Legal purgatory

21 November 2011 '“ Promised land

Hello from my sofa. Jeans, jumper and slippers on a weekday afternoon '“ oh the joy of unemployment. After three weeks of work experience, four months paralegalling and 12 months as a trainee, I have officially been admitted to 'the roll' and have reverted full circle to my former student life. Before you completely write me off, I was actually offered a job on qualification but adventure has won over austerity '“ my hubbie and I are heading to Zululand in the New Year.

The inspiration came a few months back during promotion season. Conversation over drinks drifted from the rather limited chat of how wonderful it is to be rocketing up the career ladder to what to do if offered a sabbatical. Nearly the entire table looked pained '“ all had dreamt of motor biking around Africa or walking across Spain but instead they would probably spend a few weeks with the in-laws in Cornwall then head home with the kids. There we had it, unlike the large majority I was heading towards qualification and up the career ladder with only a husband and a small mortgage. No children/dogs/decrepit parents to look after. Just us.

So, unexpectedly, and facing a much fought-after career, tracks have been switched in favour of adventure and uncertainty. I have turned down the job (well temporarily anyway), sold my car and booked our flights repeating the mantra '“ you can't discover new lands until you loose sight of the shore '“ genius.

So, when signing off after the long journey to qualification what small gems can I proffer? Three, I think: be liked, work quickly and focus on the issues. Or, in other words, make tea and never moan, stay that extra half an hour to get a seemingly banal task finished early and take time to analyse what you are being asked before you jump into hours of tangential Westlaw searches. That is it, so best of luck and as they say in Kwazulu-Natal '“ salani kahle!

11 August 2011 - Second thoughts

I'm back, back to chargeable hours, temperamental photocopiers, limited outdoor hours, sensible clothes and sensible shoes, although'¦ with one not small difference, (and not the fact I have ZERO annual leave until mid November), but rather I am now 'Mrs Elizabeth Thomas'. Ta da '“ smug me captured a man before my spinster deadline. While the name change is fun, as is referring to 'my husband', life in trainee solicitordom remains depressingly the same.

I am 3.5 months away from the finishing line of qualification yet feel like I have somehow collided with the last hurdle. I am now crawling through the mud of a new seat to reach the seemingly distant white tape. And not only am I in the proverbial dirt but what awaits me after I limp to the finish is unclear.

The way it works at my firm is that you get told at around the three-month mark whether there will be a job you can apply for. There is no guarantee and no requirement that you apply. Last year's trainees decided not to apply for the job available; a decision at the time I thought was insane. Yet now wise-old-married-mud-splattered me is going through the same reflective process that most last seat trainees probably feel. That said, at a 'professional skills course' a few weeks ago my peer trainees smugly smiled in the knowledge that they are being kept on in their firms. Hmm. Well, casting aside those smuggles, I can assuredly say that my two closest friends left their City firms on qualification last year, one because it was sheer misery and the second because she wanted a 9-6 rather than a 6-9.

A training contract is definitely an experience of disillusionment however set on becoming a solicitor you are. You start working the extra hours, going the extra mile, ready to fight justice and uphold the rule of law. Then as the months grind away in front of the photocopier, at the court fees desk or on the phone to the IT help desk you find yourself marvelling about your prior enthusiasm. Do you want to become the partner you sit in a room with? Do you want to hand over some corner of a rainforest over to the loggers? What other career options do you have? Cook? Teacher? Aid worker? Watch this space for some anticipated enlightenment as to whether a solicitor is even in the list'¦

19 May 2011 '“ Ask a stupid question...

"Do you speak English?" was my question to a senior partner in a vacation scheme interview eons ago. The head of HR had primed me that the senior partner 'was an alien' and I was to explain the stock exchange to him.

As soon as I had asked the question I knew that my chances of an offer had vanished. Going on to attempt to speak Martian would be highly risky. I applied for the firm on the basis that they were involved in the vCJD litigation. Questions on prions I could have batted off but the stock exchange, I admit, I was stalling.

I had completely forgotten this ridiculous moment until a paralegal recounted some equally ridiculous questions asked of her at recent interviews. Over lunch we recounted the array of stupid tasks we have been set in the name of recruitment. Between us we've had the 'If you were a chocolate bar, what would you be?' one, the 'If a friend wrote a biography of your life, what would it include?' one and even the megalomaniac's dream of 'If you could change one event in history, what would it be?'

