A less travelled route to the law

I began working at CMS as a legal secretary in the summer of 2012. Before then, the thought of becoming a lawyer had crossed my mind a few times over the years. It seemed like a blessing in disguise to have been offered a position at CMS and on top of that, to have managed to get my foot in the door with no legal experience, albeit plenty of office experience since leaving school.

However, it seems I was extremely lucky. It is well known that it is not easy gaining legal work experience, and even over the course of the nine and a half years since I joined the firm, it is still not easy for those wishing to embark on a legal career to get their foot in the door – never mind a school leaver who, at 17 years old, had no idea what career path to take and who stubbornly, and rightly, would not be pressured into taking a route to university that did not feel like the “right route”, and the most satisfactory one.

It admittedly took me a few years to decide exactly what I wanted as a career. After leaving school, I spent much time living elsewhere, travelling, and it was in hindsight the best thing for me to have done, particularly at such a young age. Although it was an unsettled way to live, it suited me well and gave me the time I needed to think and reflect about whether I should study, and if so, what.

As I mentioned, I had always thought of studying law. I asked myself, would I be good enough for law school? Would my life experience which started from such a young age make me any less of a decent lawyer? If I had gone straight to university from school, it would not have worked for me, assuming I had been accepted. This feels like the case for so many other teenagers, young adults and indeed mature adults to this day.

Finding a way in

There has always been a focus from schools, parents and peers on “getting good grades” during our school years, without any further thought as to our personal circumstances or background. There was no talk back then on social mobility and how universities in particular could somehow adjust their admissions process in order to see a student “in the round” rather than just focusing on the grades achieved in high school exams. The latter, in my view, quickly become obsolete when you enter the world of work and should be no measure of future success in your chosen career path.

CMS has expanded its recruitment to non-Russell Group universities, helped by its virtual Early Talent recruitment process for more than a year now. This has certainly been a huge step in the right direction.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, my grades were affected at school and I felt completely hopeless. There was nothing I could change about that. University entry requirements were against me. On a brief trip back to the UK from Australia, where I spent several years, I arranged to meet with an admissions officer from a Russell Group university to enquire about studying law in Scotland. It seemed to set everything I thought into stone – my grades weren’t good enough and I had no work experience. No one in my family worked in law, and even then my principles were that if I was going to work for something I wanted, I would do it myself and off my own bat. So, it was goodbye to the standard pathway to gaining an LLB.

My options were limited further than I’d anticipated. I either had to study in the evenings to gain extra credits to start college courses to use as a springboard to university, or go ahead and study my LLB by online distance learning no matter what my school grades were. The latter was not ideal but was the best option: having had a taste of working life and being independent, I could still earn and study. It proved to be one of the most difficult things I have ever done.

It was not too long after joining CMS that I started my LLB with the Open University in Scotland by part-time distance learning. An English LLB was the only option as no Scottish LLB was offered through the Open University, although this proved not to be disadvantageous. The whole thing felt unusual, to have signed up for an online learning course, where I would study a difficult subject from a distance, with no in-person interaction with peers and only a handful of face-to-face lectures over the course of each year of the LLB. I was not quite sure how I would cope.

When I had a few months between my first year and second year of the LLB, I studied for my Scottish Civil Court Practice paralegal qualification with CLT, in conjunction with the University of Strathclyde. This (maximum) 18-month course I completed in just three months, before my second year of the LLB began. No rest for the wicked. It seemed I was getting into the swing of juggling part-time distance learning studies with work.

From paralegal to trainee

In 2014, not long after the Dundas & Wilson and CMS merger, I began working as a paralegal at CMS. CMS has actively supported the recruitment of secretaries to become paralegals and it is very encouraging to see more examples of this at the firm in recent times since my own progression. It was during this time as a paralegal, while I was gaining more legal experience, that I eventually completed my LLB with the Open University and graduated.

In the early years as a paralegal at the firm, I made enquiries and carried out my own research into training as a solicitor in Scotland with an English LLB and completing the Legal Practice Course at the same time as undertaking my training contract. This route was something that, as little as seven to eight years ago, seemed very unusual, and I had to get in touch with the graduate recruitment team and persuade them that taking this route was doable and that I could without a doubt complete my postgraduate legal education while training at the firm should I obtain a position as a trainee. (The supervision/training contract would have to be signed off by an English qualified solicitor.)

I was overjoyed at being offered a position as a trainee solicitor after my years of combining studying and working. I then had the challenge of completing the Legal Practice Course and Master's in Law while training full-time at CMS. It was an absolutely huge task and not for the faint hearted.

From the get-go I had support from the partners and my colleagues at CMS, although it seemed no one could quite believe what I was doing. It was practically unheard of in the legal sphere to work, study and eventually train at the same time. CMS saw that it was possible for someone to undertake such an arduous journey to qualifying and supported me through it, not just allowing me to take study leave but also asking me how I was doing and providing even small words of encouragement. It was the fact that they took an interest, but equally and happily, I was left alone to get on with it and I got through it.

Constant pressure

The discipline needed to self-study on top of a full-time job, and sit down and teach yourself any new subject, is not for everyone. I was saying “no” more often to friends’ invitations, and my social life shrank to almost nothing. During the pandemic, we have seen a very similar situation mirrored. People have had no social lives; mental health issues have been on the rise and people have worked extremely hard to juggle their home and family lives and struggled to set boundaries between work and home life.

Of course, I would allow myself occasional social breaks, but it was a fine balance on top of my work at CMS and my studies. I needed some kind of social life to keep myself sane, and never would I have thought that the gym would become a bit like a temple: there were days when it was the only solution to clear my head and it made me feel 100% back on track and I that had regained my focus.

The anxiety of part-time studies while working full-time and the pressure I put on myself was crippling at times. It was not a joke. People could see it in you, which made it worse. You certainly learn who is in your true support network during these times.

After six and a half years of working full-time and studying part-time by distance learning, my LLB, LPC and LLM, I completed my training contract with CMS in 2019 and am now an associate with the firm.

Encourage commitment!

Unusual routes to law, and other professions, should be open. This should be the case regardless of someone’s school grades, which in any event, become subordinate once you are qualified and are gaining experience. There seem to be limits in Scotland as to the routes available to qualification. These routes should be expanded while providing people the work experience that they need along with the studies they require to undertake, and should be no less favourable than the standard route to qualification.

If you can put all your effort into the process of online distance learning, then I would say that it is a good choice and one of the most satisfying experiences, once you can overcome the difficulties and all the personal hurdles along the way.

To add to all this, I thankfully had the means to be able to undertake this study journey. I had a job and could afford to buy myself a laptop and pay for decent wi-fi. Sadly, still in this day and age, there are many people out there who would struggle just to get the basics to get them going with a programme of study. We have seen the situation unearth from COVID around the lack of access children and students have to these things that are seen as basics for undertaking any kind of education.

Although the alternative route I took to qualifying was unusual, why should it be? Further to that, in a new age of online learning and remote working, there could well be more opportunities than we realise.

Perhaps my own experience was part of a steady evolution of alternative routes to qualifying as a lawyer, and I am hugely proud to be a part of that.