Trainee blog - Hannah Kemp

Hannah Kemp, a trainee at Brodies LLP, obtained her LLB from the University of Edinburgh, having studied at Lund University in Sweden for her third year. She returned home to complete her Diploma at the University of Glasgow. She is currently nearing the end of her second seat in the firm’s Corporate & Commercial department in Edinburgh and is due to qualify as a solicitor in July 2017.

The transition from university student to trainee can be daunting. I have no doubt that every student will experience first-day nerves. Will I be able to complete the work given to me? What will my team be like?

Here’s a brief outline of my experience of the transition that all potential trainees will go through. I am now just over a year into my traineeship and I’m beginning to realise that my annual four-month summer break has now gone - forever! Although this reality is hitting me hard, everyone needs to join the world of employment at some point and I had looked forward to joining Brodies since securing my place at an assessment day two years before.

University is a structured path: core subjects in first and second year, the possibility of an Erasmus year or honours year in third year, finishing with a gruelling fourth year. If, like me, you chose to go down the legal route, there is a fifth year in the pipeline – completing the Diploma in legal practice.

The traineeship, however, is much more flexible, giving trainees the choice to work within areas of law in which they are interested. At Brodies, we submit our top three seat choices to HR per rotation. The areas of law available are extremely varied. For example, in one seat a trainee can be assisting buying or selling companies, and then move on to a litigation seat and defend personal injury claims.

You may not have realised it but university has been preparing you for the traineeship. Students develop their own set of techniques to process information efficiently and to solve problems. Law students will have studied a subject at some point that will provide a basic understanding of the law relevant to the seats allocated. My first seat was insurance and risk litigation – not a core subject at university – but combining my knowledge of delict at ordinary level and civil litigation on the Diploma did set me up to a good start.

One key difference that I have recognised is that the traineeship is a learning process, compared to university, which is a bit of memory game. How much information can you cram into your brain over a month-long period (for some, the night before an exam)? The content is learnt inside out but once the exam is over, most of that knowledge slowly slips away. There are no exams throughout the traineeship and therefore no learning under pressure. Firms will have style banks, when asked to draft a document these can be used as a guide rather than complete free-hand drafting. It is easy to forget that each piece of work you will be asked to draft has probably been drafted before!

Some of the teaching at university focuses on aspects of law that do not reflect what is actually done in practice. For example, I remember learning in depth about directors’ duties during the corporate component of my course. However, now assisting the corporate team, the work I do is focused mainly on buying and selling companies, a skill not taught at university. Similarly, training as a solicitor is not an academic exercise, clients are looking for practical commercial advice. There is less time brainstorming about your legal opinions, and more time spent actively solving problems.

University did however prepare me for socialising with colleagues and clients and meeting new people is a daily occurrence – whether working with new colleagues and clients or meeting for a few drinks after work.

University is no different, being allocated groups to work with and recognising more faces. Just like the various sports teams and clubs on offer at university, we have clubs ranging from golf to netball here and even touch rugby in summer.

Any new experience can seem overwhelming because you are forced out of your comfort zone into an unfamiliar environment. Starting university and the traineeship also have this in common, and it can take time to find your feet and settle in. Few will say they prefer working 9-5 (as a minimum) to having the choice of a midweek lie-in or the option to go out any night of the week you fancy! However, it is blissful to see the bank balance creep up, and after five years of studying it feels rewarding to finally put what you’ve learnt to good use.

My one piece of advice to trainees starting out is to remember that all fee-earners started as trainees themselves. Don’t worry about knowing very little and asking lots of questions - that is the whole point.

Trainees are there to learn and assist fee-earners in any way possible; the traineeship is a two-year learning process and what you have learnt at university will get you off to a great start.