One classic application form question of mine was 'What do you consider to be the best invention ever?' Stuck for something impressive to say (other than a Magimix) my ten-year-old brother commented that agriculture was pretty key. Obviously that went straight down and an interview invitation arrived in the post. It turns out that Henry should have taken the interview.

There was also the time when, having completed a covering letter and CV (first stage), I had to fill out a full application form (second stage) complete with two essays, all in one week. The questions? 'Write a précis of The Scottish Play' and 'If you were a celebrity would you go on a reality TV show?'

After our amusing lunch I came back to my desk and had a slight panic that, as a trainee who is six months from qualification and with eight months of litigation under my belt, I should probably be better at this by now. So I sat down and thought long and hard about what answers I would give now. Suffice to say the interviewers would have lost the will to live if they were waiting for me to come up with it on the spot.

So this brings me to two points. It is rather easy to get complacent and forget that not only is it amazing you have managed to secure a training contract but also there is a queue of people waiting to take your comfy chair and post-it note covered desk. Our chat also reemphasised a luxury that you can have: time. If you are asked a question, one's impulse is to stumble and fudge, then scuttle out of the room having clarified your ignorance, to panic-research.

However, my traineeship has taught me that it is much better to say outright: "I do not know the answer but I will find out." By the very fact that you are being asked something implies that someone a lot higher up hasn't a clue, so their immediate expectations shouldn't be too high. After the aforementioned statement you should then go calmly to your desk and ponder the question.

Don't jump headlong into Googleing anything that comes into your head. Pause and analyse the question and find out where the crux lies. Then target your research and formulate your answer. Facts and detailed law is always the grail but common sense and analysis is key. With a pause for thought, the solution normally comes without external resources. You often see solicitors staring at the wall thinking about a problem and as a trainee you should also allow yourself the same luxury. You feel like time is running away, but it's not. Ten minutes of thought could save you hours of misdirected research.

Now would someone please explain to me why such ridiculous questions are asked of us? I bet those setting the questions were never asked who their legal superhero was. Ridiculous. Just ridiculous.

18 April 2011 '“ Daddy knows best

My father came to give a talk at my firm a couple of weeks ago. He has spent his career banking his way all over the world and the idea was to get some non-legal air in our meeting room.

The talk was fascinating and well received, if involving a few injudicious comments about having to slave away to keep his high maintenance children and "whether Elizabeth will be awarded a job on finalising her training contract". However, one point he raised as an aside has particularly stuck with this perpetually flustered trainee - you have to be in control of your working day and, by extrapolation, of your career. It seems like a rather moot point but it rang true in peels and peels.

It is the lot of a trainee that multiple solicitors will ask you to do multiple supposedly simple tasks all of which end up being monsters, running off with themselves into unforeseen problems. "Can you just call up so and so and organise blah blah blah?" goes the request. Simple enough, you think. But it never is. The expert you are to chase for his overdue report is on an undisclosed sabbatical to Timbuktu; the Land Registry is unable to send emails and the faxes never come through; a critical piece of paper has gone AWOL from the client's premises; the HMRC website keeps crashing; I could go on and on but suffice to say never underestimate a task.

That said, it is relatively easy to get through each day at a time, focusing on what is in hand, and getting slowly more efficient at fire fighting as you become more settled in each department. But being in control of one's day? Daddy's aside hit me like a crate of coffee.

Yes, I may be a trainee with no ultimate control or power, but, now you mention it, yes, I do have control over what task I do first, how I prioritise, whether I will drop everything for a sudden demand. And further, yes I do have (limited) control over where my training contract - and therefore my career - takes me. (Hint: start a prolonged campaign to harass HR into giving you your ideal seat.)

So a seemingly blasé comment from my pa has shaken me out of my bottom-of-the-pile complex and made me realise that even a trainee is an architect of one's own destiny - including one's working day. Cool but helpful detachment is the order of the day. I am channelling serenity and complete unflustered organisation.

I have seven months left of my training contract and intend to imagine my desk like that big map one in the war rooms with boats, tanks and pushing sticks: a law firm may not be a battle but I am to start becoming the queen strategist. I am master of my day and my career, I am master of my day and my career, I am, I am'¦ ah, there's the phone'¦

10 March 2011 '“ Call me a chameleon

I have always had a fondness for Meat Loaf (the singer, not the foodstuff). Bat out of hell is the ultimate hoovering anthem, while I will do anything for love invokes memories of my sister and I miming hands outstretched in that glorious pre-teen oblivion of matching baggy t-shirts, leggings and accessorised Alice bands. And still to this day Mr Marvin Lee Aday (you learn something new every day) sings true to my 27-year-old heart when reading his request that: 'If you call me anything, call me a chameleon.'

