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 Stefanie Smith, Paralegal ACILEx at Tiger Law UK
I enjoyed talking to Stefanie about her move into a completely new role (and new firm) during pandemic times and how she's settling in well to Tiger Law.
We talk about the innovation of the legal market with exciting new firms like Tiger Law and how Stefanie thinks training and supervision can work well in a remote world, with the right communication.
You can find out more about Stefanie and Tiger Law here.
Podcast host Hannah Beko is a self-employed lawyer, coach and creator of the Lawyers Business Mastermind™ (the place for entrepreneurial lawyers to grow).
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You can connect with Hannah on LinkedIn or visit www.authenticallyspeaking.co.uk.
Hello everyone and welcome to another Friday conversation. Today I'm joined by Stephanie who's a paralegal at Tiger Law and we've got lots of interesting things to talk about today like moving roles, getting promotions, how all that happens in lockdown and working from home. So Stephanie thank you for joining me, come and tell us all a little bit more about you.
SPEAKER_00:Thank you very much Hannah. So hi everybody, my name is Stephanie, I am a paralegal at Tiger Law and I started at Tiger Law on the 1st of September so literally just had my one month anniversary. Oh
SPEAKER_01:fantastic and how have you found this transition from you know what you were doing before do tell us about that you know were you in the office all the time has lockdown and this move to working from home been a big upheaval for you?
SPEAKER_00:Well when I think about those times before all of this happened which you know when you think about it on a you know a realistic basis it just feels quite odd what's happened. So I used to work at a law firm in Canterbury as a secretary and when we went into lockdown I was still actually going into the office for a couple of days a week to deal with things like post and and you know signing documents and dealing with original wills and things like that bits and pieces. So I didn't go into complete lockdown in terms of work, but I was going into work at the time when you were out on the streets and hardly anybody was out there. And that in itself was quite peculiar. And then as time kind of went on over the few months, I did still carry on doing a couple of days, but also working from home as well. And because it happened quite suddenly, Although I was mostly set up, we had a few teething problems with kind of technical issues, but eventually it started to, you know, iron itself out a little bit and we got into a routine. So it wasn't too bad. And my husband's been working at home full time. And of course, I've got my daughter here as well. She's 15. So it was relatively easy. I wouldn't say easy, but it was easier for me in terms of I didn't have that homeschooling where I had to sit down at a table and teach my child things, basically. You know, she was old enough that she needed the supervisory kind of role from me just to make sure that she was on top of everything. So it didn't impact my work too much, which, you know, was quite lucky for me. And then as time went on, I started my new job, as I said, on the 1st of September. And that job in itself is 100% working from home, fully remote working and a completely different change because my last role, you know, as I said, was working as a secretary. And then I became a paralegal having recently qualified through Silex. So that was a completely, you know, a complete game changer. job for me.
SPEAKER_01:Definitely. And I know that Tiger Law and Vanessa in particular are very vocal about the fact that you can train staff, you can take on new staff, promote staff, have trainees and do it all remotely. And that's what I really wanted to talk to you about. So you've been there a month now and you found that it works well to be trained, to be supervised, to be integrated into a firm remotely?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. I mean, my experience has been very positive. If so, I along with another trainee started at the beginning of September, but they had also, there's also another chap there who I think he joined the firm in June. Again, same situation, trainee solicitor, and he's been fully remote throughout. So it was a really interesting and eye-opening experience, you know, to be completely honest. Not only are you going into a new job, which in itself is quite scary, you know, because it's just, you never know what to expect. But then actually that new job consisted of sitting in the same room that I'd been sitting in for the last six months at the same desk. So it was very peculiar. And I remember on the Sunday, and actually it was the Monday evening because it was bank holiday. So on the Monday evening before my first day at work, my husband said, oh, so, you know, what are you going to do tomorrow? And I just said, I don't really know. I don't know. I don't really know what