The five stages of trainee

I have officially finished my first seat! Six months of general litigation have come and gone, and I'm one quarter through my training contract. I'll get the (meagre) status boost of being a "second seater" and should be able to hit the ground running more so than in my first seat. That means no time needed to get used to our electronic filing system, working out how to send something to the printing department or order dinner from the canteen.

It will be a step back though. Someone suggested to me that we'll lose around 30% of our capability when we move seats. That's very specific (I'll let you know if it's closer to 35%) but I think I understand what he meant. There will be a new culture to get used to, new banter, new personalities, a new subject-matter of work (I'll actually be wikipedia-ing real estate law today!), new research tools and new lingo. 

We have "handover" coffees or drinks with the trainee that we're taking over from, where they go through the background of the group's work, the personalities in the group, the tasks that you'll be responsible for and any sneaky tips. After my handover, I'm excited to be starting in my new group, but I have a feeling I'll need to quickly learn all the acronyms! I think a glossary of terms should be compulsory in all groups. 

In honour of finishing my first seat, I thought I'd write about the Five Stages of Trainee - these are both a reflection of my first seat and my predictions for the next three.

1. Excitement

The first few weeks start off with a hopeful sense of adventure. This is a clean slate, your first day at school. You have so much ahead of you and could really love this group - I mean, maybe this is where you'll qualify?? 

You start by doing all the right things. Keeping your desk tidy, coming into work early and plastering an enthusiastic smile to your face. After all, first impressions last and you want to be taken seriously:

2. Overwhelmed

Excitement gives way to a mild panic. So many new terms and processes to get used to, you feel slower than usual. One thing I've noticed is that there's a "shared knowledge" within each group. This is an undercurrent of terms and concepts that are so obvious to everyone that they occasionally forget what it's like to not know these things. 

One example from early in my first seat was at the beginning of the bundling process, where I found a new document that had to be inserted into our already-printed and paginated trial folders. I had no idea what to do in those circumstances, but was told that it was "common sense" to think of paginating the document as an "A" and "B". E.g. if the document went between page 150 and page 151, then you would write the page numbers as 150A, 150B, 150C etc. Um NO!?!? Who would think of that??

Of course now it seems obvious, but at the time, it was only common sense in the context of the shared knowledge of the group, which at the beginning a trainee doesn't possess.

You start doubting the skills that you know you have and feel like you're a step behind everyone else:

I can already tell that Stage 2 will be less and less pronounced as you go forward. This is because while you'll come across things you've never done before, they will either be similar to something you have done before OR you'll be able to tap into the building blocks of skills that you now have and you'll have a better chance of working it out yourself. 

3. Perseverance

You keep at it, working hard and learning from those around you. 

4. Small wins

You start having more and more small wins. You can probably look back at some of my old posts for examples!! 

Maybe you're doing a research task and you find a case that's directly on point:

Maybe it's something as simple as being thrown into a stressful situation, and managing to keep your cool:

In any case, you feel like you're getting the hang of it, you've made back that 30% that you lost coming into this new group (haha!). I have to say, these small wins are such a great feeling when they happen.

5. Acceptance

Acceptance seems to be the final stage of trainee-dom. Maybe you've had an overall excellent experience and you're feeling confident and happy working with this group of people: you feel a little bit sad at the thought of leaving them. Maybe instead, acceptance is more an acknowledgement that you'll never quite fit in there, whether it's because of the culture of the group or because you didn't enjoy the work quite as much as you thought you might. 

Overall though, I think it's an acceptance of yourself. You start figuring out the type of lawyer that you want to, and are going to, be and no-one can really change that about you. I know I finished my first seat with a little bit of this:

Good luck to all my friends starting their new seats on Monday!!!