Look around you for the shape of things to come

There are lots of professions where training requires rotation between different practice areas and being a trainee solicitor is no different.

Rotation is designed to facilitate trainees getting
the most from their training contract, maximising our exposure and, hopefully, producing a more ‘rounded’ solicitor in the end.

In its basest sense, rotation aims to give trainees solid legal know-how from each seat. In reality, what you actually gain
is much more subtle and less easily identifiable than simple legal expertise.

At first, moving around can feel highly unsettling and much of my early trainee experience reflects that fear borne of having to be the ‘new kid’
again every six months.

However, looking back,
I can see progression, even
in a two-year period, as I have started to take the shape of what I hope now vaguely resembles a junior solicitor.

I know that this progression (both personal and professional) is still very much
in its infancy, but I also believe that the years to come will not bring the same, almost vertical, degree of change that has taken place during my ‘formative years’ as a trainee.

As a trainee, you should strive to be the most effective sponge you can be, sucking knowledge from your colleagues at every available opportunity.

Rotation increases these opportunities as trainees are exposed not just to new areas of law, but to a whole tranche of new solicitors, their working practices and, perhaps most importantly, other people’s reactions to them.

While on the face of things, rotation is designed to tick the Solicitors Regulation Authority’s requirements, it is not just legal knowledge that we are exposed to and that we learn from.

My first supervisor’s email sign-off was ‘kind regards’. It has since been my choice and always will be.

While I appreciate that how you close your emails is not the most groundbreaking or defining aspect of being a solicitor, this example made me wonder what other traits I had subconsciously picked up
along the way.

The behaviours that you absorb vary from simple
stylistic traits to more integral practices, such as filing or billing. Invariably, what works perfectly for one person, will not always translate smoothly for someone else.

In fact, what could be seen
by some as an impossible
way to operate could equally
be the only manageable way
for others.

As trainees, exposure to people’s diverse methods is constant and, as a result, we are in an incredibly fortunate position to be able to ‘cherry pick’ the traits we wish to discard and learn accordingly.

So, while planning, commercial property, family and commercial law have moulded me as a solicitor,
the mishmash of all the other components it takes to be
a practising solicitor have
been pieced together from
my colleagues.

The result is hopefully less monstrous than Frankenstein’s stitched-together creation and more akin to a competent junior solicitor. If it is done correctly, you should emerge a product
of people, not just processes. SJ