Season 12, Episode Seven August 10, 2025

SPEAKER_01 0:00

This is the listening tube.

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Hello. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. Now heard in a thousand cities around the world. I'm your host, Bob Woodley. On this episode, I'll speak with attorney and mediator Leah Brown about justice. But first.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

Not the headlines.

SPEAKER_00 0:31

When I started the listening tube more than three years ago, it was because I wanted to give people the tools to consume news in a more pragmatic, if not critical, way. That's why Not the Headlines has always been the show starter. We've heard about how news is written and presented for purposes other than informing us, stories that I thought were interesting but underreported, and ways to look at a story from a perspective other than what we get from the legacy media. It was just announced this week that the Corporation for Public Broadcasting will cease operations. The abandonment of the corporation came when the federal government pulled $1.9 billion of funding. So why did the government pull the funding? Because NPR and PBS, which were partially funded by CPB, did what all the other mainstream media companies did and became ideologically one-sided. Therefore, it was deemed they are no longer in the public interest, despite the Lawrence Wilk reruns, which I enjoy. But when their leaders are brought before Congress to discuss the content on public radio and television, and one of their own comes out and writes a story about how every single one of the reporters at NPR are registered Democrats, with not even an independent among the crew, then it's perfectly reasonable to ask if this is worth the taxpayers' money. And frankly, if their news and opinions was so valuable and necessary, they should be able to raise funds from the private sector to cover the drop in government funding. The independent stations are already asking for your financial support. But if the private funds aren't coming through, you have to wonder if the service they provide, as far as news reporting goes, is something we need. When I was in the Air Force, my job was to inform and entertain American troops stationed overseas. I did most of that as a radio personality. I'll admit that I was often informative and entertaining in other ways as well. But I was most needed where there were no other English-speaking media sources. So we provide radio and or television for the troops to hear and watch. My first duty station was in Guam. The most common language on Guam is English. There is a native language called Chamorro, and they have a universal phrase similar to Hawaii's Aloha that's pronounced half a day. It's a greeting if you're coming or going. Half a day! Half a day! Do the rest Chamorro. Anyway, because Guam is an unincorporated territory of the United States, like Puerto Rico, there were also commercial radio stations there that broadcast in English. I actually got into an argument with the commander of the Chow Hall because they were playing one of the commercial radio stations in the Chow Hall instead of the official Air Force radio station that was there for the express purpose of informing and entertaining the troops. That son of a bitch wrote a letter to my commander calling me a stormtrooper. I didn't get in any trouble for that. In fact, my commander went to the base commander, and the base commander told the Chow Hall commander to play AFN Guam on the Chow Hall sound system. But the point is, there were already other English-speaking radio stations on the island. Not just one either. Eventually, the guys who own the radio stations downtown started asking why their tax dollars are paying for their competition. AFN had some really cool programming, and back in the early 80s, there wasn't any way to import programs. I once waited two weeks to get a cassette of Thomas Dolby's hyperactive album at a record store there. But Armed Forces Radio has a steady supply of the latest stuff coming via courier on a weekly basis. Stacks of records with all sorts of programs and songs by contemporary artists. The civilian stations couldn't keep up with the government-funded and supplied radio station and protested that we were too dominant, and the commercial stations felt that they were perfectly capable of keeping everyone on the island informed and entertained. I left Guam in late 1984 on my way to West Berlin. The Guam station was shut down not long after as the commercial stations got their way. There was no justification for keeping the Far East Network Guam operating. The same thing happened to American Forces Network Berlin. I left there in 1986, the wall came down in 1989, Germany reunified in 1991, and AFN Berlin was no longer needed. It ceased operations in 1994. The same thing is happening to the corporation for public broadcasting. There probably will be other dominoes to fall. Perhaps PBS and NPR will turn over a new leaf, find a new lease on life, become what they were meant to be, a servant of the public. But it might already be too late. Political winds may change direction, but they leave a lot behind. This week in 1964, South Africa is banned from the Olympic Games due to the country's racist policies. The Games were held in Tokyo that year. There were other things that made those games unique. But it was skin color that got all the attention when South Africa was denied participation. More recently, transgender athletes are the focus of attention. The last Summer Olympics was marred by a man beating the crap out of women boxers. The next Summer Olympics is in Los Angeles, California, and there will be no transgender athletes in attendance unless it's in the bleachers. And that's how it should be. It's bad enough that a man wants to beat up women, but it's even worse when said man pretends to be a woman in order to do so. The ironic part is that very few women came forward to protest this abomination of civil behavior. In fact, most on the left proclaimed support for the right of transgender men to participate in women's sports and not only dominate, but also endanger actual women. When I think about the predicament placed upon liberal women when it comes to transgender participation in women's sports, I can't help but wonder why they came down on the side of the men who are pretending to be women. Liberal women have spent decades complaining about how men have ruled their lives and how they need to be more independent and more recognized and more appreciated. And I don't have any arguments against any of that. But then when men identify as women and begin to dominate women's sports, you welcome the fox into the hen house. For the record, I'm not a fox. But I have been described as a barracuda by a woman to my mom.

