Trainee blog - John Morgan

John is a trainee solicitor at Brodies LLP. John grew up in Coatbridge, in North Lanarkshire, and attended the University of Glasgow for his LLB, spending time abroad at the Universities of Toronto, Connecticut and Cagliari. He then ventured to Edinburgh University for his Diploma.

Tips for starting a traineeship…from someone who’s just finished

When starting my traineeship in July 2014, my qualification date of 30 July 2016 seemed far on the horizon. The two years flew by so quickly that often the only time I took stock was in writing these blogs. It’s therefore quite fitting that this month, immediately after qualification, I have had the excellent opportunity to spend time on secondment to one of Brodies’ major financial services clients.

After two seats – 14 months – in an employment team where I quickly felt like part of the furniture, moving to a new team and organisation has given me a chance to reflect on how to make a positive first impression. This is advice provided with the benefit of my own mistakes and mishaps, as well as successes:

• You’re a lawyer. This can be strangely easy to forget in the midst of exciting negotiations. Your role is all about managing and mitigating risk, not taking it. This was something that I didn’t fully appreciate in the first few months of the traineeship, but which is at the centre of all my decision-making now. Before starting in a team, make sure you know the basic commercial realities of the kind of transactions or litigation you’ll be assisting with. This knowledge is essential to know when to warn about risks, and to avoid teaching your clients how to suck eggs…
• Don’t get over familiar too early. My own natural reaction in taxing situations is to crack a joke. This causes issues in the inherently stressful situation of joining a new team. Just make sure you keep the jokes under control. This is a serious job and your sharp wit may be misplaced in some situations!
• Process is there for a reason. Most law firms, and other businesses, have well-established processes for dealing with almost any situation that a trainee might face. There have been trainees before you, and there will be trainees after you, and almost all problems are caused by ‘taking too much initiative’. That’s not to say you shouldn’t challenge outdated ways of doing things, but be like Picasso: learn to paint before you break the rules.
• Just ask the question. It’s better to look momentarily silly than waste your (valuable, billable) time blindly stumbling around your firm’s intranet. If in doubt, ask.
• Be keen to learn. Some trainees walk into a firm as if they are already a fully qualified lawyer. While some (rare) individuals may already possess all the competencies required, for the vast majority of us it’s a chance to learn. The traineeship is the completion of the legal education process as well as being the start of your working life in the law. The former is as important as the latter.
• Take your holidays, but not in the first few weeks. I’ve made this mistake so you don’t have to! Usually, people are very understanding if you have a holiday booked already, but it doesn’t create the best impression and it means that – however hard you try to hit the ground running – you’ll be behind the curve for the first few weeks. Don’t make starting in a new team more stressful than it already is!

I didn’t follow this advice a lot of the time during the traineeship, but by the end I was well aware of the benefits of approaching every day like this. If you follow these tips, I think your first months in a firm could go much smoother than mine!