Let me demonstrate. My training contract so far has been made up of six months in litigation, two months advisory and inquests, two months bioethics in Yale, two months back in advisory and inquests, two months back in litigation, three months company commercial, three months in property (my current seat) before hopefully six months in regulation. It is a wonder I can get off at the right floor let alone find my mug. And not only do I find myself continually calling up general office to move my computer, phone and general frippery, but in those few months of being in one department it is inevitable that another department will call you up for help. Indeed, week two in property saw me not filling in stamp duty land tax returns, but on a thrilling regulatory case at the General Medical Council.

Trainee chameleonic traits do not simply stop at physical and legal areas. For as a trainee you must also develop the ability to manage both avalanches and vacuums of work without demonstrating being overwhelmed by either. In the former I recommend Quality Street and Highlights hot chocolate, while in the latter I recommend planting positive career gems and volunteering to write a few legal articles (see where this landed me'¦?).

So, we have lizard-like requirements for location, work topic despite location, volume of work and now the patchwork quilt of solicitors and their differing methods of skinning the same legal rabbit. Some like 'Dear so and so', others think a name is more than enough, some want you to print out memos of work you have done, others prefer an email, some like you to be friendly on the phone, others like you to be detached and formal, some like lines of 'do not hesitate to call'¦' while others like a more perfunctory tone, some expect you to dictate and use their secretary, others expect you to print your own labels and type your own work, some expect you to stay until you lose the will to live, others expect you to go off and have a life, some off load all their work to you, others don't like to share.

I could go on but suffice to say a successful trainee in my mind is one who can learn how to fill in the forms and pick up completely new legal understanding and jargon in days but also be that chameleon, settling into every legal environment as quickly as possible and giving the impression that you were there all along and it is important that you stay.

Now, to take some of my own reptilian medicine, I'm off to find my mug'¦

23 February 2011 - A world-weary Watts seeks solice in the fact she is not a student, or a sick American

It's now four months since I became Mr T's 'fiancée' and another four months until my initials will invoke a homesick alien.

I only sorted out my venue yesterday, while the photographer, order of service, menu, invites, decorations, transport, honeymoon, guest list and general substance of the day is all conspicuously lacking. In addition to stressing about the lack of wedding action I have also: taken my Labrador to be 'put down' on Christmas eve, been subjected to three months of due diligence in the manically busy 'CoCo' team, had a skiing holiday with no snow, argued non-stop with my parents, grumped with my fiancé, had my bag stolen on a train, spent far too long with the British Transport Police (picture the scene - an angry-bag-responsible fiancé and manic blonde stressing about a cashmere jumper) and now Microsoft Word has graced me with the final straw and disappeared from my laptop.

So, to rise above it all let's get some perspective and wallow in some bigger problems:

'¢ Sitting in the property department I have recently learned that backlog maintenance on the existing NHS estate has risen to £3.5bn in 2009 from £2.8bn in 1997, with 23 per cent of the estate estimated to be 'unfit for purpose'. Apparently it is estimated that 15 per cent of the current estate is defined as not used and a further three per cent is surplus to needs. The total unoccupied or unused estate is estimated as 4.35m metres squared at a value of £5.4bn. While PCTs currently have ownership of this mess, their proposed dissolution in 2013 means the buck will need to pass - anyone with a cool few billion to spare?

'¢ Over the other side of the pond 26 states plus a couple of other parties have brought a case challenging Obamas' Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on the basis that, by including mandatory individual health insurance, Congress has exceeded its authority and so the Act is unconstitutional. On 31 January, Judge Roger Vinson ruled that the requirement that individuals have health insurance coverage or pay a penalty is unconstitutional and unseverable from the rest of the law and therefore the whole law must be void after only just being passed. The case will be appealed and is likely to be decided by the Supreme Court in mid 2012. I can't help feeling sorry for Mr President.

'¢ Finally, as those lucky enough to be working near Trafalgar Square last December may recall, MPs have voted to raise annual university tuition fees to £6,000 from 2012 with a £9,000 maximum in exceptional circumstances. As a result, Oxford and Cambridge are proposing to raise their student fees to £9,000, arguing they have no choice in order to replace the funding being removed by ministers. An interesting contrast is Yale, where I spent last summer, which has proudly announced that the term bill covering tuition, room and board for 2010/11 was $49,800 - 'among the lowest of the Ivy League institutions'. Even more astounding is that Harvard's law school 2010/11 fees total $70,100 per annum. That's $70,100 without any guarantee of a job. I think I would seriously reconsider.

