Life at Brodies: Being an English-qualified lawyer

In our series Life at Brodies, we're getting to know Brodies colleagues as they share their personal experiences and perspectives about working at Scotland's largest legal firm.

In this episode, partner Nadine Walton gives us an insight of what it’s like to be an English-qualified lawyer working in a Scottish-headquartered firm. We’re also joined by practice development lawyer Paul Iannetta, who shares his unique perspective as a dual-qualified lawyer. Paul dives deeper into our English training contracts – what they involve, and what future candidates can expect from the experience.

For anyone looking for more information on Brodies’ English training contracts, you can visit brodies.com/englishtrainingcontracts.

Transcript

00:00:05 David Lee, Host

Hello and welcome to podcast by Brodies. My name is David Lee and in this series life at Brodies, we find out more about Brodies’ colleagues as they share their personal experiences and perspectives about working at a leading UK law firm.

Today, I'm delighted to welcome partner – Nadine Walton and practise development lawyer Paul Iannetta to talk about what it's like to be an English-qualified lawyer at Brodies, and also to chat about the firm's English training contracts and what the process of becoming an English lawyer looks like. Welcome to you both.

Nadine, if I can come to you first, you became a partner at Brodies this year. You've been at the firm since 2022. Let's just take a step further back. Just tell us a little bit about your original motivation in becoming a lawyer. Your early career, and why you ended up doing private client law.

00:01:03 Nadine Walton, Partner

Certainly. Yeah. So, I think a key point to stress here is probably that I wasn't all sure that I wanted to be a lawyer following my law degree, which is probably a bit of a shocker. I took a year out and sort of used that time to reflect on what I wanted to do and ended up applying for what was then the Legal Practise Course. Which is the one-year qualification basically that you need to do before you can take a training contract. And the more I got into that really the more I could see myself doing some of the practical work quite well and enjoyed it. 

And during the LPC I applied for loads of training contracts and was unsuccessful with a lot of them, and I trained at a relatively small firm on Teesside and stayed there for about three and a half years inclusive of my two-year training contract.

And during my training contract, I probably wasn't that enthusiastic, to be honest about doing a seat in private client because I had found at university the equity and trust module that I did to just be really dry, a bit bland and just assumed that was what it was going to be like in practise. And I suppose I was worried that would I be constantly engaged every day? Would there be enough different about the job every day to keep me interested?

And I can now say, looking back, my perception was really misconceived. It's such a technical area of law and you when you layer on that sort of the human element, you're dealing with different people every day, something different makes every single one of them tick and you need to understand that to be able to act for them in the best way really.

And I think whatever the factor or circumstance they're coming to you in an hour of need in this line of work. So, to be able to work with someone and for someone to help them in that position is a real privilege.

00:03:09 David Lee, Host

OK, that's great, and tell us a little bit Nadine after those two sorts of little hiccups as to whether law was right for you, whether private client law was right for you, how did you then come to work at brodies and just tell us a bit about the work that you do now?

00:03:24 Nadine Walton, Partner

Yeah. So, I say, I worked for and trained at a regional firm. I then went to another regional firm stayed there about 6 years. 

So, when I say regional, sorry, I should have explained. I'm Northeast born and bred, if you can't tell from the accent yet. And I was sitting quite happily at my desk one day at previous firm when a recruiter got in touch as they do. And talked about the Brodies proposition. And to be honest, what piqued my interest, first of all was the Scottish connection. I've always had a real love for Scotland. We have travelled all over Scotland, walked all over Scotland and it just was something a bit different. That was got me interested more so than one of the bigger Newcastle firms, but I had never really seen myself going to a big firm, I suppose.

And I had a couple of interviews, and the more I heard about the type of work that I'd have the opportunity to get involved with and, you know felt a real sense of, I suppose, even from those initial couple of interviews, I felt a real sense that they'd be a really supportive collegiate environment at the firm. The more it piqued my interest, and I suppose the rest is history. Here I am. 

