My farewell to London...

It's safe to say that work and life got in the way of this little blog: my last post was published in December 2016 when I had returned to London after spending 6 months in Tokyo.  

Since that post I got married, moved firms, spent a wonderful year in London with my partner and, after 4 years away, I finally made the move back to Australia. 

I have grown so much in that time, both as a lawyer and a person, and have made some life-long friends along the way.  In this last post, I share a random collection of some highs, lows, and just plain weird moments experienced over these past few years.

1. What I'll miss most about London...

The city itself... how vibrant, bustling and diverse it is. 

Also, only having to wait up to 2 minutes for public transport.  I'll never understand why Londoners are so desperate to avoid waiting for the next tube...

2. What I'll miss least about London...

The smell.  I've said this before.  Walking down the street and taking a huge gulp of sewer air is not something I'm going to miss.

I will also not miss people constantly calling me "loud" or "outgoing" when I'm speaking at normal Australian volume.  I guess Brits have sensitive ears...

3. Best part about lawyering in London...

Hearing old timey sayings in the workplace. Some of my favourites are:

• Describing a court judgment as a "curate's egg", a term coined in 1895.

• Describing an unlawful debt as a "sword of Damocles", referring to an anecdote from the 4th century BC.
• Deciding to give correspondence with the other side another try by quoting Churchill: "Jaw, jaw is better than war, war".
• Seeing the finish time of a work event written on an invitation as "Carriages 11:30pm", i.e. the time that horse and carriages would collect patrons after the evening's festivities had concluded.

4. Worst part about lawyering in London...

Unsurprisingly, the hours.  I joke that work is "all the time", and that you fit sleep, meals and a bit of socialising around that. 

Luckily, my firm was flexible and I could go home for a late dinner most nights and then pick up work again from home.  Even so, more than a few nights looked a bit like this:

It was fun to go on secondment as an in house lawyer for 6 months: at 6pm a colleague walked past my desk, shook his head and said "gee, I hope you're not here too much later".  So sweet.

5. Two most memorable moments...

There are two moments, which took place in the past year, that I particularly wanted to share.

First, the one benefit of working late in a high-pressured office environment is that you get to really bond with your colleagues.  It gets pretty weird in the wee hours of the morning...

A few years ago, I had one of the best times preparing trial bundles (i.e. boring grunt work) with my friends until 3 or 4am, singing along to Eurovision hits from years past.

Then, last year, a group of us pulled an all nighter preparing submissions which were due the following day.  Yes it felt awful when the cleaners came in at 6am. But working with people I really liked towards a common goal, getting giggly while eating snacks we would all later regret, and pushing each other through to the finishing line - that was an amazing experience that I'll never forget. 

Second, over the past few years, I have grappled with the expectation that City lawyers need to appear detached and unemotional.  I'm a naturally very expressive person, so for a long time I thought I needed to change to succeed in my job.  

In my view, this was partly gendered and partly a cultural difference between Australians and Londoners: in my experience, women are generally perceived as more emotional than men (and it is seen as a bad thing) and Aussies, who are generally very open, can appear overly personal when first meeting a Londoner.  

As an aside, my non-English friends and I would often discuss how difficult it was trying to make a personal connection with colleagues without asking any personal questions...

For that reason, I was really moved when I saw tears in the eyes of a British barrister that I worked closely with and admired. We had just lost a case that personally meant a lot to our client, and while our whole team was silent, shocked and angry at the outcome, it meant a lot to me that a well-respected, male, British barrister showed such genuine emotion at the outcome.  

Over the past year, I've learned that while you don't ever want your emotions to make you appear out of control...

...having empathy and being able to connect with people is a great strength in legal practice. 

It's important in devising strategy and predicting how the other side or a judge might react to certain moves on the metaphorical chess board. It's key to being able to communicate with clients. The law is about people after all; I mean, there's a whole movie dedicated to this idea.

Final thoughts...

The title of this blog is: "What, like, it's hard? A Bumbling Baby Lawyer's Guide to London and Tokyo".  

After 3 years practising law in London, I don't feel like a "bumbling baby lawyer" anymore.  Over time, there were fewer and fewer entries recorded to the AWK.AWK time code, and more and more moments when I felt on top of my game.

I have learned so much from this experience, and I hope that by reading this blog, others may have learned something too.  

I am going to really miss London and the people who made it so great. Australia seems small (yet very spacious) in comparison, and it'll take some getting used to.  That said, it's good to be home and I'm looking forward to the next adventure.