There we go - I'm feeling better now. While I may be a stressed trainee with a wedding to plan, at least I'm not responsible for millions of people's healthcare system, solving the NHS estate dilemma or in huge amounts of student debt. In fact I'm feeling rather organised'¦

12 November 2010 - Out for a walk, back with a ring

Last Sunday I went out for a country walk with a boyfriend, a dog and the joy of autumn, and came back with a ring, a fiancé and smudged mascara. Pretty exciting news: I am soon to be a doctor's wife (and can now preach healthcare law socially to people who may actually care).

The reason I went into law was, in all honesty, to be closer to medicine. Odd you may think, but after a fainting fit that saw me hooked up to an ECG on day 1 of my doctoring work experience, and my university days of forgetting to put bacteria on slides (I spent half a practical exam trying to establish what bacteria resembled a crystal of dye), the potential careers of a doctor or research scientist looked bleak. So with the career prognosis uncertain, default to law school, mummy said. Follow every other graduate who doesn't have a clue what to do, she said. Get a profession, all said. And so, as always, mummy knew best. Yet with medicine still swinging its legs on the pedalstall I Googled 'medical law London', and to great joy came up with my now employer.

I cannot emphasise enough to anyone thinking about a legal profession: decide a general area of life that you are interested in and then find the law firm that helps that area survive. It is vitally important and a point I am (nearly) wedded to that you must know your client, and how better than to have a true appreciation of what they do. Not to mention that the daily grind becomes a lot more interesting if you actually are interested in the context of your work. I was told recently that the majority of lawyers are of the same standard, but the successful ones are those who have a rapport with their client. So those awaiting a perfect training contract to appear on your jobbing paralegal desk, apply instead for an interim job with your potential employer's clients. Trainees are trainees, you come, you go, so distinguish yourself in an interview by arriving with a little black book of contacts that could reap rewards for the firm much higher than the outlay of a trainee's paltry salary. Trust me, manipulation.

Talking of manipulation, I am engaged with a wedding to plan. Coincidentally, the week before my wonderful fiancé muddied his knee, marriage shot into the headlines with 'prenuptials'. They are now, in certain circumstances, binding. Obviously you have to have something worth protecting to bother entering into one. To my mind there appears to be three bands, those like my doctor and I who are both being paid either directly or indirectly by the taxpayer/NHS (the circularity of money doesn't bear thinking about) so a prenup would be worth less than the paper it is written on. Then there are those in the slightly older more monied bracket who have developed love-cynicism with their years. Finally there are those who have trustees and relatives breathing down their neck, as seen in the recent House of Lords case of Radmacher. This well-publicised case has found that the nineteenth century idea that ante-nuptial agreements are contrary to public policy is obsolete. It used to be of utmost importance for society to maintain the lifelong commitment to the relationship of husband and wife. Therefore the idea was that if weight is given to agreements for a future separation, society's interests would be breached. Yet times have moved on, divorce is a sad but daily occurrence and so it has now been judged right that the law of our land raises its head from the marital bliss sand.

The effect of Radmacher is not to say that the parties can "oust the jurisdiction of the courts" but merely that "in the future it will be natural to infer that parties who enter into an ante-nuptial agreement'¦ intend that effect should be given to it". That said, the majority acknowledged that there will be undefined but exampled circumstances when it will not be fair to hold the parties to their agreement; a failure to have independent legal advice before signing such an agreement, as in the discussed case, would not be in itself an overriding circumstance. Therefore, given the infinite engagement circumstances, it was held undesirable "to lay down rules that would fetter the flexibility that the court requires to reach a fair result". Litigation lawyers breathe, breathe, in out, in out, there are disputes still to be had.

Hurrah to law following societal norms; however, I'm smugly with Lady Hale when she said that "marriage still counts for something in the law of this country and long may it continue to do so". Now, buffet or table plan, band or dj'¦?

14 October 2010 '“ bar blues

After work last week I power-rocked up to Marylebone in my MBTs en route to meet my obs and gynae boyfriend in a bar when the news came that Hampstead was seeing a rapid population increase, and so for the sake of mothers and babies I'd be on my own for the first drink.

