The Law in Lockdown and Beyond, with Hannah Beko
A series of conversations with those in the legal profession navigating the ups and downs of the law during and after lockdown. How has this changed the profession as we've emerged from the global pandemic?
The Law in Lockdown and Beyond, with Hannah Beko
Friday Conversation with Emma Cowell, Consultant Solicitor and Mentor to Junior Lawyers
For this episode, I had a great discussion with Emma Cowell.
In this episode, Emma shares her journey from "usual practice" into a combination of floristry and consultancy. She talks about the pressures on junior lawyers.
Emma describes herself as a lawyer, friend, mentor, lipstick enthusiast and all-around champion of women! She is on a mission to start a legal revolution. And I second that!
Emma has also started a website offering information and support to those thinking about their future in law - https://lawlifemanchester.co.uk/
Do connect with Emma on Linkedin here https://www.linkedin.com/in/emma-cowell-96041a4a/
You can follow our conversation on YouTube instead here https://youtu.be/QaS9xkrBuwc
About your host, Hannah Beko
Podcast host Hannah Beko is a self-employed lawyer coach and corporate trainer for the legal profession.
Hannah has also created the Build Your Legal Business Podcast which you can find here https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/build-your-legal-business/id1569422462
If you are a legal professional, please feel free to join our free Facebook Group for networking, tips and support - Legally Speaking, a group for the legal profession https://bit.ly/fblawyers
Do connect with Hannah on Linkedin here https://linkedin.com/in/hannahbeko/ or visit www.authenticallyspeaking.co.uk.
Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of Friday Conversations. Today I'm joined by Emma Cowell who has recently become a consultant solicitor and in her words is paving the way for a legal revolution. So I'm hoping she's going to tell us all about that. So Emma, thank you for joining me and come and introduce yourself to everybody.
SPEAKER_02:Thanks, Hannah. So yeah, I'm Emma. I am a recently joined consultant solicitor. I'm originally from Sheffield now living in Manchester. I Got into law from watching a lot of Legally Blonde. I thought I was going to have the pink smart car and the little chihuahua. It hasn't quite turned out that way. I started my legal career at a firm in Sheffield and then moved to Manchester. And then as we were coming out of lockdown towards sort of this time last year, left, employed law and looked for other options, became a consultant solicitor. And here we are today.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, do you know, I love it because you are a little bit younger than me, Emma. And yeah, I went into it because of Legally Blonde. I didn't go into it because of Legally Blonde because actually Legally Blonde came out when I was at university. So yeah, it was more Ally McBeal for me.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, Legally Blonde is the newer version of Ally McBeal, isn't she?
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, definitely. I still love Legally Blonde though. I've had my son watching that too. But yeah, also not quite like that either. But no, it's really exciting to talk to you today. And we're going to cover lots of things with Emma in today's episode, because yes, she is a fairly new consultant solicitor, about six or so months into it. She does also work with me. So I will give that, you know, I'll be honest, with everybody in the audience that Emma does work with me and I'm really lucky to have her. But she's, I suppose what we would say is on the more junior side of consultant solicitors. So maybe she'll tell us a bit about that experience as well while we're chatting today. And she's got a lot of other strings to her bow. She's interested in a lot of other things as well. So Emma, tell us what made you decide to leave? normal practice? I
SPEAKER_02:was at breaking point really I think the pandemic and the two years it had been before that had taken its toll it was as a lot of legal practices are a really high stress environment with not always a great amount of support and yeah I felt like I was at breaking point it was it got to the stage where I felt like if I didn't leave I would burn out and I had to make a decision. And in that decision, I chose me, my mental health and my wellbeing over the job because at that stage, I didn't even know if I would stay in law. I was leaving law to potentially just get out of it altogether. So yeah, it was definitely a decision of picking me and it's one of the bravest decisions I've ever made and perhaps will ever make.
