Lawsy Originals
Conversations with lawyers about the real stories behind their careers.
Lawsy Originals
Future Trainee Series: Yusuf Serang
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Yusuf Serang, Future Trainee Solicitor at Fieldfisher — From India to a Training Contract in the UK
In this episode, Yusuf shares his inspiring journey from Mumbai to securing a training contract at Fieldfisher, offering practical advice for aspiring lawyers on networking, academic success and standing out in competitive applications.
Yusuf reflects on moving to the UK as an international student to study law at Swansea University and explains how he approached university with an open mind, exploring different areas of legal practice before discovering that commercial law best matched his interests in solving business problems and helping clients achieve their objectives.
The conversation explores how gaining experience at a high street firm, an international in-house legal team and across different commercial practice areas helped him refine his career goals and develop a genuine understanding of what commercial lawyers actually do.
Yusuf also discusses the challenges of building a professional network from scratch in a new country. From travelling across the UK to attend networking events to finding mentors and even securing legal work experience through conversations at his part-time job, he explains why curiosity and consistently asking questions opened doors throughout his career.
A major focus of the episode is academic excellence. Yusuf explains how a chance conversation during his first year at university transformed his mindset and ultimately led him to graduate top of his cohort with the highest overall average. He breaks down the four key ingredients of a first-class law essay and shares practical advice that any law student can apply to improve their grades.
The conversation also explores interview preparation, with Yusuf explaining why self-awareness became his greatest advantage. Rather than memorising model answers, he reflects on how analysing every work experience, identifying lessons learned and understanding his own strengths enabled him to answer unexpected interview questions with confidence.
Yusuf also challenges one of the biggest myths surrounding training contract applications—that only legal work experience matters. Drawing on his experience working in a timber yard, he explains how transferable skills such as communication, attention to detail, organisation and problem solving can be just as valuable when presented effectively in interviews.
Throughout the episode, Yusuf emphasises the importance of reflecting on experiences rather than simply listing responsibilities, showing how any role can demonstrate commercial awareness, resilience and client-focused thinking.
Finally, Yusuf shares practical advice for aspiring lawyers, encouraging students to stay curious, take every opportunity available, build meaningful relationships and remember that consistent self-reflection is often the difference between a good application and an exceptional one.
00:00 Introduction
00:20 Meet Yusuf Serang
01:00 Why Commercial Law?
03:00 From India to Swansea University
04:00 Building a Network from Scratch
05:00 Finding Mentors & Work Experience
06:00 What Yusuf Would Do Differently
07:00 Graduating Top of His Cohort
09:00 The Four Ingredients of a First-Class Essay
10:30 Developing Critical Analysis
11:00 Self-Awareness for Interview Success
12:30 Preparing for Assessment Centres
13:00 Why Non-Legal Experience Matters
14:00 Transferable Skills from a Part-Time Job
15:00 Turning Timber Sales into Interview Success
16:00 Practical Advice for Aspiring Lawyers
17:00 Final Reflections
Hi, and welcome to Lawsy Originals. Today I'm here with Yusuf. Thank you for joining us. Would you like to introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_00Sure. Thank you for having me, first of all. My name is Yusuf, and I am an international I came to the UK as an international student from Mumbai, India, and did my law degree at Swans University. Graduated uh July 2024, and after that, I secured my training contract at Phil Fisher in March of 2025, so last year. And then after that, I moved to London and now I work as a uh risk paralegal at Winston Taylor, which was previously Taylor Wessing.
SPEAKER_01Thank you. Now, to kick us off, I have to ask an ice icebreaker. I'm wondering what made you want to be a commercial lawyer.
SPEAKER_00Ooh, that's that sounds like a proper TC interview question. But um yeah, and I think it's it's a question that has that has to have a very personal answer. And when I came, when I started university in my first year, I came with an open mind. So I didn't really plan to become a commercial solicitor. At the end of my first year, I tried different areas of law. So I tried um family, criminal, uh, dispute resolution, and a little bit of conveyancing. And this was at a high street firm, so I spent four weeks, uh, one week in each department. And by the end of it, I thought I really enjoyed the dispute resolution seat, uh, the week of work experience there. And uh it was a contractual dispute. And I thought, okay, I really enjoyed reviewing the contracts. So subsequent applications to internships and work experience, I focused more on commercial areas. So I did uh work experience in areas like construction and banking and finance, etc. At the end of my second year, I worked in-house at a uh pesticide company, biopesticide company. And I saw things from the other side of how business owners and business founders think about commercial and legal problems. And I was instructing solicitors in two different countries internationally. And I thought that, well, if I have a problem as a business owner or as a business, or I have a uh I have a strategy or an approach or an objective that I want to achieve, I want to be able to instruct someone who can, you know, help me achieve that objective in an efficient manner. And I wanted to be that person who stands at that at that intersection of law and business and help, you know, businesses achieve those objectives. So that's where I see commercial law as, as in it's it's solving problems and it's helping these businesses achieve their objectives. And I thought that was uh something that really, really uh I found that very stimulating. So that's that's why I decided to uh get into commercial law.