So, the type of work I do, I'm a trust and estate practitioner. So, I specialise in all things succession and estate planning for individual clients so, wills, powers of attorney, trusts, tax planning.

And so, it's all I'm English qualified, so I do the pure English trust in estate planning, but I suppose a niche strand of my practise since joining Brodies because Brodies is a Scottish headquartered firm, we have a huge Scottish private client team, and they will often as the first port of call refer me anything with an English element. 

And it's often the case that where they're referring me that type of work a client has connections to both jurisdictions, they've got a foot in each camp, or they've got property in in one jurisdiction and live in the other. 

And I've become quite adept at acting, the succession regimes are really different. I've become quite adept at acting for individuals connected to both and that is a really rare strand of a practise I think to have. So that's really, it's something I enjoy grappling within my day-to-day job.

00:05:46 David Lee, Host

Great. OK. Thanks very much. That's really interesting Nadine. And Paul coming to you and coming back to this idea of dual, you know working across both jurisdictions, you are dual qualified. Just tell us a little bit about what led you to qualify under both Scots and English law and what your job entails now.

00:06:05 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

Yeah, of course. So, I qualified in Scotland at my previous firm in 2016 and while I was a trainee there, I had the brilliant boss who led the real estate team that was working across England and Wales at the time. So, I got to spend a bit of time during my traineeship working not only on Scottish transactions but on transactions in England and Wales. And I found myself working on fast-paced, high-profile deals right across the UK.

Now as you can imagine, a lot of the biggest deals in the country happen in and around London and the opportunity to get involved from up here without having to move down to London full time was something that I thought was really unusual, but something that I really, really enjoyed as well. So, I guess to ensure that I could continue to work on all of those deals going forward I decided to dual qualify pretty quickly after I gained my Scottish qualification in 2016. So, I took my English exams 2018 and was admitted in England and Wales the year after and I spent nine years that at that previous firm from trainee all the way through to senior associate before I moved to Brodies in 2024. 

So, I guess as to what my role entails now it's a slight change from the senior associate role I was doing before. I'm what's known as a practise development lawyer or PDL within the firm. It's really a multifaceted role. So, I'll do my best to summarise what I do here. 

I guess I first of all, I bring all the experience I've gained working on deals in England and Wales for the last few years and act as a bit of a consultant to my colleagues on issues that crop up on their deals. I develop a bank of precedents documents for the team to use here. I keep tabs on changes in law and practise, and I deliver training to the team here, but also to clients. I organise events like the Brodies Real Estate Academy, which is a really strong network of lawyers and surveyors, and other property professionals who are all at an early stage in their careers.

And I guess more recently I've supported more and more of our colleagues through the dual qualification exams so that they can also and English qualify. So, in recent years, we've seen a real increase in the volume of English legal work that's handled by all teams across the firm. And so, in response to that we are responding by ensuring that we've got plenty of English qualified lawyers to handle all that work.

00:08:50 David Lee, Host

OK, great stuff and we'll come back to some of those things later, Paul, but I'll come back to you, Nadine. What is it? What are those? You've touched on this a little bit already. What are those kind of personal qualities that you think make a good lawyer, but particularly in your case, a good private client lawyer. You talked about the different motivations of each individual you deal with. Different ways that make them tick. 

So, what do you think it is about you that makes you a good private client lawyer and also just tell us a little bit more about yourself and what you do outside the job as well?

00:09:25 Nadine Walton, Partner

Yeah. As to what makes a good private client lawyer or, you know, more broadly, a good lawyer.

 I think my perspective on this has probably changed over the years. I think I probably entered the profession thinking I need to be the brightest and I need to be the most technically adept, and I need to know everything. And actually, the more I've learned from excellent lawyers above me throughout my career, the more I've seen that the basic skills of being.

Have to have all of that, obviously, but being a really good listener is so important because of those things that you're seeing that I've emphasised, like every client having a different motivation, every client having different objectives that you need to try and then go away and meet, you really need to listen out for. You know what is driving them, what they're trying to get out of instructing you. So, being a good listener, I think is key.