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Do you know, it resonates with me in a lot of ways because I did similar. So I left normal practice about 10 years ago, not not having anything to go to. I thought I was gonna set up my children's online clothing business, which people might've heard me talk about before. And I messed about with that for a few months before I realised I was never gonna make as much money as I would as a lawyer. And I think you've got your own version of that story as well. But the difference between my story and yours that I think is really interesting is that I just had my first son. So it sort of was allowed for me to leave because it was sort of, oh no, I can't make work life balance work I can't make the hours work and the commuting and all that sort of thing but I know looking back now that that was not the reason that was an excuse I could use the fact that I was a mum now to leave whereas I don't you know I wouldn't have felt I had the like the permission if you like to get out and yet you did and that is so brave it's really good
SPEAKER_02:yeah it was it was really hard because like you say it's not the done thing um I was
SPEAKER_01:I
SPEAKER_02:six years qualified i'm just coming up to seven years qualified now so i was at the start of my career i was at the stage where the next step would have been to go for promotion to be the next level of solicitor and it wasn't the done thing at all and there were certainly some people who when i said this is what i'm doing couldn't understand it at all um But I just had a knowing in me. I just knew that I couldn't stay there and that if I was brave enough to leave, something even better would be waiting for me. And I just had to trust that and jump. But yeah, I'd say for a good six weeks after I had my noticing, I literally felt like I was in free fall without a parachute and I had no idea where I was going to land.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, no, I know that feeling. In fact, looking back, it was my dad who said to my husband at the time, she won't stay. out of law. And my husband was like, yes, she will. She's left now. She wants to be a full-time mom and she doesn't want to be a lawyer anymore. And my dad was like, no, she won't stay out of it. And he obviously knew me very well because it's only six months later. So tell us a little bit about how you found this transition from employed lawyer in a very traditional, normal firm that you were working at into this consultancy model. How have you found the first, what, six, seven months?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so seven months in now. it's on the whole it's really great I absolutely love it it gives me so much more flexibility and freedom and it's given me the control back in the job so I to a certain extent can pick the jobs that I take on pick how much I charge for those jobs pick when I do them obviously subject to client demand um which has meant that I have more time for going running I can go running at lunchtime or I can knit to the shops or do other things that make up my life not just law um it it does take a bit of getting used to because we're so conditioned to be sat at our desks from nine till half five six seven whatever time it was um and not having someone there that you are holding yourself accountable to essentially has taken quite a lot of getting used to you'll still feel a bit guilty if you're in the supermarket at like three o'clock on a Wednesday afternoon you'll still get the feeling of like oh I shouldn't be doing this um But I've learned so much over these seven months from having to start my own business, having to get an accountant in, having to manage my finances and actually get better at talking about finances as well. So if I don't talk about it, that's how I get paid. So I need to be asking how much I'm getting paid for this job or I need to be raising bills as soon as matters are finished. Otherwise, I don't get paid. And that is such a huge shift from employed law, where there tends to be a bill fairy that's sorting all that stuff out for you and you don't have much involvement in that. But yeah, it's been great. I'm so glad that I made the decision. Oh,
SPEAKER_01:fantastic. No, you're absolutely right. There's so much now looking back that as a self-employed lawyer, you think, wow, wouldn't it be useful if other lawyers knew this as well? And just as you say, like with Bill's Completely. I mean, I can't even remember if I was involved with billing at the time when I was back in normal practice. I might have been, you know, you have to print off the performer and write things on it and then someone signed it and then something happened and maybe you sent it to the client. But it was always after the transaction. We were always getting the transaction done. And then at some point later, we might send a bill and I presume the client paid it. I don't know. I never really got involved in any of that because every month we'd get our salary. Whereas, you know, in the self-employed world, it's no, get that bill on completion because that's when the client's gonna be motivated to pay it. And it matters when they pay it because that's when you get paid. And I know obviously our audience is a mixture of people, but I just think there's so much from running your own business that would be useful for employed lawyers to know as well for the purposes of the firm and better management and efficiency and everything.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, 100%. Even like the drive to do business development, I felt as an employed lawyer, it was one of those sort of extracurricular activities where you could get involved if that was your style. But if that wasn't for you, you didn't have to. And that was absolutely fine. You weren't rewarded any better, particularly for doing that or for not doing that. Whereas when you are self employed, the onus is on you, you need to be building your clients, even you need to be building your own personal brand in a way that you don't when you're employed. But firms could be so much more profitable if everybody was invested in bringing in new clients and doing the BD stuff.
SPEAKER_01:No, I agree. You know I agree because I talk about it all the time. In fact, we had a great chat in January, didn't we? And you went off and did some LinkedIn posts and even got some potential clients coming to you straight away, didn't you? Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02:I think BDs always felt... scary because there's this impression that it's like walking into a room full of people that you don't know and having to make small talk but it's actually so much wider than that and you can start off a level that you feel comfortable with which might just be posting on LinkedIn or sending a LinkedIn message and it doesn't have to be walking into that big scary room.