SPEAKER_01 8:35

The listening tube will return at the speed of sound. Send email to thelistening tube at outlook.com.

SPEAKER_00 8:47

My guest today is an England-based attorney, mediator, author, and business consultant. Wow, she sounds really smart. And not just because she has a British accent. Leah Brown spent some time in the listening tube talking with me about different kinds of justice and how it's not always the result of court proceedings. I know from what exposure I have to British people, a lot of people have initials after their names, and I see you do too. What does F R S A stand for?

SPEAKER_02 9:24

It means that I'm a fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. I I have many other letters after my name, but this one just makes it easier to find me on LinkedIn.

SPEAKER_00 9:33

Okay. My initials are RG for a regular guy. Maybe it'll catch on. I doubt it. Leah, your bio says you were born in the United States, but then relocated to England. So you are an American citizen then, correct?

SPEAKER_02 9:51

I am, yes.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Do you know the Pledge of Allegiance?

SPEAKER_02 9:56

I do, yes. I went to um an Air Force J. Rotze school when I was in high school where I graduated, and so I do know the Pledge of Allegiance.

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Okay, I was just curious because my my late wife was born in Minnesota but raised in Canada, and she didn't know the Pledge of Allegiance. So I was just wondering about that. Now, I do hope to talk to you today about justice, and uh the American Pledge of Allegiance proclaims that there will be justice for all. It's debatable as to whether or not that's true, but that's a story for another day. Let's I want to I want to get right down to the basics here for a moment and ask you what is the purpose of justice?

SPEAKER_02 10:44

I think it's to impose a finding in a matter where two parties have not been able to reach agreement, to right any wrongs that might have occurred along the way and establish a fair outcome, both parties having been heard. I'm sure there's a more simple way of explaining that, but um very deeply in the concept of justice is this equity and fairness in the UK. And so the doctrine of equity says, you know, he who comes to court must come with clean hands. So there's a kind of good faith presumption, and therefore the idea that a judge would sit, um, whether it's criminal and or or civil and try and figure out not so much what has happened, but what needs to happen to make it right. And that I think that decision, that process is what we call justice.

SPEAKER_00 11:41

Now you say with clean hands, I'm I'm assuming that's figuratively and not literally.

SPEAKER_02 11:47

Correct.

SPEAKER_00 11:48

Okay. I'm not sure. I I don't think I have ever heard the expression before put quite that way. So uh, but I I also know from my limited exposure to British people that you have a whole different way of using. Well a lot of idioms than than we do in America and many other English-speaking uh countries as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:09

Now, a lot of your uh published material supports what you call restorative justice. How is restorative justice different from a criminal or civil justice? Or is it is it is it a third thing, or is it just a different way of approaching the other two?

SPEAKER_02 12:30

I would say it's an extension of the two. And the reason that I say that is because restorative justice puts relationship at the heart of the issue. So if you're a judge looking at something, and a great example of this would be the family courts. So let's say um a family has has fallen apart and um the judge needs to decide what happens to the children. And the judge can only decide on the basis of the facts that have been presented to them and the evidence that they've received and come to a decision. That judge cannot impose an apology. They cannot impose any kind of flexibility other than within the legal parameters they have available to them. Even if there is a path to improving the state of affairs between the parties, that's not the role of the courts. And so restorative justice takes one step further and says, if you have experienced something heinous, the justice system doesn't really help you process that. The justice system focuses on the offender, without you really being involved in that process, comes to a decision about what should happen to the offender. But the experience of the survivor is left hanging. And restorative justice brings the survivor and the offender outside of the court process together to be able to decide what has happened, how has that made each participant feel, and what would they like to do next.

SPEAKER_00 13:54

Do you often find that the victims and perpetrators want to pursue such an endeavor?