SPEAKER_01No, that makes complete sense. I think a lot of other people might even relate to your answer. But what you touched on as well is that commercial law is quite complex, right? So for you, moving over here from India, how did you kind of tackle building your network and building that understanding of commercial law sort of from right from the ground up?
SPEAKER_00I think uh moving to a different country is a challenging experience, but it's also a very, very big opportunity. Um, when I came to the UK, I thought, okay, this is a fresh start. I'm going to be at university where there's people from probably 40, 50 different countries. So before I even got to the networking part, I just came in with an open mind thinking, I want to, I came in with a curiosity of wanting to know or understand and learn about different cultures, different areas, different, you know, different people. So I built really strong friendships, first of all, um, during my first year. Um, in relation to networking, you know, building my professional network, I took pretty much every opportunity I could get to attend events. So from Sonzi, I would take the train to London maybe three or four times a year. I I went to Manchester for a networking event. I went to Leeds. Um, and I would save up money. So I wouldn't get takeout for like uh two or three months and then save that 80 or 100 pounds for the return ticket from London. But I took every single opportunity and again kept an open mind. And through those networks, through the through the connections I made, I was able to secure uh mentors, I was able to secure interviews and even work experience. So um actually one of the one of the pieces of work experience that I secured was not through my strictly legal network, it was through my part-time job. And I spoke with the business owner one time I was on the shop floor, and um I asked him if he knew any lawyers in the construction sector, and he said yes. And I got a week's uh work experience at a construction with a construction team. So um I kept a very open mind. I uh was very curious, and I took every single opportunity I could get to just explore as many areas as possible.
SPEAKER_01So I think the real lesson there is that if you speak to enough people and you ask, you know, if you never ask, then you never get. So you've got to throw yourself out there. Absolutely. In hindsight, if you could go back to your first year self, would you have done anything differently?
SPEAKER_00I think not necessarily in my first year. Um, I think I I I did uh I I wouldn't change things about my first year, but my second year, when I actually started applying to um, you know, law firms uh for vacation schemes and training contracts, um, I took a very shotgun approach. So I didn't really uh sit down and think about what I actually wanted to do and why I wanted to do it. It was just, well, so many people, a lot of people in my uh network were applying to commercial law firms, so I'll just do the same. Um, so I think that is one thing that I would change where I'd sit down and reflect over my on my motivations for pursuing commercial law and then uh proceed from there.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But I imagine based on what I already know about you, if there's one thing that you don't wish you had done differently, it was your grades. So for the listeners who don't know you, could you talk us through your academic journey at Swansea University and then perhaps provide some tips for them off the back of that?
SPEAKER_00Sure. So when I started university um in my first semester, I remember I had a we had four modules, and we I I got uh two two, two two ones and one first class. So it was a bit of a range of grades. And that one module that I got a first class on, I thought, okay, this was basically a fluke, and I don't think it's gonna really improve after uh after this much. Maybe I'll get a first class here and there. But um it was a dis it was it was someone I met randomly at the mosque that changed everything for me because uh I'll never forget him. His name was Hamza, and we just started talking, never met him before, and I told him about that I was doing a law degree, and he said, Well, Yusuf, I think you should work towards getting a first-class degree overall. And I pushed back a bit. I was like, you know, this is actually quite uh, you know, challenging and not something that's easily attainable. But he said, you know, you you you're capable of doing it. You've you've got one, you know, module that you've got a first class on. Why can't you do that for the other modules and your subsequent years? And that really changed how I perceived my capability because I thought, okay, if I can get one again, you know, I can you know uh do the same for the others. And by the end of my uh time at university, I in my final year I ranked first across the entire cohort because I had the highest overall average. And the way I went about doing this was uh, first of all, there's a lot of resources available to law students at university, even if you're not pursuing a law degree, a non-law degree. Um, your lecturers are there to support you, your seminar tutors, your formative assessments, things like that. So focusing on the tools that were already available, I utilized them. And then it came down to, I mean, my my understanding was after this this entire thing was there's four fundamentals, I think, for a first class grade. So the first one is you answer all parts of the question. So it sounds quite simple, but if a question is making, if it's an essay question, it's making three assertions as calling the law uh out of date or in need of reform or um irrational. So there's different assertions and it's important you address each of them. The second is demonstrating legal um knowledge. So you know the right statutes, you know the right uh you know case law, et cetera, that applies. And then um legal analysis. So you apply those to the facts or uh you know trace the formation of the law there. And the fourth most important thing that separates a two-one answer with from first class answer is critical analysis. So you demonstrate your understanding through articulating your opinion that is grounded in solid legal reasoning. So I think those four fundamentals, and if you add a little bit of original thought to it, then I think you go past um, you know, the 80s. So that was that was my approach to securing first class grades.