to expect. and I remember on my first day kind of logging into all the systems and and seeing so the way that it works for us is we have our emails and then we have a chat system um so we can kind of have the the casual conversations on there as opposed to sending emails um and then we have you know our own software for dealing with client files and and again that was something else that was peculiar was going completely paperless so at my old place we weren't paperless when we went into lockdown and we started to go through that transitioning period so that was quite nice in a way but then when at the new firm you know it's almost 99% paperless so that was peculiar and I think had I not gone through the working from home scenario at my old firm I think it I probably would have found it much more difficult if suddenly I'd have just started working from home. I think that having the experience beforehand certainly made it a bit easier to transition in a way. I mean, in terms of the approach to learning remotely, I have as much contact with my colleagues and my manager Vanessa as I always had you know at my last job because you can zoom so we can see each other you know we can talk on the chat you know we can email one another so I don't feel that I have been deprived in any way at all you know I think I feel incredibly lucky to have got the job not only having a new job and have that opportunity but to be working at Tiger Law because they are a very modern forward thinking firm and I feel that they are a type of firm that suits me as a person And I feel incredibly comfortable there. And I only met Vanessa for the first time three weeks into my work. Luckily for me, I only live half an hour away from the main office, although it is, you know, it's a small office, but they do have a registered office. So I went to visit her and we went for a coffee. And that was very nice, but very weird at the same time as well. You know, actually, it was a person, you know, but yeah that was really lovely and and I felt part of the reason I wanted to do that was because I felt that it was really important for me to be able to have a really good conversation one-on-one with her and just to make sure that I was aware of what her expectations were of me and because I hadn't really had an opportunity because when you first start in a job you know it's it's confusing and you don't really know what you're doing or where to look for anything or you know when you're taking on cases you know there are people that have been working on these cases for months even years and all of a sudden you're kind of thrust into it and you don't really know where to look or where to start and you know you feel like you've got lots of questions that you want to ask so I found that it was really important to have that really good conversation you know with Vanessa and also to make sure that that she was happy with my progress because it was really important to me to make a good first impression. And I will only know if I'm doing that if I ask those questions. And of course it was really nice for us to be able to get to know one another. I appreciate you know, that's not always going to be possible. And I'm just lucky that I do live close by. But what I would say is as well, you know, if I was gonna try and give somebody a tip, if you like, I think it's really important to reach out to your colleagues. And in the first couple of weeks that I was at Tiger Law, I made sure that I made arrangements to speak to everybody individually. And we didn't talk about work. You know, we literally, I literally said, hi, how are you? You know, tell me a bit about you. Do you have children? Where do you live? You know, all of those kinds of, the conversations you would probably have in the kitchen whilst you're making a cup of tea or at the photocopier because it's, You don't have that. And I think you really, you have to get to know people if you're going to work with them. You have to get to know your kind of position. And I don't mean like hierarchical position. It really is just breaking down the barriers, I think. And when you join somewhere, and you haven't physically seen people, the barriers can feel a bit higher than normal. So it was really important for me to do that. And I did do it. And actually, you know, I do think that it had a really positive impact on the start for sure.
SPEAKER_01:I love what you said there that, you know, you can feel as though in this remote world, the barriers are a little bit higher. So we're saying it's not impossible at all to join a new team, to be supervised, to learn. But there's some things we might need to think about extra. That's why I heard you saying that, you know, the communication, the conversation, you know, what do you expect of me in this new role?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_01:how do you expect me to ask questions of you when I need supervision or to ask a silly question, which we all have when we start somewhere
SPEAKER_00:new.