Having a can-do attitude, I think it's so important. You know, you might not get you will make mistakes, and you might not get everything right, but just having the attitude where you're going to have a go and you are going to be open to learning and taking on new things and struggling sometimes. And sitting with the discomfort of learning new things is hard, but having that attitude where you are resilient enough to endure that and come out of the other side and be better is key. 

I think so. Yeah. And I think that's about being a thinker and a problem solver as well. It's coming out of a university and a studying a situation where you are. 

You do obviously you do work independently in those environments, but you're fed a lot of the information and suddenly you're thrown into the workplace where you have to go off and seek that yourself and prepare your advice notes for clients. And it's quite and it's really, it's, yeah, it's about being proactive and a problem solver, I think.

00:11:35 David Lee, Host

What about you as a person and what you do outside work? And maybe what that brings back into the job as well?

00:11:42 Nadine Walton, Partner

Yeah, so being completely honest, I probably tend to lean into physical activity outside of work to take me away from the day, the day-to-day grind and stress and then I completely counteract that because I love cooking and baking and eating all the things I make as well. 

So, yeah, they're things that I enjoy most outside of work. But I do think you have to have that balance as well because you have to be able to, when you're on the clock and you're in the job, you have to be able to focus. And having that you know those stress busting methods are quite important to me.

00:12:23 David Lee, Host

Absolutely. Thanks very much. And what about yourself, Paul? You know what how do you get that balance between work and non-work? And again, what are those personal qualities that you think that you bring to your job?

00:12:37 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

So, I guess on the personal qualities, David, I would say, I hope other people would say that I'm quite good communicator. So, I think in this role you've got to be able to take some fairly complicated legal concepts and be able to explain them clearly, explain them concisely, and I think we do that a lot in our day jobs. 

There are also quite a lot of us who teach at the various law schools around Scotland, so we are also explaining a lot of those concepts to not necessarily to clients in those contexts, but sometimes to students who are also starting out. So, we do that communication piece in both places in slightly different settings, but I guess it's all the same skill. 

I think also to repeat what some of what Nadine has mentioned, I think you've also got to be quite versatile. One of the things that I've discovered in this role is that no two days are ever the same. So, one day, for example, you will be delivering training to the team, the next day you'll be speaking to 100 people at an event that we're hosting. 

One day you can be trialling on a new piece of legal tech. The next day you'll be interviewing candidates for summer placements and training contracts. So, I think you have to be quite adaptable and quite versatile, but I think that's all also a skill, as Nadine said, that will come with time as well.

So, when I'm out of the office, I think Nadine mentioned that she had been walking. She'd actually been on a walking holiday, I believe. 

And I try probably similarly I think when I have a bit of time off, I try to get away as much as I can I'm probably walking less than Nadine, but I'm actually a big motorsport fan, so what I've tried to do is use my holidays to combine it with that love of Motorsports. I've been on a few trips recently, I've been to, to Spain, to Italy, to Belgium, out to the formula one tracks. I went to Indiana this year for the Indy 500, so that was my first IndyCar event. 

But I think it's just we work hard so, when you get those holidays, you want to make good use of them. So that's what I would try to do there.

00:15:01 David Lee, Host

OK, great. Great work life balance there for you both, hopefully. At least on the surface. So, we'll come back to what you talked about. You touched there on English training contracts, Paul, and we'll come back to that soon. 

But Nadine, just tell us a little bit about the growing team of lawyers within Brodies who are English-qualified and dual qualified. Why is Brodies moving in that direction and what kind of work is Brodies doing in England?

00:15:33 Nadine Walton, Partner

Yeah. And so, we have a lot of dual qualified lawyers now and some lawyers like me who are exclusively English qualified and are actually I'm based in the Northeast of England, we have other lawyers based here in the Northeast as well as further afield in the Northwest and in more Southern lead direction.

And I suppose it's in terms of the firm story it's probably happened quite naturally and organically that we have started acting for more and more English clients. We started off life as a Scottish headquartered firm and now very much see ourselves as a UK firm. 