SPEAKER_02 14:02

So, one of the things that uh I've I've read about a lot and I've I've seen in practice, survivors often most want whatever the perpetrator did or the offender did to not happen to anybody else. That that is one of the key findings of survivors. And therefore, to be able to engage in a process where the survivor reclaims their agency by being able to say to that person who has caused them harm, if I can in any way inform what they do next, or show them the profound impact that their conduct had on me, or encourage in some small way them to behave differently, I would be feel privileged to be able to do that. Now, I'm not saying it's easy. I'm not saying it's even commonplace. A lot of offenders, um we have four categories of prisons in the UK, and the most severe offenders don't uh get invited to participate in restorative justice programs. Um, my contention is that it it doesn't really matter what the scale of the offense is, a process like that being offered is really important. Um, because people do need to move on to their on with their lives if traumatic things have happened, and people struggle to process things in a vacuum. And therefore, wherever somebody is expressing a desire to go through that restorative process. Uh, I interviewed somebody um about a year and a half ago who's a member of parliament. Um he had been stabbed whilst at his constituency office, and he had expressed a great desire. He'd written to the person who had stabbed him in prison and asked if they would be willing to meet and have this supervised, facilitated conversation because it was important to him that he get to ask them why, but it was also important to him that they be set free from his judgment or or fear that he have an opportunity to forgive them for what it is that they've done. So it's not universally desired, but it does powerful things when it is embraced.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

Now, in America, quite often uh victims will have the opportunity to have what what we call a victim impact statement uh prior to sentencing. Uh so I'm assuming then that you don't really have a process like that in in Britain.

SPEAKER_02 16:23

We do. We do.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Oh. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 16:25

Um the impact statements um are a part of that process, but they're not always relied upon. They're not always invited. Um it depends on the evidentiary process.

SPEAKER_00 16:38

One of the things I notice you talk about a lot is institutional harm. What institutions are causing harm and what kinds of things are causing harm? How are people being harmed by institutions?

SPEAKER_02 16:52

Great question. So um the white paper, uh, which is um the piece of work that you've referred to being recently published, talks specifically about um institutional harm in government-funded bodies. So think hospitals, police, schools, um, think the civil service. So that will include the Ministry of Defense, that will include the Ministry of Justice. There are a variety of government departments that are responsible for providing a public service. The Home Office gets a lot of airtime in our report. And you don't have to go far to look at the migrant crisis that the Home Office is managing, or a few years ago, eight years ago now, um, a tower block burned down in North London, and the Home Office was responsible for the response to that because they are responsible for the police and the fire services. And I think when it comes to harm being caused by an institution, when an institution has a responsibility to provide a service or to act in a particular situation to preserve life or to do no harm, harm would be in a hospital case, for example, a maternity ward that doesn't take sufficient precautions or that doesn't provide sufficient care or that has a large number of um neonatals who are dying on their watch. Um it might be a police force that has a lot of instances of misconduct. It could be the Ministry of Defense, which has been in the news recently, for releasing a huge amount of private and confidential information that has gone into the hands of another country where their citizens are now vulnerable to be killed because their personal information has been made public. I think we don't think of institutions being capable of causing harm because we forget that leaders run institutions and therefore should have responsibility over the decisions that those institutions make. And so it really comes down to a culture, a culture of leadership. What is that sense of responsibility? How are we being responsible with the money that we are responsible for stewarding for this particular purpose? And what do we do when something goes wrong? How do we fix it? Do we pretend it never happened? Do we throw a bunch of money at defending ourselves, or do we stop and we say, well, we're responsible for this, we've caused this harm, now let's take responsibility for fixing it?

SPEAKER_00 19:16

Well, that's the thing then. How is justice as a result of institutional harm defined?

SPEAKER_02 19:23

Well, I think at the moment it's defined as we'll do an inquiry, we'll do an investigation, we will find out what's happened, and we will tie up this process in so much paperwork to be seen to be doing something, only to get the results of that to realize that actually there's a different process that needs to be done, which is why we have so many compensation schemes. Because at the end of the day, when you harm enough people, in order to treat the entire class of people affected fairly, the only compensation really is money. Now, we recently had a post office scandal. Um, this has gone on for more than 20 years, where in the UK each village has a post office, and we have what we call sub-postmasters who run that little branch of that post office. And they were given a system which was run by Fujitsu, and they were responsible for the computer programming to enable the post office clerks to pay in their money the receipts that they received from the little old lady posting her letter or whoever was coming in to pay their weekly insurance fees or whatever. And the books couldn't balance because the software was corrupt. And what the government did indirectly, but what the government did was allow this to persist without holding the computer manufacturer responsible, um, the company that was responsible for the post office contracts responsible, and allowed those sub postmasters to be charged with criminal offenses of theft, ruining their careers, ruining their livelihoods. Many of them went bankrupt. And it was such an endemic failure across the board that there are so many affected persons. It is the largest ever compensation scheme that they've had to roll out in the UK. And they had a mediation scheme, and the people who had been convicted of the criminal offenses were not eligible to participate in the mediation schemes, and therefore they couldn't get the redress, and so they are still seeking justice.

