An alternative route to qualification

Choosing my career path

At the age of 17, I had no idea what I wanted to do after leaving school. I knew I wanted to go to University but what course to study followed by which profession was something in which I had no strong feelings. I had considered going into Law but I’d never even met a lawyer and thought that Law probably wasn’t for people like me. I had this view of lawyers as all being old men with posh accents in wood paneled offices who would chase me out the door thinking I was some delinquent who had come to the wrong place.

In the end, I decided to go to Edinburgh University where I studied Joint Honours in Scottish & English Literature. During the summer break between first and second year, I was asked to do some part-time work at a firm where I knew a few people. This was meant to only be 3 weeks simply helping out with of the admin in the team who sold new build houses.

Although it was quite daunting at first, thankfully there were no wood paneled offices and no one chased me out of the building. I even found myself having a lot of fun. When the 3 weeks were up, the new permanent member of staff arrived but needed some training. I was asked to stay on for longer to help out. By the end of the summer I was a fully integrated part of the team so was asked to stay on during term time working part-time hours. I would come into the office before or after my lectures and this worked really well. As time went on and people left I was asked to take on more complicated roles in the admin & support side of the team. After a couple of years, the head Paralegal who had been running most of the case files moved to another firm so I was asked to take on her role. This was utterly terrifying as it was a big step up but again, after a few weeks, I was really enjoying myself and loved the extra responsibility.

Around this time, I was approaching the end of my degree. The pressure to have a plan going forward was starting to build so I had to consider my options. The thought of doing Law had again occurred to me. The difference this time was that I’d met a lot of lawyers and knew that they were all just normal people. If they could do the job then there was no reason why I couldn’t.

Taking the non-traditional route

The question then was how to become a qualified Solicitor. I could have gone to uni to complete an accelerated LLB but because I already had an undergraduate degree, I would have had to pay full tuition rates and there was zero chance of that happening. After a bit of research, I found out that the Law Society of Scotland offered an alternative route to qualification. This is a Pre-Diploma Traineeship. I don’t know what the current process is but when I did it, it required applicants to receive on the job training in the 3 areas of Litigation, Conveyancing and Private Client over the period of 3 years. At the same time, I had to complete a number of exams in various different subjects which were equivalent to completing an LLB. The main difference however between studying for an LLB and studying for the Law Society exams is that with the Law Society exams you are very much on your own. It’s entirely self-taught. For each subject there is usually an A4 sheet which outlines the syllabus and provides a reading list. Apart from having some past papers to work through, that was it. I was left to my own devices to get on with teaching myself Scots Law and sitting the exams whilst still working full-time. On the one hand this was great because I was working in a firm getting real life experience and being paid whereas, on the other hand, it was incredibly time consuming and involved huge amounts of self-discipline.

At the end of the 3 years, I had passed my exams and went on to the diploma which was then followed by a normal traineeship.

The Diploma was slightly strange for me given that much of the practical work we were doing were things which I had been doing in real life. On one occasion, for the litigation part of the Diploma, we had to work on a “mock case” where we were given information and had to draft the pleadings. The strange thing about this for me was it was based on a real case which I’d actually been involved in. I was probably at a bit of an unfair advantage given I was being asked to draft an Initial Writ for my coursework but had already read the real life pleadings which had been drafted by Senior Counsel!

By the end of the Diploma and Traineeship, I was very lucky to be able to move with the rest of Commercial Litigation Team to Gilson Gray where I started as an NQ. Having had such a broad range of experiences prior to qualification has been fantastically useful for myself and has stood me in good stead in my career.

My route into the profession is not for everyone. It requires a huge amount of self-discipline and more or less no social life for a period of 3 years (although not much has changed there!) however, I wouldn’t be where I am today without having completed this. I can’t talk for other firms, but Gilson Gray certainly isn’t full of stuffy old men and despite my best efforts, I’ve still not been chased out the door!