But doing a lot of work in in Scotland originally meant that Scottish clients that had any English connection like I was saying earlier, they might have had a property in England and Wales or they might have had family members in England and Wales meant we naturally, if we did a good if we did a good job for those clients.

We naturally started getting referrals to English relatives and clients that they were aware of in England and Wales that had issues that they needed us. They needed us to help with. So, some of it was quite natural and then we have as a firm sort of decided we want to push for more and more of that English work because we have some fantastic lawyers here that can service that really well and we always want to be growing and pushing on as a firm really. So that's the genesis really of the expansion into the English legal market and that's why we need more, more English qualified lawyers really to be the excellent practitioners who are going to do that really high quality work.

00:17:27 David Lee, Host

OK. And talking about that Paul, talking about that pipeline of new lawyers coming in who are English qualified, Brodies now offers English training contracts to students. Can you just tell us a little bit about how that process works for becoming English-qualified at Brodies?

00:17:44 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

Of course. So, we were really excited to launch an English training contract at the end of 2024 and have our first cohort of English trainees with us now. They started late summer this year 2025. 

So, I guess for the exam process, if you're not yet qualified in any other legal system, which is where we expect most of the people starting this training contract will be.

Then you've got two exams to pass on your journey to become an English qualified, so those are SQE 1 and SQE 2 and I should just say SQE stands for ‘solicitors qualifying exam’.

So SQE 1 is really a test of your legal knowledge, so it's made-up of 360 multiple choice questions and split into two exams, 180 questions in each. But that exam assesses a whole range of subjects, so land law to human rights law, EU law to criminal law.

It's a tough exam. Like I say, 360 multiple choice questions, I know multiple choice might sound a little bit more straightforward than other types of exams, but it's really not. It's what they call a single best answer exam, so there are no answers that you can really rule out straight away. It's a tough, it's a tough process. 

Assuming you get through that you move on to SQE2, which is a test of practical legal skills, so things like client interviewing and advocacy and legal writing, legal research, but again, fairly tough exam. There’s sixteen practical assessments and twelve of them are written four of them are oral exams. 

And what I still remember is just this year's volume of material that you expected to master in order to get through the exams. The passed rate across all candidates for the recent SQE1 exam was just 41%, and that's across thousands of candidates. So, when you break it down, it's a tough exam.

 I think it needs a lot of study time. it is absolutely doable. But I think it's we found it to be a tough exam.

00:19:59 David Lee, Host

OK, sent a few shivers down my spine there. The thought of 180 multiple choice questions in one exam. I'm not quite sure how much time you have.

But tell us a little bit more Paul then Nadine, a little bit more about the English training contract with Brodies and after that kind of horror exam at the beginning, what else it includes as it goes on?

00:20:20 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

Yeah, of course. So, I would say first thing is that it's a little bit longer the English training contract than our traditional Scottish traineeship. So, around 28 months rather than 24. And that's because we've allocated the first four months of the training contract purely to full time study time for SQE1, and I mentioned it's obviously a tough exam, so we wanted to build in plenty of study time, so that's effectively full-time study towards your SQE1 exams. 

And so, when you returned from your SQE1 exams and hopefully that's all gone well, the English trainings will be based in either our Edinburgh office or our Glasgow office, and they'll begin three eight-months seat rotations in various departments of the firm. Now that could be dispute resolution and risk, it could be my department that's the real estate department or it could be in Nadine's department, which is personal and family.

And that counts as the qualifying work experience that you need in order to become a qualified solicitor when you follow this route. 

The idea being that all those departments handle English legal work, so we can provide opportunities, and we can provide supervision for our trainees. When you are in those seats and you are doing the typical trainee tasks, then you'll also be preparing for SQE 2. You'll remember I mentioned that's the more practical exams, but I guess the idea is that SQE 2 exam is testing lots of your practical skills, so legal research, legal writing. And I guess that's the sorts of things you'll be doing as a trainee and in the different departments anyway. So, we think you'll be gaining the skills that you need to take SQE2 as part of your training experience anyway, so you can combine them, and they work well together.

