How does your mind work?

My period of recognised training started in March 2018. I had previously worked as an outdoor clerk and subsequently a paralegal in Blake Morgan’s Commercial Litigation team in London. So I knew the firm, but mostly my little corner of it, and especially the walk to and from the London courts.

My first seat was in the Portsmouth office in the firm’s Risk and Compliance team. The transition to another part of the business was made really easy, and I soon found out that my colleagues in Portsmouth were equally as supportive and welcoming as those in London. Blake Morgan is a large firm, with six offices and some 600+ people, but all very much connected and with shared values.

Risk was a great place to start – I was advised it was the perfect place to work out ‘how my mind worked’. You get involved with a broad range of matters, including drafting firm-wide guidance and policy and reviewing and defending claims. I still had a few more seats to work out what I wanted to do, but for now, if I didn’t know before, I knew how a law firm worked.

My second seat was a secondment to one of Blake Morgan’s clients in the City of London, in the legal team of a well-known private bank; a transition which best highlights the diverse range of work you can expect at Blake Morgan. From a personal networking perspective the benefits are obvious, but it was in this seat that I really began to piece together how legal risk is balanced with commercial decision making in a fast-paced corporate environment.

For my third seat I returned to the London office and to the Property Team, where I focused on specialist residential leasehold matters. It is a niche and complex area of law and I was assisting on interesting projects as well as running my own matters and getting great client contact.

In September 2019 I joined the Corporate Team in London for my final seat. My work ranged from listing £millions worth of loan notes on international stock exchanges to providing advice to entrepreneurs in restructuring their business. In 22 frantic business days we completed the sale of our client’s business, a tech company valued at around £100m.

And in March 2020 I ended up qualifying where I had started; in the Commercial Litigation team in London. I’m really excited to be working on both civil and criminal matters, and with some talented lawyers. In the end, I had found out how my mind worked; and I was a litigator.