November 22, 2024
Full article
Law has always been something that I am incredibly interested in studying, so when I was offered the opportunity to spend a week in such a widespread firm, I knew I had to take it on with an open mind. I joined the Gilson Gray firm for a week in August, working in both the Edinburgh and Glasgow offices, giving me a large insight over what working in a Law firm is actually like and how interesting the workplace is. I was lucky enough to work in multiple departments ranging from Finance to Litigation and gained great experience over what being a lawyer entails and the challenging tasks faced daily.
I began my Gilson Gray journey in property and was able to gain a small glimpse of how hard the department works, learning a basic understanding of what this side of the firm does. I was welcomed with open arms by the department which helped push me to ask questions and get a feel of what the company was really like. Throughout the rest of my first day, I got an insight of how the Finance department worked and also was able to experience the extremely busy Family Law department, which was intense yet had an amazing feel to it, the team constantly at work, showing the amazing outcomes a Family Lawyer can achieve throughout cases. After an eventful first day, I was extremely excited to return and to discover how the rest of Gilson Gray functioned, eager to learn about every department. Tuesday was just as busy and interesting as the day before – I was given a small glimpse of the marketing department; this was filled with great ideas and showed the importance of social media to Gilson Gray, providing new ways to interest people to become internal clients and to use the Firm for many aspects. I was then placed into the Conveyancing department for the rest of the day; although it was extremely busy and the work never seemed to stop, the entire team had a positive feel and made the experience incredibly fun, helping me to understand how the department functioned and what every day was like. I was given the opportunity to work with many people in the team and was given important tasks to work on which made me feel like I belonged in the environment and pushed me to work extremely hard.
After a second great day I was taken to the Glasgow office to work in Corporate, which is the main area of Law I am extremely interested in studying; this experience pushed that idea further and gave me a greater understanding of what being a corporate lawyer is like overall and how it varies from other Legal areas. The work environment was incredibly fast paced and busy, however, everyone was extremely friendly and gave me multiple tasks to work on, which made the experience so much more interesting. I was also lucky enough to participate in a meeting with a Client of the company’s, which gave me a greater knowledge of how the company helps clients through many different aspects. After an extremely busy day, I returned to the Edinburgh office on Thursday to work back with Conveyancing, which once again I found incredibly interesting. I picked up where I left off on Tuesday and happily finished working on a project with other members of the team helping me throughout the day.
Friday was another interesting day for me as I was taken to the Sheriff court to accompany Litigation with a court case they were in the process of completing. This helped to show me how a court actually worked, and although this type of Law never appealed to me before, I soon learned how interesting it is and that I am very interested in studying it in the future. The case carried on throughout the day and once it ended my time at Gilson Gray was over.
Throughout the week I was able to absorb many different aspects of the company and I realised that Law is something I am very interested in studying and practicing in the future. It helped to give me a great insight into law, and I am extremely grateful to everyone that helped to make my week so entertaining.
Christie
For further information on our work experience programme, please click here.
