So I took a bit of a hiatus from my blog to spend time with my parents and my fiancé who came to visit from Australia. I had a fun, relaxing week with them and then an exciting week back at work where we're in the middle of the trial that my group has been working towards for over a year.
I've had such a great time over the past couple of weeks (both in and out of work), that it might strike you as strange that I would write about some of the more difficult parts of being a trainee lawyer - but for those curious about what it's like, I felt it was fair to present both sides, and for those in my intake who are reading this, you might identify with some of it!
Therefore, I present to you, a few truth bombs about being a trainee lawyer:
1. The late hours
I don't think this one will surprise anyone: lawyers work long hours! And as I've mentioned in other posts, trainees are cheap, and so will get the more time-consuming tasks. Sometimes, you will be alone at your desk, it's late, and the automatic sensor lights start shutting off around you. To distract yourself from how depressing this is, my friends and I have agreed that it's best to create your own entertainment. My favourite tip came from a friend who said he turns whatever activity he's doing into a song: "I'm tyyping at my keyyboard.....mmmm....now I'm staapling some doooo-cuments". It feels a bit like this:
Other times, you'll be working late with your team, and that can actually be really fun. I had a great time a few weeks ago, doing bundling (i.e. creating folders for trial) while listening to Eurovision winners from the past 10 years. So it's not always bad!
The thing to know about late hours though, is that it's usually fine at the time ... what's worse, is having to get through the next day:
2. The menial work
This might be another obvious one: as a trainee, sometimes you get
But on the other hand, I am an example of how useful it can be doing these tasks: having spent months organising and creating document folders for trial, once I got to the trial, I knew almost EVERYTHING that was going on. I was so familiar with the evidence, that it made the trial fascinating. So now I can see the benefit of doing the grunt work, but it doesn't make it any more interesting at the time!!
3. The hierarchy
Law firms are extremely hierarchical and as a trainee you are at the bottom of the food chain. This feature comes in very different forms, which has been relaxed to some extent over the past few years. For example, when you get in a black cab with your team, the trainees are expected to sit on the shitty fold down seats facing backwards, and to give the better seats to the more senior lawyers. I had no idea, and sat in the good seat, and got teased about it the whole trip ("trainees these days!"). It was all in good fun, but I've never made that mistake again! On the other hand, I was told that "back in the day", the most junior lawyer in the taxi would be responsible for paying. Obviously you'd get reimbursed, but it means that even today, some of the older, more senior partners don't carry their wallets with them when they go out. Very funny!
4. The stressful environment
You are working in a highly-stressful environment. This means that, unfortunately, from time to time, someone might take their stress out on you - either by snapping, yelling, being passive aggressive, or by blaming you for something going wrong. I think this is a by-product of the hierarchical system described above, where (because you're lower on the food chain) you can become the scapegoat.
This obviously happens in life more generally, and so it really varies from person to person, group to group. If or when it does happen, you just remember not to take anything personally and in most cases, that person will either be super nice or even apologise afterwards because it was done in the heat of the moment and they feel terrible! So my advice is to put on your war face and even if your pride is hurt, learn to let it go. Then remember it for when you're a more senior lawyer yourself!
5. Legal research is not as fun as you think
I'm a massive law nerd, so was excited about the prospect of legal research tasks at work. Unfortunately, as my friend pointed out, legal research at work is usually to check that a legal point ISN'T there, or DOESN'T exist, and canvassing the law to ensure that something isn't there, is not nearly as fun! It means that when one of your fellow trainees gets a good research task, you're a bit jealous.
6. Faking enthusiasm
I think we must have been told 5 or 6 times during our induction that it's important for trainees to be "enthusiastic". It's easy enough when you're enjoying the task you're doing or have had a great week, but it's much more difficult when you feel like hitting your head against the wall. I now understand the point: you're working closely in a team, and it's about making working conditions as pleasant as possible for everyone. But sometimes you just feel like this:
7. The worst thing...
And the very worst thing about being a trainee, is that you can never feel sorry for yourself, because every associate, senior associate and junior partner you work for HAS BEEN THROUGH EXACTLY THE SAME THING!! I let out a heavy sigh once while cross-referencing a witness statement (refer back to Point 6 on enthusiasm), and my supervisor cheerily began reminiscing the time that he had to cross-reference 30 witness statements when he was a trainee.
It's just part of "growing up" and you know that things get better, from week to week, month to month, and year to year and you just have to pull through.
