Five minutes with...James Dudbridge, ForrestBrown

I’m a solicitor specialising in tax, now leading the consultancy arm of a tax advisory business. It’s a role that encompasses many different elements: supporting clients of all sizes with complex challenges; dispute resolution; strategic planning and team development, all of which benefit from a dose of creativity. I wouldn’t change a thing.

I recognise that it sounds cliché, but I find there is rarely such a thing as a typical working day. One day I might be evolving our growth plan or supporting our existing clients, the next could involve troubleshooting or speaking to businesses about how we can add value.

It’s that broad mix of elements that I love and keeps me motivated.

I have a couple of high-value tax disputes I am working on, alongside a major project to build the in-house capability of a large company to help it move away from its annual cycle of adviser-centric tax compliance. 

I’m also in the early stages of working with a company that’s developing cutting edge subsea technology. I enjoy being enthusiastically barraged with technical information that I can barely comprehend.

What I genuinely find most exciting is clients recognising the value we bring to their cases and seeing the teams receive their thanks and feedback. It gives me immense pride and is hugely gratifying for the team.

At the other end of the spectrum, it can be enormously frustrating when the investment made by us and our client isn’t reciprocated by HM Revenue and Customs during a compliance check or dispute.

So much time, effort and cost could be saved if the right level of investment and experience were applied at an early stage of a disagreement.

Fundamentally, the role of the tax adviser is to provide value to the client and it’s important as a business that we don’t lose sight of that (value being very much a subjective term). 

There’s rarely a single solution to a problem – particularly in complex cases – so the ability to think laterally and to explain information clearly to ensure that your client is making a confident and informed choice is key.

A fundamental misconception is that our work can be procedural or follows a well-established pattern. That’s not how we operate.

The work we undertake in the consulting part of the business is very broad and every project needs a ground-up approach built on a thorough understanding of your brief. It doesn’t mean you don’t apply experience or take learnings from similar work, but broad thinking and creativity are very much a valued part of our toolkit.

I’ve been fortunate to work with some hugely thoughtful and inspiring people over the years, both in and out of private practice.

I’ve always thought that, as you grow and gain experience, you absorb things from the people you work with and add them to your own capability. 

So, I would say that who I am today reflects the many small pieces of inspiration I have accumulated over the years from the numerous inspirational people I have worked with.

I’ve always been a test cricketer at heart, so retiring after a successful career of rearguard innings to a role coasting around the world commentating (occasionally) on the sport, sounds very appealing.

To listen to those earlier in my career saying that I needed to have more confidence in myself. Confidence can be gained from a variety of sources and, for anyone starting out in professional life, it doesn’t always arrive immediately.

So, I would say acknowledge your achievements, however small, and feel confident in your abilities.

I’m going to caveat this with the fact that ‘cool’ is a subjective term but, for me, the intersection of technical tax concepts with strategy and commerciality is challenging in the best way.

When you can navigate a client through that maze and give them clarity and confidence in their way forward, it’s incredibly gratifying.

As a bonus, you also get to work with some amazing clients.