super-injunction - and then we later find out he's been sleeping with his brother's wife. It's that kind of target where you're basically saying to the media, come and dig around over this celebrity's skeleton because if there's one nasty thing to find, there's invariably going to be something else nasty to find.
I do believe there are ways of managing these things short of going to court. Clearly you need to have that in your arsenal, but not necessarily as the first weapon to deploy. If you go to see a lawyer, they tend to think a legal solution is the first thing and the only thing, whereas if you go and see a PR person, they tend to think a PR solution is the first thing and only thing so, for me, it’s finding a happy medium between the two.
One of the ways I work is to look at the UN guiding principles on business and human rights. I try and align the issue with those kinds of ethical obligations. Once you're aligned with that, it's very difficult to criticise you.
“If you take as an example the Johnny Depp case, I think I was a solo voice saying I thought he was going to lose because people were wrapped up in tabloid coverage, fan-fuelled social media outrage, and simply weren’t looking at the facts. I’m happy to say when I think something is right or wrong – regardless of whether that view is popular or not.”
“If you take as an example the Johnny Depp case, I think I was a solo voice saying I thought he was going to lose because people were wrapped up in tabloid coverage, fan-fuelled social media outrage, and simply weren’t looking at the facts. I’m happy to say when I think something is right or wrong – regardless of whether that view is popular or not.”
Q. Many of us who are not lawyers or media experts can often view our current culture as one of trial by media and social media. And I’ve heard more than once this year “whatever happened to innocent until proven guilty?” Are you concerned by this or has it, to one extent or another, always been that way?
I do believe things are beginning to change. And it’s interesting to note most of the more “difficult” stories don’t now appear first in the mainstream media.
Huw Edwards was one example but, you know, stories about Cliff Richard had been circulating online for ages before breaking across into the mainstream media. I think you can often see and gauge how a story is developing in social media, giving you the opportunity to formulate counter comment and, perhaps, alter behaviours. What social media does is it sort of gives you a sniff of what's going to come and allows you to plan for it - if you're smart enough.
Q. The theme of this issue is “culture in business”. You’ve vast expertise in the area of human rights. Business is being held to ever-higher standards, even on micro-level issues, so can you give our readers an overview of this work?
Businesses fall into two categories, so one of the things I do is that sort of human rights assessment to which I just referred. This is in much the same way an accountant does a financial assessment of a firm for its annual reports, and the EU and many other major jurisdictions require a non-financial assurance about businesses complying with human rights and OECD principles.
There are some people who see this as a box-ticking exercise but, equally, there are many who are beginning to realise its importance. I think this is going to be mandatory before long, and those that don't do it are going to end up with reputational car-crashes.
There’s been a sea change. People want to think of businesses they're frequenting as being ethical and that those businesses are ethical, fair and complying with human rights. I think this is a hugely important step forward.
As an example, I did some work for a major clothing retailer and we went to a factory it used in Turkey. There I noticed something that led me to tip-off colleagues and to us following a truck that eventually took us to a factory sweatshop using Syrian child-refugees as slave labour. The company was absolutely horrified. It sacked those responsible, removed the children and found them both homes and educational opportunities. Sadly, though there are still businesses not “living” this culture – and they are heading for major reputational and commercial difficulties.
“What we don’t want is this lynch-mob trampling on opinions that depart from a 'collective narrative.' We cannot be seen to have a fear of challenging or of failing to rise to a challenge when an argument dictates one.”
“What we don’t want is this lynch-mob trampling on opinions that depart from a 'collective narrative.' We cannot be seen to have a fear of challenging or of failing to rise to a challenge when an argument dictates one.”
Q. You lecture at universities and higher education institutions around the world. What are the burning topics for the professional services of the future coming out of those sessions?
Everybody is saying it’s AI but most people are stuck at the functionality stage. I'm more interested in geopolitical and the socio-economic impacts.
