Progress Report (2 weeks in)

Ok, there are a few things I want to write about this week.

Firstly, yes, everything is going great and I'm happy with the learning curve. Everybody is still very nice and I continue to meet new and interesting people. My work, I think, is steadily improving both in quality and in efficiency. I still have NO idea how people manage a caseload of 70+ though (and many lawyers do)!

This week & last week many of the paralegals who've been at the firm for years found out whether they were going to be offered a Training Contract at the firm, and needless to say most of them didn't get it. I was a little worried that there might be some tension between the paralegals and us new trainees who have just come in, but everything seems fine which is good!

Ok, that wasn't actually one of the things I wanted to write about, it just sort of came out (that's what she said?).

I did want to write about my first experience of doing work that was.... morally ambiguous. Basically, I didn't feel like I believed in the case. Not that I didn't believe it could win - actually it has quite good prospects - but reading through the file I found myself siding completely with the defendants! But I guess it's important to put those emotions aside and do a professional job. Do my best work and let the law decide who should win - that's how it works (in theory). I have to admit, though, I have found it easier and more enjoyable to work on a case where I can sympathise with the client. I've been told by more experienced lawyers that it's the sort of thing you quickly get used to, although some of them also said that they still sometimes go that extra mile when they really believe in a case. I'm not sure how much this applies to commercial law!

I have eliminated the basic, elementary errors that enreddened my face last week i.e. locking myself out of the office and accidentally turning off all the lights. The biggest mistake I made this week was calling a woman "Mr." on the phone. That's an improvement in my book :)

I'm happy it's the weekend as I got some stuff to do (I have to return some video tapes), but yeah, ROLL ON MONDAY!


**HERE FOLLOWS A RANT AGAINST COMMERCIAL LAW**

If you're not interested in my opinion on the differences between working in commercial law firms and working in smaller firms, there's no need to read on.

I have been chatting to some of my other TC friends who are at more commercial firms, and I gotta say it doesn't sound like they're enjoying it as much as me. Of course, they're getting paid a lot more than me, but I'm doing very reasonable hours (I can still have a life!), I'm doing work that I'm interested in, I love my colleagues, AND I feel like I'm getting a much higher quality of work than them. What I mean by that is that I'll be doing letters of claim, instructions to counsel, valuing injuries and being in direct contact with clients, whereas they'll be filing, making cups of tea, pouring over lengthy contracts to "check" them (for typos) and generally feeding their supervisors' egos. I'm sure I am exaggerating the remediality of their workload a tad, but the chances of getting your own cases at a large comemrcial firm is basically zero. At my (medium-sized) firm, many of the more experienced trainees get to run their own cases sometimes! I've been told that I may well be doing that soon, and while it sounds incredibly daunting having so much responsibility, ultimately it's going to make for fantastic training - it's like learning a language in another country, throwing yourself in the deep end for a fantastic learning experience, and you're unlikely to get that in a big firm.

OK, I'm biased against commercial law, but that's not entirely because all the commercial law firms rejected me (they didn't). I genuinely believe that a lot of what I just said is true, especially about the level of responsibility given. I think it's important for people to realise that being a lawyer doesn't have to mean the huge hours, huge salaries and huge pressures that come with commercial law. If you went to a law school like mine, you'd be forgiven for thinking that big city commercial law was the only type of firm worth going for. But you wouldn't be forgiven for putting too much milk in Mr. Topdog's tea. You'd have to work overnight to make up for that one.