SPEAKER_01So by the sounds of it, it's very important when you are going about your academic journey in law to practice that self-awareness and to reflect on which of those four components perhaps you're missing in your essays in order to achieve that first class. And with self-awareness, I understand that's something that you're very passionate about. And you've hosted some workshops actually surrounding using self-awareness as a tool for interview preparation. So I'm wondering if you could tell the listeners something a little bit more about that.
SPEAKER_00Sure. I mean, I mean, when when people prepare for interviews, I think people focus on, let's say, the technical aspect. Yes, they focus on their motivations for pursuing a career in law because why commercial law just like at the beginning of this interview? Um, it's a very common question. So it's important to uh uh prepare for these things. But I think in the uh I think another aspect is neglected, which is um when you're talking about your experiences and um so my approach was even before I did uh my interviews, was to sit down and go through every bit of work experience and think and ask myself the question, what did I learn about myself? So I asked myself, okay, I did this work experience or I did this part-time job. What did I like about it? What did I dislike about it? Um, did I do something? Did what did I do well? Because I might dislike something, but I might have done really well. So it's different. Uh, what did I, what did I not do well? What mistakes did I make? Was there something that I sh would have improved or that I could improve on? So those things helped me prepare for questions that I wasn't necessarily expecting because I was able to provide examples from my work experience that were not just rehearsed, but they were the product of uh deep self-reflection. And I think that really came across in my interviews because I only ever did one assessment center, which was with my future firm. And I was able to, if I got convert it to a successful offer. Um, so that was the first time I did a HR interview, first time I did a director interview, and then a final partner interview with two uh amazing partners. So that self-reflection and self-awareness, I think, was the cornerstone of my preparation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And I think another thing that candidates also struggle with during interviews that you have good experience with is talking about non-legal work experiences. And it's such a myth that in order to secure a vacation scheme or a training contract, you need legal work experiences. Because if you talk about your non-legal work experiences effectively, you can really show evidence of your motivation for a career in commercial law and your competencies. So I'm wondering if you had a strategy that you employed when speaking about non-legal work experiences.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, um, and I had a just like many, many university students, I used to have a part-time job. Um, and my part-time job was uh cutting timber and plywood, if you can believe it. Yes. I was lugging timber and plywood and I was cutting it onto table saw. Um, and I really, really enjoyed that job. Um, and again, I employed that self-awareness, uh, self-reflection, that that um exercise of self-reflection on that role as well. And that really helped me speak about my um that non-legal experience in my final training contract interview, actually. So I think the mistake a lot of people make is they focus on tasks. So if they let's say they worked in it at Primark, so or pre-mark if uh you can prefer it that way, um people focus on tasks. So, oh, I stock shelves or I dealt with customer queries. I think you have to go a lot beyond that and think about what kind of skills you actually um developed in those roles. So what was it uh being well organized? Was it having you know excellent time management skills? Was it communication skills, dealing with difficult, difficult customers, difficult situations, problem solving, you know, all of these things you you do the self-reflection and then you write down the list of skills. And then you compare that with the role you're applying to, because trainees, do they use these skills? Of course they do, right? But it does not necessarily have to be in the same exact manner. So, as an example, in my final training contract interview, um, I remember uh speaking about how I developed what I learned about myself. So sorry, um, just to go back a bit, um, the first question in my final interview was what was the role that taught you the most about yourself? And I talked about uh, you know, Swansea Timber and what I learned uh through that. And one of the things I spoke about was, well, I really understood that I love talking to people, learning about their problems and coming up with solutions. So a client, you know, customer would walk in with a DIY project, and I'd spend time understanding what their objectives were and then provide recommendations accordingly, okay, this is the type of wood that I think would be best suited for your project. Um, and I gave that example in my training contract. So, what is that an example of? It's an example of problem solving, it's an example of you know excellent communication skills. Um I also talked about, I think, in one of my in one of those uh, you know, uh interview answers about my attention detail, I think, because I was using um, you know, table saw to cut plywood to within half a millimeter uh accuracy. So those things are transferable because it demonstrates your commitment to following a certain procedure and ensuring a high standard of output. And that's critical as in in in your role as a as a trainee.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, 100%. I think if you can look at any part-time non-legal work experience you have and draw any parallels possible with the skills that you're doing and the competencies you're developing with any which relate to commercial law, and you can even tabulate it, then that's such a helpful interview preparation technique.
SPEAKER_00I have to agree, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I've absolutely loved speaking to you today about you know your journey here from India, the way that you achieved your first class grades, and then all of your interview tips. So thank you so much for coming on and best of luck with your training contract.
SPEAKER_00Thank you very much.