SPEAKER_00 21:22

Wow, that's uh a little bit convoluted, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 21:25

We like to push things under the rug in Britain.

SPEAKER_00 21:27

Criminal justice has a lot of built-in deterrence. If you do that, you're gonna get this. Does restorative justice have any types of deterrent qualities?

SPEAKER_02 21:42

Oh, I think so. When's the last time you enjoyed saying sorry to somebody? Or, you know, how uncomfortable did you feel when somebody uh was vulnerable enough with you to say this is what it would look like to make amends? You know, the greatest example I think of this is children who hurt one another and the parents don't. Intervene. They just say, you know, be nice to your brother or whatever. But let's say one has punched the other and left them with a black eye. The person who gave the punch, it's gonna take a huge amount of grace to do whatever it is that their sibling is asking them to do to make this situation better. Now, I would say that restorative justice as a concept is a deterrent because if you bring it outside of the justice system and if you bring it into, for example, a leadership team, you know you're gonna have to face the person that you've hurt, you know you're not just gonna have to have a difficult conversation, but it's gonna require something of you. It's going to be costly. I would say that's much, a much better deterrent than you're gonna get a slap on the wrist for stealing a pack of cigarettes, or you know, you might get five months in prison with a suspended sentence for assault or bodily harm or burglary. So I I think in and of itself, that that culturally is a deterrent.

SPEAKER_00 23:02

Do you feel that restorative justice is necessary simply because the criminal justice system isn't doing its job well enough?

SPEAKER_02 23:11

I think justice systems have limits. Because even if you make an egg an effective apology, does the harm go away? We have a we have a problem in society where we we don't know how to move on from things that have hurt us. And we don't do well with grief. I don't know many societies that do, but certainly in Western society we have we have problems with with grief. And restorative processes help you move through that grief process um more effectively. But you see, the thing that's lost when you've experienced harm is trust. And if you want to rebuild trust, you need a relational process. And the courts are never going to enable you to rebuild trust. So it depends on what you want it for. It's not saying the whole criminal justice system is defunct, because of course we've managed to prosecute and convict people who have done heinous things. But what I'm trying to say is if we want justice for survivors, if we want them to be able to say when we ask them, have you experienced justice, we need that apology and amends part of things, which isn't part of the criminal justice process.

SPEAKER_00 24:26

Now you seem to be well known for your mediation skills. What's more challenging? A legal mediation or a corporate mediation?

SPEAKER_02 24:42

I would say um let's define the terms. So I do a lot of different types of mediation. So I do um workplace and employment uh and board mediations, which are between 10 to 15 people trying to figure out what's happened, what do you need, what would it look like to co-design, co-architect a future that you can all live with, or who needs to leave this team in order for this team to be effective. And then on the other side, the more traditional kind of commercial mediation, so you know, big insurance companies or companies who are arguing with other companies. I will always prefer that kind of workplace board situation because your ability to be impactful, you can change 15 lives in that process. Um, you can help them understand themselves better. Mediation is brilliant for self-awareness. You can help them not just understand themselves, but each other better, what they need. Many people in England are emotionally repressed and don't know what they want, they don't know what they feel, they don't know what they're communicating. Um, and so in terms of impact, I feel like that's hugely impactful. On the corporate side, you know, it's wonderful to see people come together to reach a figure that everybody's happy with and open a bottle of champagne. But are you changing the way that that company is going to do things going forwards? Probably not. Uh it's much more formulaic. So I definitely press power the the team and the the board mediation.

SPEAKER_00 26:16

Okay, now and a lot of the work that you do in that area, you I'm guessing comes through this organization that you've created called the Wayfinders Group. Tell me about the Wayfinders Group.