Please let me know if you have any more suggestions!! :D
I've had such a great time over the past couple of weeks (both in and out of work), that it might strike you as strange that I would write about some of the more difficult parts of being a trainee lawyer - but for those curious about what it's like, I felt it was fair to present both sides, and for those in my intake who are reading this, you might identify with some of it!
Therefore, I present to you, a few truth bombs about being a trainee lawyer:
1. The late hours
I don't think this one will surprise anyone: lawyers work long hours! And as I've mentioned in other posts, trainees are cheap, and so will get the more time-consuming tasks. Sometimes, you will be alone at your desk, it's late, and the automatic sensor lights start shutting off around you. To distract yourself from how depressing this is, my friends and I have agreed that it's best to create your own entertainment. My favourite tip came from a friend who said he turns whatever activity he's doing into a song: "I'm tyyping at my keyyboard.....mmmm....now I'm staapling some doooo-cuments". It feels a bit like this:
Other times, you'll be working late with your team, and that can actually be really fun. I had a great time a few weeks ago, doing bundling (i.e. creating folders for trial) while listening to Eurovision winners from the past 10 years. So it's not always bad!
The thing to know about late hours though, is that it's usually fine at the time ... what's worse, is having to get through the next day:
2. The menial work
This might be another obvious one: as a trainee, sometimes you get
- boring, menial tasks that anyone could do (e.g. bundling) and/or
- tasks that are fairly interesting in the beginning, but you do it for so long that it gets repetitive and boring (e.g. document review)
But on the other hand, I am an example of how useful it can be doing these tasks: having spent months organising and creating document folders for trial, once I got to the trial, I knew almost EVERYTHING that was going on. I was so familiar with the evidence, that it made the trial fascinating. So now I can see the benefit of doing the grunt work, but it doesn't make it any more interesting at the time!!
3. The hierarchy
Law firms are extremely hierarchical and as a trainee you are at the bottom of the food chain. This feature comes in very different forms, which has been relaxed to some extent over the past few years. For example, when you get in a black cab with your team, the trainees are expected to sit on the shitty fold down seats facing backwards, and to give the better seats to the more senior lawyers. I had no idea, and sat in the good seat, and got teased about it the whole trip ("trainees these days!"). It was all in good fun, but I've never made that mistake again! On the other hand, I was told that "back in the day", the most junior lawyer in the taxi would be responsible for paying. Obviously you'd get reimbursed, but it means that even today, some of the older, more senior partners don't carry their wallets with them when they go out. Very funny!
4. The stressful environment
You are working in a highly-stressful environment. This means that, unfortunately, from time to time, someone might take their stress out on you - either by snapping, yelling, being passive aggressive, or by blaming you for something going wrong. I think this is a by-product of the hierarchical system described above, where (because you're lower on the food chain) you can become the scapegoat.
This obviously happens in life more generally, and so it really varies from person to person, group to group. If or when it does happen, you just remember not to take anything personally and in most cases, that person will either be super nice or even apologise afterwards because it was done in the heat of the moment and they feel terrible! So my advice is to put on your war face and even if your pride is hurt, learn to let it go. Then remember it for when you're a more senior lawyer yourself!
5. Legal research is not as fun as you think
I'm a massive law nerd, so was excited about the prospect of legal research tasks at work. Unfortunately, as my friend pointed out, legal research at work is usually to check that a legal point ISN'T there, or DOESN'T exist, and canvassing the law to ensure that something isn't there, is not nearly as fun! It means that when one of your fellow trainees gets a good research task, you're a bit jealous.
6. Faking enthusiasm
I think we must have been told 5 or 6 times during our induction that it's important for trainees to be "enthusiastic". It's easy enough when you're enjoying the task you're doing or have had a great week, but it's much more difficult when you feel like hitting your head against the wall. I now understand the point: you're working closely in a team, and it's about making working conditions as pleasant as possible for everyone. But sometimes you just feel like this:
7. The worst thing...
And the very worst thing about being a trainee, is that you can never feel sorry for yourself, because every associate, senior associate and junior partner you work for HAS BEEN THROUGH EXACTLY THE SAME THING!! I let out a heavy sigh once while cross-referencing a witness statement (refer back to Point 6 on enthusiasm), and my supervisor cheerily began reminiscing the time that he had to cross-reference 30 witness statements when he was a trainee.
It's just part of "growing up" and you know that things get better, from week to week, month to month, and year to year and you just have to pull through.
Please let me know if you have any more suggestions!! :D
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