SPEAKER_01:And I know you mentioned to me before we start as well, how do you put in place something to deal with when you don't know the answer or you don't know what you're doing? How do you have a mechanism where you feel safe enough to ask that?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, no, absolutely. And again, that's really important and something that I feel quite strongly about. And part of the driver behind... know having the face-to-face conversation with Vanessa was that I suddenly had been thrust into not only a new role but you know a new firm I was doing a job I'd never done before you know this is my first time working as a paralegal and I've spent years studying well two and a half years studying so far And all of a sudden, that work has come into play. Because before, I was working as a secretary. And whilst, of course, that's a vital role, it's a very different role. Your day is set out for you when you sit down, whether that's in an office or at home. Your work is there. You know what you're doing. you send the work back and then it goes and then you get on with the next thing. Whereas this one, I remember there was one day in particular where I was asked to write a blog for our website and it was in relation to the Gender Recognition Act. And luckily for me, I just sat my family law exam earlier in September and that included work on the Gender Recognition Act. So I was very familiar with the act itself, the law reform, the cases that you know, in connection with the act. And because I'd undertaken my legal research, that provided me with the tools and the skills to be able to deliver the piece of work and you know often when you're sitting studying for things whether you've been at university or whether you're studying you know in your own time on a part-time basis you sometimes think oh I'm you know I'm never going to do this in the real world I'm never going to and actually this is exactly what I did and I was also asked to undertake a piece of work where I needed to provide some information about a certifying beauty product Something I'd never even thought of before, you know, never even, you know, crossed my mind, you know, why would it? So I went away, you know, did a little bit of research, again, using the tools and the skills that I'd learned over the years. And I got some really amazing feedback from Vanessa because she was able to literally take what I'd done and pretty much send it to the client as it was, you know, and it was really nice to receive that feedback. And, you know, the feedback was done by email, you know, and it made me feel just as proud as if she just said to me, you know, from across the room, that was an excellent piece of work. Thank you. You know, and I kind of sat here and thought, oh, that was quite good, you know, and it was a reminder of why I'm here and and what it is that I'm hoping to achieve you know I want to qualify in a year or two that and and it was a really nice reminder that I'm here to deliver that type of work so yeah I mean it worked and it it was it was really good.
SPEAKER_01:Oh, that's fantastic. I'm so pleased to hear it. So tell me, other than obviously moving jobs and the fantastic experience you're having there, what have been your other highs and lows of lockdown generally?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's obviously not been the easiest time. But thankfully, my family and I haven't been affected in terms of ill health or, you know, obviously the worst scenario. I know lots of people have died and, you know, that's incredibly sad. And I can't imagine how difficult that must be. But what I always say when I have these types of conversations with people is, you know, we've all got our own problems and we've all got our own ways of feeling about things. And they may be small to us. They might, they might not be, they might be really big, but everybody's got those problems. And even if they are small, they still have problems and it's okay sometimes to feel, you know, a bit hacked off with something, whether that's this whole scenario, you know, or whether it's the fact that, We can't do what we wanted to do this year. We can't go on holiday. You know, I had a big birthday this year and all of that has been delayed until next year. Hopefully we might be able to do some things. You know, I know people that haven't been able to get married and, you know, there's all sorts of stories. So, you know, I wouldn't say anything drastic has happened to my family and I, which, you know, we are very lucky. But I just think it's about really making the most of what we are able to do. And I remember in the beginning, and actually this was something I put on my LinkedIn profile recently, we were really good at reaching out for one another and whether that be through with our families or with our colleagues and connections, we were all for, let's come together, let's join this and let's offer this. And then all of us, sudden as we kind of thought that things were kind of going to go back to our old normal and everyone started hating quizzes you know it just really stopped you know and I just and then we're back here again you know and there are some people in the country that are locked down and I just think it's really important that that we need to remember all those vulnerable people that we thought of back then we need to be thinking of those people again you know because there are people in the village where I live who aren't able to go out and do things for themselves and we just need to remind ourselves that we still need to keep doing that you know we need to keep doing it and we also need to be honest about how we feel because there's nothing wrong with you know being a bit annoyed about something or upset about something or you know so it's just really about having open honest conversations I think.
SPEAKER_01:I think that that was one of the things that I found was a good thing to come out of the situation we're in and I think I mentioned it on something you and I were on earlier this week that in the past, we perhaps didn't get to know each other as well, whether it was as colleagues or whether it was people from the other side of the transaction. And suddenly that we've been thrown into this situation, which as you quite rightly say, we've all got our personal experiences of, but we're still going through something together. We have that in common and everyone is struggling with it on some level, whether it's been a health or whatever issue or just struggling with the change of circumstances. And we've all had that in common. And I was nodding away when you were saying, you know, yeah, we started off this so keen on Zoom meetings and Friday fizzes and quizzes and everything. And then I think we all, I certainly got Zoom fatigue. I think we all got a bit of that. But I think it is coming back around again. Maybe it's a little sort of healthy, if that's the right word, level, where we're using it for work purposes. We're using it to stay in touch with people that we're not quite as, you know...