SPEAKER_02 26:29

Yeah, so I set up the Wayfinders Group in 2022, and we kind of got off the ground in 2023. And it's a values-driven problem-solving consultancy. And I feel very grateful to have reconciliation and transformation at the heart of it. Um, I think for me, it is amazing to help leaders who are navigating change and conflict and crisis. I get to rebuild trust when things get political and egos get in the way. And I can do that through change management, I can do that through conflict resolution, I can do that through our political work. And not just me, I have a wonderful team of consultants and mediators. I work with other consultancies, I work with the Society of Mediators, I'm on several mediation panels. Um, and so I get to work in across the public, private, and third sectors doing this rebuilding trust work and helping people have effective conversations all day, every day. And that's like a really unique way of looking at problem solving. I do a lot of advisory work as well. When you're a mediator, you don't advise, you listen. And as a lawyer, it's good to be able to still do that advisory piece, but I prefer holding space for people to share what's on their mind and help them figure out what they want to do.

SPEAKER_00 27:55

Now, the Wayfinders Group website says that the gap between institutions and the public is getting wider. What do you mean by that?

SPEAKER_02 28:09

I think if you, you know, it's for me once, for me twice kind of situation. Except we're kind of on for me for the tenth time. In the UK, we've had some challenging political experiences. We've had so much change in leadership. Um, every day somebody's asking, are we gonna have to have a new prime minister? Are we gonna have to have a new leader of the opposition? You know, two weeks ago we had a brand new party as a spin-off of what we thought was a sure party that had only been elected a year ago. You know, it's very unstable. The economy is also incredibly unstable. And public services are unstable insofar as they need the economy to be able to thrive. And so this breakdown in trust comes from a sense that the institutions aren't doing what they have been created to do. And if the institutions are breaking down, it matters to the public. Because if I need an ambulance and I can't be sure it's gonna show up, not in 10 minutes, not in an hour, but in 10 hours, I've got to figure out, okay, I'm not even gonna call the ambulance, I'm just gonna drive myself to accident in an emergency. If I can't trust the hospital to be able to give me a surgery when they say they're going to give me a surgery, rather than cancel it three times and put my life at risk because they've not yet done the diagnostic to figure out what's wrong with me, I'm gonna have to plan differently and invest in private healthcare. You know, if I'm if I need to be able to be sure about when I engage with something, I'm going to get X or I'm going to get Y. We don't have that surety at the moment. And that that is causing people to riot. It's causing people to be discontent. And I'm not a protester myself, but I know that there are a lot of people who have been affected across a wide range of public services. And so when you take that collectively and you stick it in the melting pot, that's why you get this statistic that's just trending down. And part of that is political leadership, and part of that is economic. But the main reason is we don't invest in infrastructure in the United Kingdom. And so when we need to have invested, there's nothing in the pot. And therefore, it's actually impossible for the leaders who are currently in post to deliver what is needed because the leaders before them haven't invested in making that possible.

SPEAKER_00 30:27

And it's a vicious cycle then, all the way around. Are there any institutions to which you can point that are doing a good job?

SPEAKER_02 30:36

I think it depends on what your metric is. Because, you know, for example, there's 54 police forces, I think, across the UK. They're not all terrible, but none of them are amazing. So within different institutions, you it depends on where the baseline is. Some will be performing better than others in different areas. The same with hospital trusts, um, which again they have in every region, and churches, which they have in every region as well. There's been a lot of focus on the NHS, our National Health Services, tenure plan, which was announced a month ago, and what that is going to do in terms of that kind of research and development and investment. And here's a blueprint for change over the next 10 years, which has been well received. I think it lacks substance, but it's just my personal opinion. Um, the Department for Education has been working incredibly hard to address things like school exclusions and violence in schools, and I suppose ensure that every child has a place to be in school, and that has become more difficult because with the government's policy on charging extra tax on private school and independent school fees, means that more people are being pushed back into the state school sector. The Ministry of Defense is working hard to get court backlogs down. Um, they could be doing more, they could be using more mediation, they could be using more restorative justice processes, but they say that they are too expensive, so they haven't invested in them as much as they could have. There's room for improvement across the board, I think I would say. I think that's the best way to answer your question.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

When it comes to restorative justice, what if we're in a case where, like, just should an institution pay out or admit wrongdoing or make an apology to a plaintiff, even if the institution didn't do anything wrong, yet they're they're they're being accused of it?

