September 15, 2024 • 11 mins
Welcome back to Point Me to a Profession, the podcast where we propose a potential job each episode to see if it's something that suits us. This week, we're joined by a solicitor who shares his journey of becoming a legal professional in the UK, involving years of study, internships, and training.
Our guest provides a detailed look at the application process, the types of group exercises faced, and the essential skills needed for success in this field. We delve into the daily responsibilities and the unpredictable nature of the job, highlighting tasks like drafting contracts, conducting research, and managing client relationships.
We also explore career progression opportunities, from junior solicitor to potential partnership, and discuss the importance of staying organized and multitasking. For those considering a legal career, our guest offers valuable advice on gaining relevant work experience and researching law firms.
subscribe or follow us on social media to discover unique job opportunities and steer your career path in a pointed direction. Instagram: @Pointmetoaprofesssion
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome back to Point Me to a Profession, the podcast where we propose a potential
job each episode to see if it's something that suits us.
We get to find out what it would be like before actually committing to the study
and years of working the way up the corporate ladder.
For instance, this week we are joined by a solicitor who has gone through five
(00:20):
years of studies, work experience and training in the UK to get into a law firm.
They gave you a scenario where you're stranded on a desert island and you can
only take one piece of kit that you have from a plane that's crash-landed.
Shall we find out what it's like?
Music.
(00:41):
Thank you for joining me. No problem. So, your official title is solicitor or associate.
Yeah, associate, solicitor or
solicitor. Could you tell me a bit about how you got to your profession?
Yes, so I first applied for two-week internships with a lot of large city law firms.
(01:06):
In terms of the application process for that, I would do an initial application online.
After that, the application would be reviewed and if successful,
you'd be invited to an assessment centre with other candidates at the law firm.
And you do group exercises and potentially
an interview with two lawyers after that if
(01:28):
you were successful you'd be invited to do a two-week internship with the
firm and after at
the end of the two-week internship you'd be interviewed again by a
couple of partners and if successful you'd be offered a
training contract a training contract is essentially two
years on a fixed-term contract with the law as a
trainee solicitor and you will
(01:49):
rotate between four different departments over
two years six months each and that
will give you a lot of experience in different areas of law within one law firm
and at the end of the two years you will be interviewed by the law firm again
and you'll be either offered a permanent role as a junior solicitor or you.
(02:17):
Are unsuccessful when you search elsewhere I was
actually unsuccessful at the end of my two years but I secured a
job at another law firm as a genius solicitor where
I am now great so it's quite a long process to
to get to the point and there's a lot of training that's involved
in it and if we take a step back before
that you had to do a law degree right or is there a trend there's a
(02:39):
transferable law degree you can also do to get into it yeah so
you can either do an undergraduate law
degree like a lot of people do like a three-year
degree at most universities across the
country or you can study a
non-law degree and then do one
a one-year law conversion course and
(03:02):
then the the legal practice course after that
for you mentioned that you need to do group exercises
in some of those what sort of group exercises do you have to do so there'll
be be decided by the law firm obviously but i remember one i did was they gave
you a scenario where you're stranded on a desert island and you can only take
(03:23):
one piece of kit that you have from,
a plane that's crash landed and so you have to discuss with the other members of the group.
Which is the best piece of equipment to take on
and carry forward on this desert island and i
think rather i think rather than
the the decision about which piece
(03:45):
of equipment you take i think what they're looking for more is how
you interact with other group members and make sure that you stick to the time
limit you're given and how persuasive perhaps you can be yeah but not overpowering
as well that's really listening to other parties hearing what they have to say
and so on so which goes on to one of my other questions which is what would you say are some
(04:07):
of the skills you need to be a solicitor or practicing?
I mean, there's loads, but the ones that I would mention would be organization. So.
You'll have a lot of emails coming into your inbox every day,
and you need to have a system in place to be able to deal with those emails
because they will relate to different matters that you're working on.
(04:27):
So being very organized, being able to have a system in place so that you meet
all the deadlines for all the different matters that you're working on is really important.
I'd say multitasking is another really important skill. So as I mentioned before,
you'll be dealing with multiple different matters at any given time.
