When Kem and I founded Henry Dannell, we had a clear view of the type of advisory business we wanted to build.
We did not want to be generalists who happened to work with complex clients. We wanted to develop genuine areas of specialism within the firm, where knowledge, experience and lender relationships could deepen over time and create something meaningfully different for the clients we serve.
There is perhaps no better example of that than our work with the Bar.
I have arranged mortgages for barristers myself over the years, but the development of this part of Henry Dannell has unquestionably been led by Kem.
Before we founded the business, he had already developed considerable experience working with barristers and had identified a recurring problem: the financial strength of a barrister was not always reflected in the way a conventional lender assessed their circumstances.
When Kem brought that expertise into Henry Dannell, the objective was never simply to continue advising the same type of client.
It was to build around them.
What has developed since is effectively a business within our business, built around understanding the financial journey of the Bar.
It Began By Understanding Where Conventional Lending Can Struggle
Barristers can have an exceptional professional trajectory while presenting a financial profile that does not always fit comfortably within conventional mortgage underwriting.
The journey itself explains why.
Pupillage can involve an award before earnings begin to develop during the second six. Taking tenancy marks the move into full self-employment, often before the barrister has accumulated the historic accounts normally expected of a self-employed applicant.
From there, income can increase sharply as the practice develops.
Later, the challenges can change again. Billing and accounting periods can create fluctuations between years. There can be a distinction between work completed, fees billed and cash received. Aged debt can become relevant. Career breaks can temporarily affect earnings, while judicial appointments and taking silk introduce further nuances as a barrister progresses.
Henry Dannell’s Journey of the Bar guide was built around these different stages precisely because the financial challenges change as the career develops.
Kem understood early that the answer was not simply to identify a handful of lenders willing to consider barristers.
It was to understand the profession well enough to recognise what was happening behind the figures.
Over time, that understanding became a specialism.
The specialism became a team.
And the team became an important part of Henry Dannell.
A Specialist Desk Should Mean More Than A Name
We sometimes refer to our work with barristers as a specialist desk.
In reality, what has developed goes considerably further.
A desk could simply mean allocating a particular category of enquiry to a group of advisers.
What we have built is a body of knowledge around the Bar.
There are the clients themselves, but there is also the experience accumulated through their cases, the relationships surrounding the profession, the lender conversations, our understanding of chambers information and the ability to advise across mortgages, specialist finance and protection as requirements develop.
Most importantly, that knowledge has become institutional.
Every case adds something.
Every unusual set of accounts deepens our understanding.
Every conversation with an underwriter gives us greater insight into how a particular lender may interpret a scenario.
Every pupil, new tenant and established practitioner we work with contributes to the experience that can then benefit the next barrister who comes through the door.
That is when specialism starts to become something more meaningful than a label.
We Have Built Around The Career, Not Simply The Transaction
This is one of the aspects of Kem’s work that I value most.
A barrister does not encounter one financial challenge throughout their career.
The challenges evolve with them.
During pupillage, the question may be whether a mortgage is possible at all.
During the second six, it may be how the pupillage award and emerging earnings can be evidenced.
On taking tenancy, the concern may become:
“I’m now fully self-employed. Does that mean I need to wait two years before I can get a mortgage?”
Yet a new tenant has not appeared from nowhere.
There is a professional and financial journey behind them. There may be a pupillage award, earnings generated during the second six, confirmation of tenancy and chambers information showing how the practice is developing.
Our existing barrister guidance recognises both the difficulty some lenders have understanding this transition and the potential importance of information around pupillage, tenancy, current income, aged debt and case completion timelines.
A few years later, the challenge may be completely different.
The practice may have developed so quickly that historic accounts no longer reflect current earnings.
Later again, one lower year could create questions about affordability when the explanation lies in billing, accounting periods, a career break or the timing of receipts.
Eventually, the requirement may move beyond a conventional mortgage altogether. The client may need more substantial property borrowing, specialist finance, short-term liquidity or protection around an increasingly valuable income stream.
The proposition has developed around those changing requirements.
