During my A levels I attended a law club at De Montfort University with a couple of friends. At the time I didn’t know what I wanted to do in terms of a degree, but in the club I got involved in mock mooting and advocacy, which I really enjoyed, and this encouraged me to look further into a career in law. It’s a sector that prioritises client care, and because of this I felt as though I could put my interpersonal skills to good use and would enjoy working in it. And as a well respected subject, I feel that a law degree can unlock a lot of doors.

My role is to assist the Place team, which leads on legal matters relating to property and related areas. Key parts of my role involve drafting legal documents and letters, opening and closing files on the legal database, work on Land Registry issues, registering documents and managing searches.

It has given me a great chance to get involved in various different areas of law. While the majority of the team are property lawyers, there are also highways and planning lawyers involved and working with them has enabled me to gain exposure to a great variety of legal work.

Now that I’m in my final year of studies, I’m working part-time for the authority for 16 hours a week. I’ve given back some of my workload but the general job description is just the same.

I will typically start off with Highways work, particularly traffic notices. When a road needs closing in the city, I have to draft the notice to be sent off to be published in the paper. That’s a set task I would do every Monday morning. Then I would usually have some drafting to do – drafting a lease, or a licence – and then some Land Registry work. I would also work on various notices and letters that would need to be sent out – I would have to draft them and send for posting.

I’ve absolutely loved it. The team is great and I’ve always felt supported. People are always happy to answer my questions. The initial training was really good as well, as I got to learn from key team members about the areas they specialised in. That helped me to grasp the relevant law really quickly and avoid mistakes.

One of the massive benefits of working in a local authority has definitely been that the work is so varied. You’re dealing with all types of matters and it’s a very diverse workload.

The main issue for the team was admin support. In the office, the admin team was more or less right next to us, whereas with everyone working from home, it became a lot harder for them to support us as there is only so much you can do over email. But overall the transition has been smooth. We’ve had weekly meetings over lockdown so I still get to collaborate with the broader team to an extent and ask any questions.

I would really emphasise the fact that there are certain benefits you get with local authorities compared with private practice. Private practice can be quite specialised so depending on where you are the variety of law you get exposed to can potentially be quite limited. At a local authority I have been exposed to a ton of variety, including property, highway, planning and contract law – the days are always exciting! As the only trainee within the Place team I get a large share of responsibility and a heavy workload which I enjoy. It makes you feel valued within the team.

It’s also important to mention that given the importance of demonstrating commercial awareness when applying for legal jobs, I found that it was really useful that I started out dealing with commercial property in the city centre, and dealing with commercial clients as well. When you first do this it is quite daunting, but dealing with this type of client and working on large scale projects does boost your confidence, and other key skills like the ability to manage client expectations and balance a heavy workload.

I would certainly encourage any student to take advantage of these types of sandwich year opportunity. Taking a year out to get this level of experience has been one hundred percent the best decision I ever made. More students should be encouraged to take the year out rather than simply doing their three years straight.