00:22:13 David Lee, Host

OK. And it sounds Paul, as if these contracts are for people who are really committed. They've got to be sure. We heard Nadine talking at the start of the podcast about a couple of points where she wasn't sure which way she wanted to go. It sounds as if there needs to be a real commitment there.

00:22:30 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

I think so, David. I think what we would look for as part of the application process is a particular interest in English law, so it might be that you've studied the degree that's had the elements of English law to it, and that's given you a sense that it's something that you want to pursue. 

And it might be that you have an English law degree, for example, and you found you're based in Scotland. So, you could work in Edinburgh, Glasgow to take up the English training contract. And so yes, I think we would look obviously our numbers initially will be lower than what we have on the Scottish traineeship that we offer.

And we've offered for a long time, and this is still at an early stage. So, we the numbers are a bit more limited. So, I think when we are looking at the applications, we'll look at a particular interest in English law.

00:23:18 David Lee, Host

Ok and Nadine, you touched earlier on about the work that you do and the specialism you've developed work in cross-border. You know how quickly do the trainees get into that you know get into understanding that kind of the complexities of that cross-border work and the new ones as you talked about?

00:23:38 Nadine Walton, Partner

All will be into that very quickly. Yeah, it is just a because they'll be working at a Scottish headquartered firm.

That intra UK cross-border peace between Scotland and England and Wales is just something that is almost day-to-day at the firm, so we'll be exposed to that very quickly. And they will also the firm does an awful lot of international work more generally. So, out with the UK and working with you know I've got cases on my desk at the moment that collaborating with Canadian, Australian, Spanish qualified lawyers. And so, they'll be exposed to that sort of exciting cross-border, wider cross-border work as well. And that does mean I think it's fair to say that it will be challenging. It will be a challenging training contract that's not just run-of-the-mill. And it's not just pure English estate planning, you know, doing English wills and English LPAs and that's it that there is more to it. 

So, it's, suppose I'd go back to those qualities that I was referring to earlier. 

When I was saying, you know, a bit of resilience and a bit of a can-do approach and a comfort with struggling through new things is something we'd really be looking for in trainees because they are going to need that to relish that opportunity to take that you know, take that opportunity and learning experience with both hands that they might not necessarily get elsewhere.

00:25:29 David Lee, Host

OK, great stuff. And Paul is obviously quite a high bar here for, you know, the people who brodies wanting to come in. So what support is available for those English trainees to just give them that general support but also ensure that they do feel an integral part of brodies as Scottish headquartered firm?

00:25:50 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

Yeah. Agree, David and I think on that point first of all, just to note, I think we're fully aware that it is a tough process. So, we've been, we've gone into this with eyes wide open in terms of the support that we'll need to provide. 

I think having been through the process myself, it's one thing that I've been very keen to stress is that it is a tough process and to do this you need to have that support in place. So, I guess just to give you a few examples of what we will do, and I suppose all of our English trainees will have access to a training provider so that somebody that will provide you with all of the textbooks and somebody notes and podcasts that will help you with your studying. So, they provide them for every course that's part of the exam and you don't need a training provider, but I think it would be very hard to do the exam without one. So that's included for all our English trainees, and we also realise that we've got quite a lot of in-house expertise at a firm like Brodies, and we've got hundreds of lawyers across the firm with specialisms in all different areas. So, we have made those specialists available to our English trainees. 

If they have questions and they want to ask people, they can't find an answer in the books then they can ask in-house. 

But we've also given each of our English trainees a mentor. Now that's somebody that's been carefully chosen because they've very recently been through the exam themselves, so they're probably the best placed to share their experiences, what worked well for them, what didn't work so well and really just be that regular point of contact in the build up to the exams. 