What jobs are going to be left? That’s what I think about when I look at my grandson. Okay, you might say ‘farming’ but aspects of that will be automated and, for law firms of course, reporting, billing, the allocation of talent to a matter and so on are already there. And, yes, you’ll probably still see a nurse but Chat GPT may well be able to diagnose you quicker and possibly with more accuracy than your GP?
We need to think differently, more creatively. Go to Sunderland and see an example. There we’ve got one of the biggest steel mills in the world lying idle. Why? Because the carbon emissions are priced in, making it unsustainable. Go to Norway, Sweden and Finland, who've got hydro electricity and that is essentially free.
So, for politicians, scanning for a sort of ‘red wall’ voting constituency, the desperate need for renewables is critical because it’s the only way those people are going to keep their jobs and the firms for whom they work, their market share. The question is how do we move people to new jobs, where are those jobs going to be, and what do we need to do to create them?
Q. In 2018, you became board chair of Internews Network, an international charity dedicated to freedom of expression and trusted media. When you think that just a small percentage of the world’s population enjoys access to a free press, perhaps it’s not surprising we seem to face increasing challenges fuelled by misinformation?
This is a really important area and I think one of the issues is a by-product of news being extended so much. We used to have monopolistic news based on limitation of bandwidth; now it’s a sort of Balkanised-free-for-all and the changes are substantial.
Take GB News as an example. Regardless of what one might think of it, the channel is now outperforming the BBC, ITV, Sky News and Channel 4 News several days a week. Key news bulletins, such as those at six and ten, may remain the domain of ‘traditional’ broadcasters, but the shift means we need to look at things differently.
Many of these people who have gone to somewhere like GB News are not defecting from elsewhere, they are new to news, and they’re consuming it in a different way. So, the question I have is, what is it that they (the new players) are delivering that the established news channels are not?
To answer your question, there is a real worry. If people are going to YouTube, Twitter or elsewhere for their news, rather than the BBC, Sky or ITN, I think that is a retrograde step because it means that we are all more open to mis- and dis-information. Just take the issue of elections.
I was in Kenya for five-weeks on a pro-bono basis observing their elections and, whilst there were issues of disinformation, Facebook was doing a really good job by appointing external fact-checkers. One candidate had a deep-fake video of Barack Obama endorsing him on Facebook and then on Tik Tok, both of whom acted and it had taken down. It was an interesting suite of developments. They're starting to look at these things much more rigorously than perhaps we are.
Q. And, finally, you often see the worst in people and society whilst being heavily focused on change for the better. What keeps you positive?
The problem is things are never perfect and you can always criticise, but I don't think we want perfection to be the enemy of the good. Anything that is increasing accuracy and eliminating disinformation is of course to be welcomed.
However, what we don’t want is this lynch-mob trampling on opinions that depart from a 'collective narrative.' We cannot be seen to have a fear of challenging or of failing to rise to a challenge when an argument dictates one.
So, there are things that need to be done. And I think large companies and others are recognising they have these obligations and are beginning to recognise they need to behave with a greater degree of morality.
Snap Shot
2021
Independent Board Member Independent Schools Inspectorate 2018
Non-Executive Chairman Internews Network
2014 Independent Chair Global Network Initiative
2013
Partner Howard Kennedy LLP
Getting to Know You
Best bit of advice you’ve been given?
How to check my car for bombs following a Russian mafiosi taking out a contract on my life. Ever since, I've never undervalued the sheer quality and professionalism of our security services.
Best bit of advice you’d give someone at the start of their career?
"There's money in them-thar wills" – my training principle.
What led you to this career?
I was tricked into it. Our lodger, when I was growing up, was the manager of Pink Floyd. He counselled me to go into the law rather than the music industry. Now he's a billionaire …
Best holiday destination?
Rapa Nui (aka Easter Island) – wonderfully other-worldly. My big tip is to go enroute to the Antipodes. It only adds eight hours to the journey. And you can experience the most amazing cuisine cooked by Jacques Cousteau's chef from the 'Calypso.' (He fell in love with a local woman. Got off the boat in Rapa Nui and never left.)
Favourite pastime?
Keeping Bees, a touch of badinage and, (just) a touch of Dandyism.