SPEAKER_01:yeah 100 100 maybe we'll do another episode sometime all about business development yeah that would be a good plan but no you're right and i agree i agree i think there's so many skills that employed lawyers could could pick up as well so um yeah that that is something i keep mulling over and talking to people about um but in terms of your journey um so you've been five or six months setting up your um consultancy business But you've also been busy with something else as well. Do you want to tell us a little bit about that?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, so what I found when I was looking to leave law is that there was very limited information out there as to, first of all, what your other options were. So if you didn't want to be a lawyer, what else you could do, but also how you go about leaving law, how you actually make that transition. I did a couple of Google searches as I was thinking of handing my notice in of like, what can you do with a law degree? And the answers that come back are not particularly that helpful. They perhaps suggest you could do HR or PR and I could do that, but I don't have any qualifications to do that. So it's probably not the best fit for me to do that. So I wanted to create a platform whereby information is out there so if people are feeling like I was which is stuck in that role it's not quite working for them anymore but they have no idea what else they would want to do next and that's the thing that's stopping them leaving or stopping them looking at other options a platform of information whereby people can get that help and support and as I started doing that I also thought actually this is really just the cure. So if people are already at that stage, this is the cure for them to get out. And what we could do with is also the prevention element as well, so that people don't get to that stage where they feel like leaving. I know if I'd have spoken out earlier about how I was feeling, I might not be in this position now. So I also want the platform to support people who are in law, who aren't enjoying it, but who don't particularly want to leave, just want a better way of working or better working practices. So the website went live on the 14th of February as like a love yourself a Valentine's Day and make a positive change in your career.
SPEAKER_01:So tell us what the website is. What's the address?
SPEAKER_02:It is lawlifemanchester.co.uk. And it's an information resource, partly. So links to YouTube videos or links to external resources or my suggestions for other alternative careers or ways you can improve your current role, but also acting as a mentoring platform. So there's opportunities to work with me as your mentor where we can discuss all these things on a one-on-one basis and put a personalized action plan in place for each individual. Oh,
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that sounds so exciting. Yeah, you know, I wish that had been around 10, 11 years ago when I was leaving as well. Yeah, I
SPEAKER_02:wish it was around last year.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's brilliant, Emma. And I have no doubt that you're going to get so much take up from that. I really do. I'll make sure it's in the show notes, the address details for people as well. And of course, they should find you on LinkedIn as well. But yeah, I think it's so valuable that people feel they've got somebody they can go to, to just bat ideas around. around with, because they might be talking to their friends or their family. And you know, I'm, I don't know, is it fortunate or unfortunate? I don't know, fortunate enough to be married to a lawyer. And I know you're engaged to a lawyer as well. So in some respects, we can have those conversations with them, and they get it. But for other people who perhaps don't have lawyers immediately around them in their friends and family, it can be difficult to have that conversation. Because I think To the outside world, our profession does look bonkers. You know, I did hear somebody say in a training last year that what we lack in law is a sense of the ridiculous.
SPEAKER_00:In
SPEAKER_01:any other profession, they would look at us and say, but that's ridiculous. You know, the hours we might work and how, you know, this competition about, oh, I had a completion until 2am or I had a completion until 3am, etc. How many hours did I work this week? Or I worked 80 hours this week. Any other profession would look at that and say that's ridiculous, but we don't have that. And I think even when you're thinking about leaving it, there's so much of our identity and who we think we are and what we think we are tied up with that title of solicitor, lawyer, whatever it is. And I think it's difficult for other people to understand that.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah, definitely. And it's difficult to find someone impartial to talk to, I found as well, because even though my fiance is in law, so does understand the challenges, he also needs someone to contribute to the mortgage. So he's not about to just say, give up your job and don't get paid, because he needs someone paying the mortgage. And same with my friends, a lot of my friends are also solicitors. So it felt a bit like I was criticising their career choice as well, when I'm saying actually, this is not right. And this not working and then when you turn to your family they don't get it and they say oh you've worked so hard to get here why would you give it all up you've got a well-paid job why could you possibly leave that they don't see everything else that goes with it they just see the title and the salary and think you would be mad to leave that um so it's really difficult to find somebody that is impartial it doesn't care about the bills or about how many how much time you spend in getting to that position, but who can actually see you as a person and think for this person, what is the best choice right now?
SPEAKER_01:There you go. That's exactly why people should contact you and have a look at the website. So hopefully they will. But what I wanted to ask you, Emma, because as I said to you, the whole, when we set up Friday Conversations podcast, it was all around lockdown. That's when we set it up and the future of the profession after lockdown. So I'd love to ask you, what were your highs and lows of this whole last couple of pandemic years?
UNKNOWN:Yeah.