Little things, English trainees obviously have full access to all our offices while they are studying, so don't have to worry about a place to study and got plenty of study space in the offices. But also, that gives them the opportunities to meet who are now there, those who are now their colleagues, the first few months are particularly study heavy. But they've got opportunities to come in and sit with the teams that they'll be working with and get to know people in in plenty of time before they start. 

And I suppose just finally, it's worth mentioning that there is a dual qualification network across the firm so and it's a big group. There's a real push across the firm to dual qualify or English qualify more of our solicitors so that can be trainees all the way through to senior associates and partners. They're all part of a big dual qualification network. So, they share their experiences. They meet every so often and again it just makes you feel part of a bigger group.

00:28:26 David Lee, Host

Great stuff. So, Nadine, lots of support available there and justice against that sort of backdrop you talked about working in regional firms in England before you joined Brodies, is that level of support that's offered? Do you think that helps set brodies apart in terms of what it's offering in its English training contract?

00:28:48 Nadine Walton, Partner

Absolutely. Yeah. I you know, I can't fault the firm generally in terms of the support that I've had since I came on board, it's completely changed. My perspective as I say, is to life in a big firm. I really, I think I worried before I came to brodies that the sort of careful and methodical and quite I suppose I'm quite introspective and the way that I deal with clients might be sacrificed for, you know, within a big firm that the behest of some of the more commercial values that are that are put in front of that, that's absolutely not the case at brodies were sort of a value first firm. We live by our file values, so the support is something that I can speak from the heart on really. It is brilliant across the firm. So, I'm fully confident that that will apply to trainees in their in their training contract experience.

Those and yeah, and I think it comparing it to working in regional firms and training at a regional firm. Again, I think I sound like I've really hammed up the cross-border and niche sort of work experience that you'll get at the firm. But I think comparing it to the work, the domestic focused work that I did previously, I would emphasise I've just expanded my practise so much on coming to the firm.

Almost the replica of that that I see in choosing brodies for a traineeship over, say, a regional English firm for a traineeship, I think it will be harder and I'm not going to mince my words around that, but I think the opportunity is greater and the yeah, the chance for personal development is much greater.

00:31:06 David Lee, Host

And then to both of you, just a final point really to anyone, any students thinking about going down the English qualification route, what's your advice? Nadine? And then Paul?

00:31:20 Nadine Walton, Partner

And. I'm going to try and keep this short and snappy so that hopefully people do take away some key points, but I would say. Don't be afraid.

It, you know, throw yourself into to that challenge, take it with both hands, it'll be hard. But doing harder things make us better. And yeah, be open to learning and go for it.

00:31:49 David Lee, Host

And Paul, final word.

00:31:51 Paul Iannetta, Practice development lawyer

Yeah, of course. So possibly two pieces of advice here. I think I should probably just say a bit about working in the real estate team. I think first of all, you'll get an opportunity to do that as part of an English training contract, and it is a really tangible area of the law. I think there's something nice about being able to see the building that you bought or the shop that you've just leased, or the hotel that you've just sold all around you every day. 

So, there's some real opportunities to do that on. Some high profile developments, if you are working at a firm like Brodies.

I think on the training contract more generally it is a tough process. I think we've got to be honest about that. But I think at the same time, there is a real opportunity here to do something really rewarding, really exciting at a very early stage of your career. 

So, as we've said, English qualification allows you to practise beyond Scotland, be it in the rest of the UK or across the rest of the world where English law is the law that applies whilst also keeping your home in Scotland. And I think there's something really exciting about that and you'll do that with the backing of the biggest law firm in in Scotland. So, it's certainly an opportunity. I wish I'd been around when I was a trainee and I think you've got a particular interest, as we say in qualifying in England and get in touch as we'd love to hear from you.

00:33:15 David Lee, Host

Thanks so much to Paul Iannetta and to Nadine Walton for their great insights today.

And if you're looking for more information on Brodies’ English training contracts, please visit brodies.com/english training contracts. That's brodies.com/english training contracts simples as the meerkat might say.

And wherever you are in your career you can find out more about making the next step in your journey at brodies by visiting brodies.com/careers.

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