Trainee blog - Karen Cossar

Karen studied both her undergraduate law degree, and her Diploma in Professional Legal Practice, at the University of Glasgow. She has returned east to Edinburgh and is now a trainee at Pinsent Masons.

Recently, I, along with the other trainees who started in the firm with me, hit a milestone. We had survived three months of our traineeships, and more importantly, were halfway through our first seat. This meant one thing – the slightly daunting thought of a mid-seat review. The Law Society of Scotland requires trainees to have a review with their supervisors every three months at the very least, and the outcomes of these reviews are documented on an online portal. Preparation for this review - it wasn't anywhere near as scary as I had imagined - meant thinking back over the last three months. It sounds like a cliché, but I cannot believe how much I have learnt and developed.

Three months ago, the thought of starting as a trainee filled me with fear. I promise you that this is an entirely natural feeling. I felt like my previous jobs in retail hadn't prepared me for life in an office, and anything I had learnt during the LLB and Diploma had been long forgotten after a summer spent in the sun enjoying everything the Edinburgh Festival had to offer.

Thankfully, most of these fears have since disappeared, and those many hours of note-taking at university have come back to me. Over the past three months, I've really enjoyed the first half of my seat in the Employment team, and I feel I have already learnt a huge amount. So, here are my top tips for surviving your first few months of life as a trainee solicitor:

1. Ask questions. Always. It’s much better to ask and to clarify a situation before throwing yourself into a piece of work before discovering that you've misunderstood the instructions and have wasted half your day. Trust me, I've been there.

2. However, remember that your colleagues also have work to do. There is no such thing as a silly question, but there certainly is a silly time to ask it. Make sure that whoever you are speaking to isn't frantically trying to hit a deadline before you hit them with questions regarding the interpretative differences in legislation. They will thank you for this, and will be more likely to want to help you later on.

3. Write everything down. When receiving instructions, you're unlikely to remember every detail. Notes mean that you don't need to wrack your brains later trying to remember that important tip that must be contained in the document you are attempting to draft.

4. It's much harder to work at a messy desk. I realise I'm sounding like my Mum, and this is perhaps a case of 'do what I say and not what I do', but it is amazing how much time you waste looking for papers on your desk when it's filled with every document from every matter you've worked on during the past week. Or month in my case.

5. If you make a mistake, tell somebody. Everyone makes mistakes, and it is expected that as a trainee that you will make more than others. So when you discover that you've sent that document to the wrong tribunal, spelt the parties' names wrong or forgotten to enter a case number, make sure to tell someone quickly. These mistakes are rarely, if ever, fatal, and can be rectified if caught quickly.

I'm really looking forward to writing a trainee blog over the next two years as I experience the highs (and undoubtedly lows) of my traineeship. Hopefully something of what I say can provide you with an insight into the life of a trainee solicitor.