SPEAKER_02 32:30

Yeah, that's a good question. So I think again, defining the terms is quite helpful. So um a restorative justice process is separate from the legal process. And like a mediation process, anything that you disclose in that mediation can't be discussed further at trial. It can't be brought up, it can't be referred to, it can't be exhibited, it can't be discussed. Because in order to have the safety that you need in that process, you're not saying you're not saying you were right or you were wrong. What you're trying to say is what does this person need from me to make this right? And I think the answer to that question that you've posed, if the institution isn't wrong, what is it that this person wants? Maybe they just want to be able to go back to their job without being afraid every day. So maybe what they need is long-term counseling. Maybe what they need is um, you know, for the organization as a gesture of goodwill to do something that means that they're not in that team anymore. Or, you know, they might want the entire organization to be trained on something so that it doesn't happen again. That person might not want the organization to make this grand gesture about what happened to them. They might not want anybody to know, but they might want something else. And so I think that's a fairly similar experience has happened in mediations, in grievance processes and disciplinary processes where that stuff kind of comes out. Often, the more I talk to people who are navigating those types of processes, there have been crosswires up until that point. And there usually is something that the organization hasn't done right. And you've also got to remember there will be an inevitable imbalance in power between an institution that can afford full legal defense and an individual who's probably self-financing or maybe got their entire family to crowdfund to be able to bring their case forwards. And so these processes save a lot of time, they save a lot of money, and they allow people to explore what's really going on and what they really need moving forwards.

SPEAKER_00 34:31

Leah, you and I have similar opinions about cover-ups. They are always worse than the original offense. My rudimentary conclusion is that's because you now have two offenses instead of just one. But you may be able to expand on that. What are some other reasons why the cover-up is worse than the crime?

SPEAKER_02 34:57

What a survivor most needs when we come to what how do you get justice is an acknowledgement that what has happened has happened. By the time you're in cover-up stage, you're so far from, you know, it's compounding everything. So a survivor is going to be repeatedly traumatized. It's like a gaslighting relationship. And it's not just the original offense and the cover-up, it's every single thing that happens between the two that makes the survivor feel that they're getting further and further and further away from the possibility of justice. And it's kind of like shirking responsibility at every turn because it's easier. It's like playing dodgeball. But it's irresponsible. And it is often what is advised by crisis managers or reputation managers. Don't say anything, don't say anything, don't admit liability, don't do this. And justice takes a long time to be achieved. You know, some claims might be heard within 18 months, but some people were still waiting for justice, you know, four years later. And so we've also got to remember the amount of time between the initial offense, the cover-up, and then the subsequent investigative journalism that blows the whole thing open. This can be decades, decades of continual trauma not being supported, not being heard, not being understood. It's psychologically damaging. And it's psychologically damaging not just for the survivor, but for anybody else who was hoping that that survivor would get justice for what that person or that institution has done, as well as anybody, of course, who is on looking for um hoping that the organization will do the right thing.

SPEAKER_00 36:32

I have always uh noticed that British and American people use collective terms in slightly different ways. For example, uh, we would say Miami has the ball, and the British would say Miami have the ball. So I'm going to ask you a question in my best British. All right. Please forgive me if you find this offensive, but uh do the Wayfinders Group work with only British institutions, or are you international?

SPEAKER_02 37:10

We are international. I spend my days across time zones. Um we have clients in Singapore, we have clients in um Holland, we have clients in the US, we have clients in Germany and in Eastern Europe. I'd like to do more work in the United States, because mostly I just do speaking there rather than um client work. I've got a background in tech, um being a general counsel for tech startups. And so we'd we'd love to be working with more East Coast-based businesses. Um, and also, if there's an opportunity, to take some of the political learnings that we've been exploring here in the UK to the US also. Because whilst the context is different, many of the challenges are the same.

SPEAKER_00 37:59

Well, as you may be aware, uh here in the United States, we are dealing with what may be one of the largest cover-ups in American government uh political history.

SPEAKER_02 38:13

So I was gonna say which one, because I read about two this morning.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

So you you might want to set up an office in Washington, D.C. as soon as possible. I think I think we might need some help there.

SPEAKER_02 38:25

I have I have an address there, so I'd be very happy to apply to.

SPEAKER_00 38:28

Okay. Leah's white paper, From Harm to Healing, Rebuilding Trust in Britain's publicly funded institutions, is available on her website, LeahTalks.com. There is more to learn about Leah and the Wayfinders Group. Many thanks to Leah Brown for spending some time with me in the listening tube. The Listening Tube is written and produced by yours truly, Copyright 2025. Thank you for putting your ear to the listening tube. I'm your host, Bob Woodley, for Val and Infinitum.