Ambling along I soon planned a consolatory glass of champagne and a good delve into my handbag-battered book. Picking up speed with this plan in mind I propelled myself into the bar, announced the reservation and smiled at my perfect customer time-keeping. Barely looking up I was factually informed that VIPs had been given our table '“ with no hint of apology, offer of another table, a drink or a smile. I could wait in the doorway or at the service hatch, they mumbled, in case a triple-booked table became free.

In disbelief, and causing a very 'innocent' but unhelpful palaver in full view of the VIPs (doctors), I stood in the doorway, removed my MBTs, knocked over the business card stand, and returned to my heeled halfway-solicitor presentable status. To protect the bar's clientele from flying debris, I was soon granted two stools by the door on the condition that we ate.

Most would have stormed out, but, as the daughter of a garden centre owner who has spent many a weekend dealing with demanding customers, I find I can never be too confrontational to fellow front of house staff. So I accepted, sat down and rather deflatededly ordered said champagne and attempted to focus on John Clare in an asylum.

Needless to say, after the babies were born, the hands washed and my VIP had arrived, I recounted the story with gusto (possibly thanks to the unlined stomach '“ they may have had a point about the food) and was immediately marched off to the pub where a customer is a customer whatever the day job.

If you're wondering where this rant fits in legally, you need look no further than secretary of state Kenneth Clarke's announcement that the Bribery Act 2010 will be implemented (six months late) next April.

Bribery. The very thought makes one's morals crawl. In our grey and insular land bribery is an appalling word conjuring up images of corrupt African rebel leaders and lobbyists in Washington. Yet one may reasonably suspect that VIPs may get a not-VIP's table by slight of hand.

Sadly, for my bar woe, it turns out that such bartended actions will not be covered by this otherwise wide reaching Act. It does create the new corportate offence, whereby a public or private organisation will be held strictly liable for an unlimited fine should a person performing services for or on its behalf bribe another with the intention of obtaining or retaining business for the organisation or, to obtain or retain an advantage in the conduct of business for the same. So being bribed does not fall under this category '“ only bribing another.

To be potentially guilty of any offence under the Act, the central function or activity must be of a public nature, connected with a business, performed in the course of someone's employment, or performed by or on behalf of a body of persons. While we have my bartender on the employment head, to be liable under the Act a reasonable person must also expect the central person to act either in good faith, impartially, or be in a position of trust. Therein lies the problem. I think we all appreciate that bar staff are not impartial. In fact I have spent all my bar-queuing years banking on the fact that a certain sex of bartender is definitely not.

30 September 2010 '“ the six minute workout

With fitness training there is a scale from flabby to firm; with a dog: unruly to obedient; a rose: from wild to sculpted; and with a trainee solicitor: abject fear of everything to dictating without a second thought.

So where on the trainee solicitor scale am I? On a purely numbers basis: nine out of 24 months. I should be closer to 12 out of 24, but a couple of stolen months at Yale have prolonged the regime.

Talking of Yale, a moment of inspiration and a flurry of emails saw me blogging my way through that perhaps premature sabbatical here at www.solicitorsjournal.com.

To follow on from those efforts, I have since agreed to continue blogging through my training contract. From now until November 2011 I will be hoping to blog the bridge between trainee solicitor and newly qualified, while also attempting to provide legal updates in a pre-caffeine-sluggish-brain-barely-able-to-focus-sympathetic fashion.

As a trainee in my second year of apprenticeship I will be sharing with SJ some gems for those in the same position, aiming to be in the same position, or for the 110,000+ solicitors in the UK who want to be reminded of life in legal purgatory.

So, perhaps not a gem but more of a thought about time recording: as an unashamed adorer of all things geeky, with all the hours spent in a library meticulously planning for exams that ensue, enforced time recording is a stress.

For those out of the loop, as a lawyer, every six minutes of your working life must be recorded by you via a clock on your computer screen. You apportion each 'unit' to an activity which is then reviewed and billed to the client.

It feels like sitting an exam without having done a sausage of preparation. You get a problem, the clock starts, the clock stops (often at a defined limit) and you get feedback of your attempts.

For someone who is happy to spend hot summer days at the book coalface driven by a fear of failure, time recording is a quirk of lawerying life which I and many other trainees were unaware of when sitting at the uni career's desk.

The most depressing part is that when helping out at my mother's garden centre on weekends I now have an irrational panic if I leave to go and sell some resin weave without pressing pause'¦

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