So the ability to be able to juggle multiple
(04:48):
plates in one go and deliver a good
service to all the different clients that you're working for is really important great
so that nicely brings me on to a question
i have about what your average what's an average day
for a solicitor and your experience is going to be different from another person
but as as far as you know an average solicitor duties
i mean it really depends on the area of law
(05:10):
that you work in for a start but and I mean I
work in finance but I don't really have no
no two days are the same is what I'd say I mean you'll as I
mentioned you'll be working on a couple of different matters any one time
but even those matters will be at
different stages so one day you could
be reviewing some draft contracts the next day you could be doing research on
(05:36):
a borrower company that your client will be lending to you might be proofreading
some documents they're about to go out for execution so.
There's no typical day, but there are common tasks that will crop up again and again.
Okay, so do you feel like that's something that attracts you to the role,
(05:58):
is that things are always changing?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of variation in what I do.
I mean, that's not the same necessarily for every area of law,
but I mean, right now I'm still fairly new, so I'm still learning.
And yeah, there's a lot to learn, obviously,
but I don't think that I'd say it's repetitive
(06:19):
yeah so what is the the career
progression that you see yourself going in and
what are these sort of options that are available so after
about five years of post-qualification experience there's potentially
the option to become a senior associate and then about 10
years qualified you would be looking to become
(06:39):
a partner at the law firm I mean not
everyone gets to partner every some
people might not want to so they might they might
go to an in-house they might go to an in-house legal team
you don't necessarily have to work in private practice
forever but for those who want to remain in private
practice normally the goal is to become a partner how
(07:01):
easy is it to figure out what area of law you want to go and you mentioned that
you worked in multiple different departments do you have to have a rough idea
beforehand like with research talking to people or do you get a nice flavor
when you're working in different teams I mean you might have an idea.
Before you start training but I mean you can't really know until you've you've
(07:25):
worked in that department for an extended length could you give an example of
the types of departments that you
worked in yeah so I worked in a I worked in an arbitration team so we acted
for insurers who were facing claims from insureds.
(07:45):
And I then moved, so I did that for six months and then I moved to projects and construction team.
So we acted for lots of employers who were looking to put into place building
contracts with various contractors.
I worked in an aviation finance team. So we acted for airlines,
(08:06):
lessors who were leasing aircraft and we assisted with the leasing on that.
That and then my final seat was as a
in an education team doing professional negligence
work for professionals who are being
sued by clients okay so how much of the day would you say how much client facing
(08:28):
work do you do as opposed to sort of reading and you mentioned a lot of computer-based
work and you mentioned some research is there a lot of client facing as a As
a junior associate and trainee,
not as much as a more senior lawyer, obviously, because that was something that
you develop with experience.
(08:48):
But even at this stage, I have had contact.
There are duties that I'm responsible for that I report to the client on.
So yes, there is a lot of client contact, but it tends to be as you get more senior.
If you had to talk about your favourite part, your favourite task,
I know you said you like the variance?
(09:08):
What are the things that really attract you? What sort of are your favourite things about the role?
I like drafting. So a lot of the time we're trying to put into place contracts
or loans, for example, that will essentially state that our client is lending money,
to a borrower in exchange for security over various assets.
(09:32):
So I think drafting, you have to have your head screwed on you have to really
read and look at what you're drafting and to make sure that it protects your
client's interest so I find that quite interesting.
Are there parts of the role that you find to be more challenging that you may
not have expected to be challenging?
(09:53):
I mean I'm still very it's all very new to me so
it's a very steep learning curve itself at the
moment but I think as you get more experienced you start to really come into
your own know what you're doing so how have you seen yourself matured job wise
from working from it I think you sort of learn to work under pressure as you
(10:14):
get older and as you develop more experience,
there are situations that would have stressed me out a lot when I was starting out.
I realise now that even in those kind of high pressure situations,
it's just important to remain calm, to take a step back and to solve the problem at hand.
Do you have any advice for someone who's going to be looking at this as a career path?
(10:40):
Something you would have liked if someone had told you?
Yeah, I would make sure that you do a lot of research on the places that you're
applying to because there's no two law firms that are the same and they'll want
to know why you've chosen specifically there rather than another firm so being
able to know what sets that law firm aside from another law firm is really important,
(11:02):
and the other thing i would say is to try and get as much work experience as
you can because obviously they'll want to know what prior experience you have
what you've done to try and pursue your interest getting any legal work experience
you possibly can would be really
important awesome okay well thank you
so much for joining me no not at all thank you
(11:24):
for listening to this week's episode next time
we'll be joined by a guest who works as a tour guide for e-biking and hikes
in a remote destination if you don't want to miss out on new job interviews
consider subscribing or following on social media so that you can find out the
niche jobs that are out there and steer your job search in a pointed direction until.
