Phillip Bratt

How has neurodiversity shown up in your career?

I am dyslexic and surprisingly throughout my education nobody noticed, despite going to a private school with small class sizes and studying law at university. I found studing law hard especially the  4 hour exams. Even reading the questions was hard. So I didnt do particularly well in the end, I ended up with a 2.2.

But it was when I was doing psychometric tests to become a solicitor that it finally clicked. I had to do multiple choice logic questions under considerable time pressure. During the practice I was still doing the reading on page 4 when the instructor said times up. I hadn't answered a single question. I was in a room with others in my cohort and could see they had answered questions. I started to think I had blanked out. On reflection I realised if I am a really really slow reader and struggle with writing maybe I am dyslexic.  I got tested and it was clear. I can’t remember exactly but my reading speed is really slow (like a 12 year old) and my handwriting is worse. The reason it hadn't been picked up because I think really fast, much faster than most people. So when you have a task others might spend 60% reading and 40% thinking it through, I will spend 90% time reading and 10% thinking. My problem solving and pattern recognition is also super fast. 

How has being dyslexia helped you career?

Overall during my career, dyslexia has only helped me. After I was diagnosed it changed my perception of myself and my skills. I knew my written work was good enough (I had worked very hard on it) and I knew it was OK to spend ages reading something and I do now because my clients will get the answer at the same time as others would give it to them, but my clients will get something else- my problem solving skills. My dyslexia gives me excellent pattern recognition and I can then quickly manipulate the information into the big picture. If you can give me the information in the right way, then I can fully exercise my mind on the complexity of the problems, the more complex the better! 

What are the challenges ?

Of course I still do a lot of reading, most cases are thousands of pages of documents. I just accept it takes time but my clients will give that, they want someone who can get to the right answer and set off in the right direction, and that is something I am good at, as I can quickly see where we need to go.

How does it impact your leadership?

Leadership has to be more than thought leadership, it also has to enable delivery and to do this I have found the best way is to drag as many people as possible on the journey together. And with most of my cases it's very complex and there may not be a right or wrong answer, there are a range of tolerable outcomes and the question is which is the least intolerable.  My dyslexia helps with this, my ability to see the top down view means I can see others' perspectives and anticipate their questions. This helps me to engage with people and guide people along. I also use this ability to anticipate and to argue against myself and try to destroy my case from my opponents perspective.

I have also found that because I am often right and prepared to stick my neck out, and also own it when I am wrong, people are prepared to listen to what I say because I believe it. For example, for a case I will set a direction and estimate the case value of say £2m or £3m and I will be able to do this after a short briefing with the client and introductory reading. Then 3 years down the line, I will find I am right within say 10% of the value. That is because my dyslexic brain and fast processing power means I have already been through most of the variables. Of course I have also made some cracking mistakes, you have to fail to improve! But overall people know I will stick my neck out, I believe it, I’ll be right most of the time and so they are prepared to come on the journey with me.

Of course thinking quickly and rapid problem solving but it has downsides too. I am really bad at interrupting people- that's a terrible social skill. I have to actively hold myself back, even if I think I can answer it or know what you will say next. And in a leadership context I have to hold myself back or ask the questions that help the group to understand the problem and the direction, rather than tell.

Can you share someone of something that has inspired you?

Steven Bartlett’s book Diary of a CEO- of course I didn't read it, I listened to it. I probably only ever read 1 book a year and that is on holiday (before I had kids). I would recommend his book to anyone under the age of 30 who wants to get a grip of the various conflicting parts of their lives with social media, advertising people, what jobs mean, expectations etc. He shares this idea of skills stacking. This is being really good at 6 or 7 relevant skills in your industry. If you can do this and be really good at that number you can be in the top 1% in your industry. So I can be one of the top 20 people in personal injury cases in the country and I am in my 30s. That is because I have inadvertently stacked my logic skills, interpersonal skills, public speaking, problem solving, goals oriented (I am really goal driven and make stuff happen). So stacking all of those puts me in a different bracket. Steven Bartlett's book helped me see that more explicitly.

Would you actively seek to recruit neurodiverse lawyers to a firm?

Definitely! If I could exclusively recruit only dyslexic people to be lawyers I would because computers have solved the most difficult bits of being dyslexic. Spelling and gramma checks, writing simple responses, and you can change your font size you and have a big screen. And then you get the benefits! Dyslexics bring that fantastic top down thinking. They just see the bigger picture because their brain works that way and they can see all the moving parts.

And ADHD too- you have to channel it, of course it's difficult if you are working on a case you don't like, I don't like every case I have worked on. And autism is brilliant. They wont let things go and this is a great skill in law and they don't come back until this is solved. Of course you need to great safe environment for people and give people ability to take breaks etc. 

If you take away all the reading and writing skills of being a lawyer there are important skills that our needed: making people do what you need them to, not letting things go, standing up to people in negotiation, interpersonal skills, problem solving, thinking outside the box- these are all neurodiverse skills. Of course the initial gate to entry is the problem and that is something we have now recognised as an industry. The study of law is very different from the practice, it's all about the history rather than problem solving and persuading people. But now you can start the apprenticeship route at 16 with no need for qualifications. And when I think about it, 5% of my job is the case history, 80% project management, 5% performance etc. We also need diversity. We realise that women think differently from men and you need that balance, well you also need the neurodiverse thought and those superskills that others don't have.