The Corporate Law Journal - the digital newspaper reporting on the regulatory shifts in the business world 

By: Saffron Gilbert-Kaluba
Date: June 2023

Introducing alumna Saffron Gilbert-Kaluba, the CEO and Co-Founder at The Corporate Law Journal and Founder at The Law Chronicle.

What have you been up to since you left Durham and how has your time at Durham inspired you to get where you are today?

Since I left Durham, I have expanded my company, as CEO and Co-Founder at The Corporate Law Journal, to over 40 people. As Founder and CEO at The Law Chronicle, we build RegTech products for compliance teams in the financial services industry. The Law Chronicle does this by synthesising regulatory data and AI (artificial intelligence). I help oversee the executive decisions within the two companies, whilst also thinking about its future. We have worked with over 100 companies and have recently been featured in the Forbes 30 under 30.

I came up with the idea for The Corporate Law Journal with a fellow friend at Durham University over brunch, the morning after our Michaelmas Ball at our college, Van Mildert College. At the time, The Corporate Law Journal was not created to be a company at first. It was inspired by our first term at Durham University in our first year. My Co-Founder was a Business student at Durham and she had wanted to keep up to date with law firms as her plans were to do a conversion course and become a lawyer. So she would ask me to come along to the presentations that were hosted at Durham University by at least three different firms every week. Each firm had the same formula, knowing about the firm, getting the grades needed and commercial awareness. However, when asked how to even just get this commercial awareness we were both confronted with either unknowing answers, references to watching the news channel all day or reading financial publications (which were not geared towards wider legal and regulatory commercial awareness).

Therefore, back in 2018 on that decisive morning I decided to make that change for students who may not have the spare cash to spend on weekly subscriptions to publications which may only focus on a small range of financial subjects rather than the wider legal picture going on in the world. So that is when The Corporate Law Journal was born. When seeing if this was something that would appeal to those interested in law, my role as the Events Director, then subsequently Vice President of the Durham Law Society allowed me to engage with fellow students who would always declare at our events, fairs, AGMs, and even emails, that they desperately wanted more commercial awareness. This was equally seen in the society which I founded, the Durham Corporate Governance in the New Economy Society (CGNE). Consequently, Durham was a constant inspiration from the founding to its infancy as it had been a constant throughout my university life.

Founding a company from my university dorm room at 18 has allowed me to be appointed as a Secretariat Representative for The All Party Parliamentary Group for Entrepreneurship, through The Entrepreneurs Network. I usually visit the House of Lords or the House of Commons once a month to collaborate with Government ministers, members of the House of Lords and their representatives, offering recommendations on British growth and innovation. Generally, I like to look at how the sectors of law and business can collide, therefore we mainly hold roundtables with government ministers for the Department for Business and Trade. For example, I worked with the UK Government Minister for Women, Maria Caulfield and Baroness Jenkin on the Female Founders Report ‘One in A Million’ in 2022, which we released in the UK House of Lords. In the Female Founders Report I mainly gave my suggestions of how to improve the workplace for women in the intersection of law and business (e.g. legal departments of businesses).

Further to this, serving on the Inclusive Innovation Forum Board of Morgan Stanley, means that I can focus on minority founders whereas in my role on the Barclays Female Founders Forum, I support female entrepreneurship.

As a guest lecturer at Durham Business School I have lectured executives from prominent companies such as Boeing, AerData B.V., and Jeppesen, on the importance of company compliance. Similarly, as a Guest Fellow at the Royal Academy of Engineering, I help in advising its fellows within the ‘Leaders in Innovation Fellowship’ program on the importance of regulation and compliance when commercialising their inventions.

Therefore, I would say that these opportunities were enabled by being able to express myself as an entrepreneur at Durham University, even whilst studying for a law degree alongside founding The Corporate Law Journal and The Law Chronicle.

Tell us about your journey of creating your business.