(11:46):
Music.
Welcome back to Point Me to a Profession, the podcast where we propose a potential
job each episode to see if it's something that suits us.
We get to find out what it would be like before actually committing to the study
and years of working the way up the corporate ladder.
For instance, this week we are joined by a solicitor who has gone through five
(00:20):
years of studies, work experience and training in the UK to get into a law firm.
They gave you a scenario where you're stranded on a desert island and you can
only take one piece of kit that you have from a plane that's crash-landed.
Shall we find out what it's like?
Music.
(00:41):
Thank you for joining me. No problem. So, your official title is solicitor or associate.
Yeah, associate, solicitor or
solicitor. Could you tell me a bit about how you got to your profession?
Yes, so I first applied for two-week internships with a lot of large city law firms.
(01:06):
In terms of the application process for that, I would do an initial application online.
After that, the application would be reviewed and if successful,
you'd be invited to an assessment centre with other candidates at the law firm.
And you do group exercises and potentially
an interview with two lawyers after that if
(01:28):
you were successful you'd be invited to do a two-week internship with the
firm and after at
the end of the two-week internship you'd be interviewed again by a
couple of partners and if successful you'd be offered a
training contract a training contract is essentially two
years on a fixed-term contract with the law as a
trainee solicitor and you will
(01:49):
rotate between four different departments over
two years six months each and that
will give you a lot of experience in different areas of law within one law firm
and at the end of the two years you will be interviewed by the law firm again
and you'll be either offered a permanent role as a junior solicitor or you.
(02:17):
Are unsuccessful when you search elsewhere I was
actually unsuccessful at the end of my two years but I secured a
job at another law firm as a genius solicitor where
I am now great so it's quite a long process to
to get to the point and there's a lot of training that's involved
in it and if we take a step back before
that you had to do a law degree right or is there a trend there's a
(02:39):
transferable law degree you can also do to get into it yeah so
you can either do an undergraduate law
degree like a lot of people do like a three-year
degree at most universities across the
country or you can study a
non-law degree and then do one
a one-year law conversion course and
(03:02):
then the the legal practice course after that
for you mentioned that you need to do group exercises
in some of those what sort of group exercises do you have to do so there'll
be be decided by the law firm obviously but i remember one i did was they gave
you a scenario where you're stranded on a desert island and you can only take
(03:23):
one piece of kit that you have from,
a plane that's crash landed and so you have to discuss with the other members of the group.
Which is the best piece of equipment to take on
and carry forward on this desert island and i
think rather i think rather than
the the decision about which piece
(03:45):
of equipment you take i think what they're looking for more is how
you interact with other group members and make sure that you stick to the time
limit you're given and how persuasive perhaps you can be yeah but not overpowering
as well that's really listening to other parties hearing what they have to say
and so on so which goes on to one of my other questions which is what would you say are some
(04:07):
of the skills you need to be a solicitor or practicing?
I mean, there's loads, but the ones that I would mention would be organization. So.
You'll have a lot of emails coming into your inbox every day,
and you need to have a system in place to be able to deal with those emails
because they will relate to different matters that you're working on.
(04:27):
So being very organized, being able to have a system in place so that you meet
all the deadlines for all the different matters that you're working on is really important.
I'd say multitasking is another really important skill. So as I mentioned before,
you'll be dealing with multiple different matters at any given time.
So the ability to be able to juggle multiple
(04:48):
plates in one go and deliver a good
service to all the different clients that you're working for is really important great
so that nicely brings me on to a question
i have about what your average what's an average day
for a solicitor and your experience is going to be different from another person
but as as far as you know an average solicitor duties
i mean it really depends on the area of law
(05:10):
that you work in for a start but and I mean I
work in finance but I don't really have no
no two days are the same is what I'd say I mean you'll as I
mentioned you'll be working on a couple of different matters any one time
but even those matters will be at
different stages so one day you could
be reviewing some draft contracts the next day you could be doing research on
(05:36):
a borrower company that your client will be lending to you might be proofreading
some documents they're about to go out for execution so.
