A Day In The Life Of A Trainee (Or A Few Varieties Thereof!)
My training comprised three ‘seats’: I spent about three months with each of Dan McCourt Fritz (shortly before he took silk in 2023) and Constance McDonnell KC, followed by an abridged seat of about six weeks with Jonathan Adkin KC.
The flavour and pace of each of my seats varied depending on the nature of my supervisor’s practice at that point in time. There was certainly no dearth of variety: the cases that I was involved with variously raised issues of contract, tort, trusts, company, IP and probate law, among others. All of the work that I did was on live disputes, save for a few pieces of specialist drafting that one of my supervisors kindly asked me to undertake so that I might have the benefit of that experience (and her valuable feedback!)
I was delighted to assist with two trials and a number of interlocutory hearings during my training. On a typical day in the lead up to trial I would draft the skeleton argument, prepare cross-examination notes and/or research points of law to feed into the submissions. During trial I would attend the hearing, observe conferences with the client before and after court, assist with continuing preparations for cross-examination and the drafting of closing submissions. In other words, I was very much treated like a member of the counsel team.
Apart from hearing-related work which might take up all day if it concerned a trial or particularly heavy application, I would usually divide my time between a few cases each day and undertake a mixture of legal research, drafting and/or assisting with preparations for advising in conference (colloquially called a ‘con’). On a typical day leading up to a con I would read the solicitor’s instructions and accompanying papers, research the relevant issues, have a discussion with my supervisor about the issues and attend the con. I would spend the rest of the day either conducting legal research or drafting documents such as pleadings. These tasks sometimes followed on from the con but often concerned unrelated cases that involved different areas of law. This meant that I became adept at quickly transitioning from one case to another several times a day, as needed – an important skill for practice.
I also attended three mediations during my training. In two of these, I shadowed my supervisor in their role as counsel to one of the parties to the mediation and in the third I shadowed our Head of Chambers, Elizabeth Jones KC, in her role as mediator of a dispute between two pharmaceutical companies. All three were fascinating and instructive experiences. Again, I was treated as a member of the team and valued the opportunity to assist by producing analyses of various offers and drafting settlement agreements. The opportunity to shadow the mediator provided unique insight into how the process works from their perspective, which is valuable knowledge to have in preparation for guiding clients through the process of mediation in due course. My supervisors always provided clear and detailed feedback on each piece of work. Indeed, throughout my training I was amazed by the amount of time and effort that each of them poured into teaching me.
My working hours were fairly regular and usually ran from 9am to 6pm. I did work longer hours on occasion but only ever of my own volition. I was never asked (not even implicitly) to work late and my supervisors actively advised against it.