My journey in the beginning when creating my business began very humbly. Ideation of The Corporate Law Journal began in December 2018 and by September 2019 our launch article was published. Our launch article was with the Dean of Durham Law School at the time who wrote about the relevance of law schools in this day and age. I wanted to have an ‘Exclusive Author’ section as a USP to encourage more readership. This section was to be filled by successful professionals in fields in law and beyond to detail to aspiring professionals how they got to where they are. In addition to this, my co-founder and I would then write general articles and upload them every week. We had no budget, so therefore I designed the logo and helped in setting out the website design. After a few months we had a lot of readers as we were doing quite well on Google Search (even though we had not spent any money on marketing or SEO features). It just happened that the titles and topics of the articles that we were uploading were relevant to a lot of online readers. Then one day I received a message in our ‘Contact Us’ section from someone who wanted us to be their Media Partner within only a year of being a company. By the time I had finished reading the message, I looked at the sign off and it was from the Head of Legal at Reuters, the world’s largest news organisation! It was from then that The Corporate Law Journal really got its confidence and exploded into the wide-reaching platform that it is today.

One of my biggest achievements and career highlights so far is being recognised by Forbes on its ‘Forbes 30 Under 30’ list in March 2023. I am the youngest lister in my category at only 23 years old, amongst some of the world’s most innovative and fastest growing companies. My hopes for the future include being able to simplify legal news for all with The Corporate Law Journal.

Secondly, with The Law Chronicle, I hope for it to become the single source solution to provide regulatory expertise through artificial intelligence for companies. I wish to maintain an innovative and disruptive software solution that fills a gap in the market for compliance in technology companies and financial institutions. This is to provide regulatory insights and simplify complex compliance frameworks. By offering a user-friendly platform, compliance teams can navigate regulatory updates easily, akin to a 'Bloomberg terminal' for compliance. By streamlining compliance processes, it will allow businesses to rival their global counterparts in terms of compliance standards. This will result in labour, time and cost savings, as companies can allocate more revenue to expanding operations; instead of excessively spending on further billable consultations with lawyers - in turn allowing companies to make more money.

Have you got any fond memories you would like to share of your time at Durham?

Fond memories of Durham always include being part of the collegiate system and making so many life-long friends. Being part of Van Mildert College was a nice getaway in my first year from the hustle and bustle of the main town. Nevertheless, when I did live in town in my penultimate and final year I always loved to do walks by the racecourse/Maiden Castle in Pelaw Woods and the Old Durham Gardens where there was a 2nd century Roman villa/farm. Nineteen centuries later, there is an actual farm field behind it which has the cutest alpacas and horses!

Also in terms of The Corporate Law Journal as a company, my co-founder and I spent our first year ideating in the Durham Business School Library. At the time that I was at Durham University the Bill Bryson Library was not a 24 hour facility - however, the Durham Business School Library was. Therefore, because my college was only a 30 second walk from the Durham Business School I had countless all-nighters there with my co-founder of The Corporate Law Journal. We would work on our degrees, as well as our business.

Finally, in relation to the Durham Business School, one of my fondest memories include my support from the Business School - particularly from Marek Tokarski and Dr Joanna Berry. Despite not being a Business School student, the Business School always supported me with the questions that I had with regards to business (no matter how small or silly I thought the questions were!). For this, I am forever grateful as I would not be where I am today without Durham Business School’s continued support. 

What would be your top piece of advice for anyone considering studying at Durham?

Do it! Durham allowed me to study in an innovative way with my law degree as I was able to have access to some of the top academics within the field, whilst having some of the best extracurricular offerings such as the Durham Law Society to support my studies. Durham University is also amazing for those who wish to get in touch with the world of work as many firms, companies and organisations visit with presentations and engaging events to help expose to you what you may want to do after you finish your degree.

Ultimately, I believe that studying at Durham University was the best choice for myself at the time as I was able to reach my full potential which helped to carve out the person that I am today.