That is why I see what Kem has built as much more than a mortgage desk.
We Often Meet Barristers Who Believe The Answer Has Already Been Decided
Over the years, I have seen barristers come to us with assumptions that are already influencing important financial decisions.
“I’ve just taken tenancy, so I cannot get a mortgage.”
“I don’t have two years of accounts.”
“My latest income has fallen.”
“My bank has already said no.”
“I need access to capital quickly.”
These are very different circumstances, but there is often a common thread.
One aspect of the client’s financial position has been treated as though it determines the entire outcome.
That is not how we approach advice at Henry Dannell.
We do not begin by promising that every problem can be solved. There will always be circumstances where affordability, evidence, credit risk or lender policy means the required borrowing is not available.
But nor do we assume that a perceived obstacle is necessarily the final answer.
We establish whether the obstacle is actually real.
That distinction is fundamental to specialist advice.
A Lack Of History Is Not Necessarily A Lack Of Evidence
The move from pupillage into tenancy demonstrates this particularly well.
Professionally, the barrister has progressed.
They have completed pupillage, secured tenancy and begun the next stage of building their practice.
Yet from a conventional mortgage perspective, the conversation can suddenly become dominated by something they do not have: two years of self-employed accounts.
That can overlook everything that came before.
There may be evidence of the pupillage award, income generated during the second six and information from chambers showing the development of the practice.
Henry Dannell’s existing guidance recognises that many lenders require a history of self-employment while also highlighting the distinctive progression of barrister earnings and the importance of helping lenders understand that journey.
Does the wider evidence guarantee the mortgage a client wants?
No.
But the absence of two completed years of accounts should not automatically be confused with an absence of financial evidence.
Our job is to understand the difference and identify lenders whose criteria may allow them to consider it.
Sometimes The Challenge Is Liquidity Rather Than Financial Strength
At another stage of a barrister’s career, the issue can look entirely different.
A successful practitioner may need access to capital at relatively short notice, perhaps because a significant liability is approaching before expected cash has been received.
From the outside, that can appear contradictory.
How can somebody with a successful practice and substantial earnings experience a short-term liquidity requirement?
Again, the answer can lie in how the profession works.
There can be a meaningful gap between completing work, billing for it and receiving the money. Henry Dannell’s barrister guidance also highlights how cash and accrual accounting can produce different pictures of income depending on when earnings are recognised.
The existence of a liquidity requirement therefore does not, by itself, tell us whether the underlying financial position is strong or weak.
We need to understand what is happening.
What capital is required?
When is it required?
What assets are available?
What income is outstanding?
When is that income expected?
Is borrowing appropriate?
And, if it is, what is the repayment strategy?
Sometimes conventional mortgage borrowing may be appropriate. In other circumstances, specialist or short-term finance may need to be considered. Sometimes borrowing will not make sense at all.
The objective is to solve the actual financial problem rather than make assumptions about what the client’s finances should look like.
Experience Changes The Conversations We Can Have With Lenders
One of the most valuable consequences of building scale within a specialism is that recurring themes begin to emerge.
You see where conventional lending criteria work well.
You also see where those criteria can struggle to reflect the reality of the profession.
Why should taking tenancy necessarily be treated in exactly the same way as starting an unrelated business from scratch?
How should a rapidly developing practice be assessed when the accounts are inherently backward-looking?
What additional evidence could provide context where historic figures do not tell the complete story?
How should a temporary reduction in income be understood?
What information could give an underwriter greater confidence in the underlying position?
Our experience allows us to have those conversations with lenders from a position of genuine understanding.
Henry Dannell’s existing barrister guidance describes the work undertaken with banks and lenders to develop pilot schemes, improve understanding of barrister income and support underwriter and credit-committee education around pupillage, tenancy, aged debt and significant movements in earnings.
We are not asking lenders to disregard responsible lending, affordability or risk.
We are helping them understand the circumstances and evidence more completely.
That ability to engage constructively with lenders is a significant part of what Kem has built.