SPEAKER_02:So I would say the high for me in the pandemic was pretty much as soon as we went into the first lockdown, I saw it as an opportunity to not do things or continue to do things the same way that they had always been done, just because that's how they'd always been done. So I already started at that stage to review my working hours. I think not necessarily my working hours, but more when I was working and when I was doing the work. I think at the start of the first lockdown we had a really balmy like April and Easter where it was absolutely beautiful um so it definitely got me thinking why am I sat inside if it's warm outside at four o'clock why don't I sit outside and have an ice cream and then make do an extra half an hour in the evening once the sun's gone in or it just gave me that chance to reflect um which we hadn't had that before because you're so busy on the hamster wheel of life of just get stuff done get your head down move on to the next day that I never had chance to stop and think I knew it wasn't working but I hadn't had chance to stop and think what else could this be um so the high of lockdown for me was definitely just having that breathing space to think okay this is not quite it and what is next um it also came with a bit of a reality check that Nobody expected the pandemic and yet it completely changed our lives. And it was that sense of anything could happen and you've got no idea what's coming next. So why would you sit in something that you're not happy with? Because it might change tomorrow. Why don't you get out and do something better if it's going to make you happier? So that was the high. The low I would say was... and not see my family. So my family are all based in Sheffield. So I had well me and my mum had this rule that we never normally go more than like three weeks without seeing each other so all through university all up until that point I'd never gone more than three weeks without seeing my mum so and I think during the first lockdown I had to go three months without seeing her so that was really hard I've got a little nephew as well who was changing so much because he was growing and you can see them on video but it's not quite the same as being able to go and give them a or chats them properly so that was definitely a low but it's made the family times now even better because you appreciate them so much more
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that sounds so similar to my experience in lockdown when my sister had her first baby. So my niece was born and it was, that was probably one of the hardest things for me. I think I've talked about it on the podcast before to have, you know, I couldn't be with her in the last stages of her pregnancy. I remember meeting her at a service station a week before lockdown because we knew it was coming and we even kept our distance then to give her some of the baby things from us for her to have. And that was the last time I saw her then until, goodness, months, six or seven months later. And like you say, I saw the baby through window, through glass, on video, but it was so hard. It was so, so hard. But as you say, the upside is, I mean, personally with my family, I've never felt closer to them, never felt closer to them than I do now as a result of all that time not seeing them and making up for it since.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Yeah. And I totally agree with you. Even at the beginning of lockdown, when I was talking to anybody about that, you know, people were asking, what do you think the impact will be on the legal profession? And I said then, do you know what I hope the impact is? That it gives people a chance to think about their life and what they want and get off the conveyor belt as you were talking about of just doing the same thing every day because we're too tired and exhausted to think of anything else and we don't know any other way so we'll just keep doing it and the pandemic gave people that chance to think differently
SPEAKER_02:yeah yeah definitely i think without the pandemic i don't think i would have left at least not at the time that I did leave, that definitely gave me the reality check and the push to say, come on, you've got to take some action now. Yeah,
SPEAKER_01:yeah. So what would you say is one of the biggest lessons you've learned as a result of the pandemic, either for yourself or about the legal profession?
SPEAKER_02:Yeah. I would say definitely for myself, but also probably as a wider society point, I am much more social than I previously thought I was. I would have definitely labelled myself as a slight introvert who doesn't get energy from big social situations or from gatherings um but when you spend a lot of time like what is it three months where you're just in the house with one other person I definitely realized I needed people no offense to my fiance he was great but I need to see more than just him
SPEAKER_01:yeah that's interesting isn't it I think a lot of people learn things about themselves in that time yeah yeah
SPEAKER_02:you don't realize how much you miss just having either someone to have a chat with whether that's in the office or a friend that you could meet or someone to hug you or you don't miss you don't realize how much you miss that social contact um so that was a big lesson for me
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, yeah, no, I agree with you. Yeah, there's so many valuable lessons in that time that I hope we take with us. I hope even as we go out into, I hate to use the phrase, but you know, whatever the new normal is going to be, whatever new life looks like, I hope some of those lessons we keep with us. I
SPEAKER_02:think we will because I don't know how we could go through something that was pretty life-changing and then forget about it
SPEAKER_01:yeah I agree I agree oh well thank you so much Emma I know we could talk all day about all sorts of things but thank you so much for coming to join us on the podcast and I'm going to make sure people have got a link in the show notes to your website and I would suggest they go and have a look and connect with you on LinkedIn and who knows I suspect we'll have another conversation another time but thank you very much for coming to join me thanks hannah