A Day In The Life Of An Employment Law Trainee – Trainee Blog
My team are currently hybrid working, because of the pandemic which means that some days we are in the office and some days we work from home. We make sure that we speak regularly over the phone and on zoom when working from home.
When I do go into office, I usually arrive slightly early to get set up, make a hot drink and catch up with my colleagues. I then log in and see what emails have arrived with tasks to do, I flag the emails which require actioning and respond to any emails which I can answer straight away. If there is a question that I am not sure on, I will speak to a colleague or supervising solicitor first for clarification before responding. There are also lots of helpful newsletters, emails from the partners and the Employment Law Agency (‘ELA’) which arrive early in the morning and provide interesting updates, and I often save these to read later on in the day.
My first task will depend on what work needs prioritising, but this can be anything from drafting a Schedule of Loss for an ongoing employment tribunal case, emailing, updating and seeking instructions from clients, liaising with Counsel on ongoing cases, planning a Transfer of Undertakings (‘TUPE’) consultation process or drafting a letter of advice to a client.
Once my first task is done, around late morning I will often attend meetings with one of the solicitors in my team or my supervising partner to take notes of their meetings with clients and draft a record known as an attendance note. Sitting in on client meetings is also a great way to learn, as I can see first-hand how the solicitor handles the client and their problem, and what advice they give.
Throughout the day, sometimes my supervising partner calls with a task for me to do. Sometimes it can be an urgent job which requires me to put every other task aside, or it may be a job to add to my to-do list for when I get some time later in the week. For example, this week my supervisor called me to tell me that a settlement had been reached on the eve of the final hearing which meant that we needed to urgently make the Tribunal and counsel aware that the hearing was no longer needed.
At lunchtime, I go for lunch with the other trainees as we are all in the first month of our new seat rotation, and we are all keen to find out how everyone else is getting on.
After lunch I read some of the latest developments and case law from ELA and draft a note to my supervising solicitor if there are any cases that he may be interested in. Sometimes it might give me inspiration to write an article of my own, in which case I research around the topic and write an article for the supervising solicitor to amend. As a trainee your work will undoubtedly need amending, but with each change there is a lesson to learn for next time.
Later in the afternoon, I attend a networking events, for instance, a business to business event across Hertfordshire and Bedfordshire, to connect with professionals across different local industries and gain a greater insight into many different skillsets. While I find these extremely interesting and useful, my supervising partner encourages these meetings and emphasises the importance of developing commercial awareness.
At the end of the day I usually have a de-brief with my supervising solicitor on what tasks I have done well and what tasks I could improve on. As part of this, my supervising solicitor frequently suggests topics I could read into or other aspects I could consider to improve, and it is always done in a very friendly and supportive way. All of the partners at Machins appreciate that a trainee is still ultimately a trainee, and they want you to leave their department with more knowledge and skills than you went in with.
I finish the day by doing any preparatory reading for any meetings the next day, and then I usually log off my computer and leave the office at around 5:30pm