There's no typical day, but there are common tasks that will crop up again and again.
Okay, so do you feel like that's something that attracts you to the role,
(05:58):
is that things are always changing?
Yeah, I mean, there's a lot of variation in what I do.
I mean, that's not the same necessarily for every area of law,
but I mean, right now I'm still fairly new, so I'm still learning.
And yeah, there's a lot to learn, obviously,
but I don't think that I'd say it's repetitive
(06:19):
yeah so what is the the career
progression that you see yourself going in and
what are these sort of options that are available so after
about five years of post-qualification experience there's potentially
the option to become a senior associate and then about 10
years qualified you would be looking to become
(06:39):
a partner at the law firm I mean not
everyone gets to partner every some
people might not want to so they might they might
go to an in-house they might go to an in-house legal team
you don't necessarily have to work in private practice
forever but for those who want to remain in private
practice normally the goal is to become a partner how
(07:01):
easy is it to figure out what area of law you want to go and you mentioned that
you worked in multiple different departments do you have to have a rough idea
beforehand like with research talking to people or do you get a nice flavor
when you're working in different teams I mean you might have an idea.
Before you start training but I mean you can't really know until you've you've
(07:25):
worked in that department for an extended length could you give an example of
the types of departments that you
worked in yeah so I worked in a I worked in an arbitration team so we acted
for insurers who were facing claims from insureds.
(07:45):
And I then moved, so I did that for six months and then I moved to projects and construction team.
So we acted for lots of employers who were looking to put into place building
contracts with various contractors.
I worked in an aviation finance team. So we acted for airlines,
(08:06):
lessors who were leasing aircraft and we assisted with the leasing on that.
That and then my final seat was as a
in an education team doing professional negligence
work for professionals who are being
sued by clients okay so how much of the day would you say how much client facing
(08:28):
work do you do as opposed to sort of reading and you mentioned a lot of computer-based
work and you mentioned some research is there a lot of client facing as a As
a junior associate and trainee,
not as much as a more senior lawyer, obviously, because that was something that
you develop with experience.
(08:48):
But even at this stage, I have had contact.
There are duties that I'm responsible for that I report to the client on.
So yes, there is a lot of client contact, but it tends to be as you get more senior.
If you had to talk about your favourite part, your favourite task,
I know you said you like the variance?
(09:08):
What are the things that really attract you? What sort of are your favourite things about the role?
I like drafting. So a lot of the time we're trying to put into place contracts
or loans, for example, that will essentially state that our client is lending money,
to a borrower in exchange for security over various assets.
(09:32):
So I think drafting, you have to have your head screwed on you have to really
read and look at what you're drafting and to make sure that it protects your
client's interest so I find that quite interesting.
Are there parts of the role that you find to be more challenging that you may
not have expected to be challenging?
(09:53):
I mean I'm still very it's all very new to me so
it's a very steep learning curve itself at the
moment but I think as you get more experienced you start to really come into
your own know what you're doing so how have you seen yourself matured job wise
from working from it I think you sort of learn to work under pressure as you
(10:14):
get older and as you develop more experience,
there are situations that would have stressed me out a lot when I was starting out.
I realise now that even in those kind of high pressure situations,
it's just important to remain calm, to take a step back and to solve the problem at hand.
Do you have any advice for someone who's going to be looking at this as a career path?
(10:40):
Something you would have liked if someone had told you?
Yeah, I would make sure that you do a lot of research on the places that you're
applying to because there's no two law firms that are the same and they'll want
to know why you've chosen specifically there rather than another firm so being
able to know what sets that law firm aside from another law firm is really important,
(11:02):
and the other thing i would say is to try and get as much work experience as
you can because obviously they'll want to know what prior experience you have
what you've done to try and pursue your interest getting any legal work experience
you possibly can would be really
important awesome okay well thank you
so much for joining me no not at all thank you
(11:24):
for listening to this week's episode next time
we'll be joined by a guest who works as a tour guide for e-biking and hikes
in a remote destination if you don't want to miss out on new job interviews
consider subscribing or following on social media so that you can find out the
niche jobs that are out there and steer your job search in a pointed direction until.
(11:46):
Music.
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