The Bar Has Also Helped Define The Type Of Business We Want Henry Dannell To Be
For me, this is where the story becomes bigger than our work with barristers.
What Kem has built around the Bar demonstrates the type of business we have always wanted Henry Dannell to become.
We believe in genuine specialisms.
That means more than assigning an adviser to a particular client category.
It means developing enough depth to understand the environment in which those clients operate.
You build the technical knowledge.
You understand the recurring challenges.
You develop the relationships.
You learn where conventional lender policy creates friction.
You improve the conversations with underwriters.
You build a team around that expertise.
And, as the financial requirements of those clients become more sophisticated, you develop the proposition alongside them.
This mirrors the broader direction of advice at Henry Dannell, where lending is increasingly approached as part of a wider strategy around liquidity, flexibility and long-term financial objectives rather than as an isolated transaction.
Eventually, you are no longer simply handling a category of mortgage enquiry.
You have created a business within the wider business.
That is what has happened with the Bar.
Specialism Compounds Over Time
The more barristers we work with, the more valuable the accumulated experience becomes.
More clients create more cases.
More cases expose us to more circumstances.
Those circumstances reveal patterns.
Those patterns improve how we prepare future applications and how we speak to lenders.
And each new client benefits from the knowledge accumulated through the clients who came before them.
That is difficult to replicate quickly.
It is not simply product knowledge.
It is institutional capability.
Kem established the foundations for that within Henry Dannell, but what I find particularly impressive is what has subsequently been built around them.
The team has developed.
The lender relationships have developed.
The breadth of advice has developed.
And the barrister proposition has become an important part of the wider Henry Dannell business.
What Kem Has Built Has Helped Define What Specialism Means To Us
When I look at our work with the Bar today, I do not simply see one adviser with a particular area of expertise.
I see a proposition deliberately built around a profession.
That is much more powerful.
It means understanding the pupil barrister who believes home ownership needs to wait.
It means understanding the new tenant who thinks becoming fully self-employed has reset the mortgage clock.
It means understanding the established barrister whose historic accounts no longer reflect the strength of their current practice.
It means investigating why one year of income has fallen rather than automatically assuming the practice has deteriorated.
It means recognising when a successful practitioner has a liquidity requirement rather than an underlying financial weakness.
And it means having the breadth of expertise within Henry Dannell to consider mortgages, specialist finance and protection as those requirements evolve.
Kem led us into this space, established the foundations and then built a team and proposition capable of carrying that specialism considerably further.
As his co-founder, that is something I am enormously proud to have watched develop.
Because it represents precisely what we wanted Henry Dannell to do differently.
The Client Should Not Have To Become The Specialist
There is one type of conversation that, for me, captures the value of everything we have built.
A client comes to us and says:
“I’ve been told I can’t.”
Our response is not automatically:
“We can.”
It is:
“Tell us why you’ve been told you can’t.”
That difference matters.
Sometimes the original answer will be correct.
Sometimes affordability will be the issue.
Sometimes the evidence simply will not support the borrowing required.
Sometimes lender policy genuinely will not accommodate the circumstances.
But sometimes the obstacle exists because the client’s position has been viewed through the wrong lens.
Our responsibility is to know enough about the client, the profession and the lending market to establish which it is.
The client should not have to become an expert in mortgage underwriting simply because their finances require greater interpretation.
That is our job.
Built On Understanding
What Kem has created around the Bar is one of the strongest examples of how we believe a specialist advisory business should be built.
Start with the client.
Understand their world.
Identify the problems that repeatedly create friction.
Build knowledge around those problems.
Build relationships around that knowledge.
Build a team capable of applying it.
And continue developing the proposition as the client’s needs develop.
Henry Dannell’s wider approach to debt advice is built on a similar principle: the adviser’s role is increasingly to interpret complexity and bring coherence to the client’s financial position rather than simply source a product.
That is how expertise becomes institutional knowledge.
It is how a specialist proposition becomes a meaningful part of a wider business.
And it is why our work with the Bar has helped define Henry Dannell.
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