My first month as a trainee lawyer
Someone recently asked me whether the training contract was what I expected it to be. And the honest answer is no. It’s better!
I’m officially more than 1/6th of my way through my first seat. I’m in the commercial property and development team split across the London and the Milton Keynes office- a seat that I am thoroughly enjoying.
The first week was firm induction. I travelled to Birmingham on Monday morning at approximately 6:00 and arrived at 8:30am - a whole hour before we were due to start at 9:30. I saw a message flash on my WhatsApp from the trainee group chat - I wasn’t the only one to arrive a whole hour early - a lot of the trainees had the same idea, so we took the opportunity to sit down in a coffee shop nearby the office to catch up and discuss how we were feeling about starting our training contracts. They echoed how I was feeling: excited, nervous, and in disbelief that after a two-year wait from the day that we received our offers, the day had finally arrived. After our fix of caffeine, we made our way to start the first day of the rest of our lives as lawyers.
Induction consisted of talks from many different departments of the firm. We also had IT training, compliance training, and the Professional Skills Course at the University of Law in Birmingham. I won’t go into detail about all of that now, but stay tuned for a blog post about the Professional Skills Course (PSC).
In week two I started in the Commercial Property and Development team. I had talks with my supervising partners in the first and second week, and then in the second week I started to get work sent to me. One of my fears was that no one would send me work and I would have to awkwardly ask for things to do all the time. Whilst the work did come quite slowly during the second week, it soon picked up. Before long, I had a steady stream of work from several different fee earners across offices. I have just completed week four of being with my team, and I am busy assisting on several matters.
I have made an effort to go into the office twice per week in order to immerse myself fully in the training contract experience. It is really important to me that I build relationships with co-workers, build my own reputation within the firm, and just have a change of scenery a couple of times a week! I enjoy the feeling of being in the City which is so full of history, walking past people in suits and looking up at the grand buildings. I don’t think I would quite get that feeling from sitting at home all the time.
I expected that as a trainee I would have to do some administrative tasks, perhaps a little bit of photocopying. I know firms say “you won’t be doing any photocopying here” - but I always thought that would be somewhat of a false promise and that in reality we would probably have to help out on a few administrative tasks here and there. Coming from a previous career where I was in a position of responsibility, I felt a little disheartened that by starting a new career I would have to start right at the bottom all over again, but I haven’t felt like that once whilst working at my firm. I have been given far more responsibility than I expected; I have been asked to draft legal documents which I then receive feedback on - and to be honest, I find it so interesting and enjoyable that I almost cannot believe that I get paid to do this!
Overall, my first month has been so much better than I expected. I enjoy going to work every day, and I cannot wait to see what the future holds. My only regret is that I did not start this career sooner!