SPEAKER_00:Thank you. Thank you. I think it's on our own terms isn't it as well now you know you don't feel quite so obliged to perhaps do this and actually you feel confident enough I certainly do to say actually no I'm okay thanks you know um I going back to what I was saying just a minute ago about how I recently posted on LinkedIn that I felt that it was important for us to come together as a result of that I have actually had um well this week one conversation with with a law student and then next week come speaking to a family lawyer I think she's based in Wales and that has purely come about through almost my reach out to people. So the law student that I spoke to this week, she would like to go into family law and she just really wanted to get to know a little bit about it and what she might be able to expect from it. And it was just really nice to be able to give somebody something and talk about something and think, we've got to remember those people are still there. Those people are going to be the future of our profession. And whilst I'm still training and you know, I do have a bit of experience behind me and I'm obviously not your typical student in terms of age. So you've got to, we've always got to cherish those people. And, you know, if people are of the opinion that we can't offer training contracts, we can't offer remote working, well, what's going to happen? you know, what's going to happen in four or five years? There aren't going to be enough solicitors and lawyers to do these jobs, you know, because as time goes on, those people are going to start to retire, maybe change careers, have families, you know, so we need to think about these people that are starting out and we need to make sure that we kind of just, if we can, reach out to them every now and then, you know, because they are the future for us.
SPEAKER_01:And it's been made so much easier by lockdown and being in touch remotely, hasn't it? To reach more people, whether it's all over the country or even all over the world. Yeah, absolutely. Network with people right outside of your area now. Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, see, I used to do quite a bit of networking and business development at my old firm when I was based in Canterbury. And of course, now that's not a thing. And Vanessa always says to us, you know, all the coffee meetings that you might have had before, you know, going for a drink or to a seminar or to whatever it is we still need to do that you know it's really important and and that is one thing I would say is that if you are a trainee or if you are a business owner contemplating bringing in a trainee you know that must still happen because we still need to make our contacts you know we still need to you know have those conversations and and again reaching out to people um you know don't be discouraged from doing it because like you say i can have a conversation with someone anywhere whereas before actually it would have been limited to kent but that's not the case anymore so
SPEAKER_01:yeah it's very true so what would you i think that there's lots of great points that you you've made already but would you say there's one thing in particular you've learned about yourself or about your profession that others might learn from
SPEAKER_00:Well, it's been quite an interesting period for me over kind of the last year, really, I guess. Because in my old job, I had reached the point where I'd qualified as a paralegal and I really wanted and needed to secure a new role because to qualify with Silex, you have to do a period of qualifying employment. And I'd actually, that window had opened for me. So it was really important. Now, unfortunately, my old firm were not in a position to be able to offer that to me. And so, of course, I remember at the time in back in kind of April, May, I thought, what am I going to do? You know, I can't work as a secretary for part of my qualifying employment. You know, what am I going to do? And then I met Vanessa at a networking event and we connected afterwards and literally that's how the new job came about. So I would say that, you know, remain hopeful in terms of, I know there's a lot of doom and gloom out there at the moment and I know people are being incredibly affected, you know, in all sorts of ways but we can still do this and I think I'd reached the point where I'd realized what I wanted to do and what I didn't want to do anymore and so moving forward I'm I made a deal with myself that I was going to make sure I was in a position of doing what I wanted to do and not what I wanted to do. And I was fortunate enough to secure this role, but that only happened because I put myself out there and I made myself known, you know, so I don't know where I would have been, you know, if anything like this, you know, if I hadn't done what I'd done. So I just think you've got to, keep looking and keep being positive and keep thinking about what it is that you want and try not to let things put you off. And there were times where I didn't know, because I did go on furlough leave for three weeks at one point. And I also had a pay reduction and the pay reduction meant I wasn't able to pay my uni fees. So I did go through periods of where I was thinking, how am I going to continue with my study? You know, it's just not going to be viable, but as went, you know, as time went on and I know a lot of places aren't offering training contracts, but some are, you know, so it's important that try to be positive and it may not be your time right now, but the time will come definitely. I
SPEAKER_01:think that's a fantastic piece of advice. I think I've said to a lot of different people, I do really feel for the people who would, wanting training contracts, the people who are going through training contracts, having them deferred, having them delayed, having newly qualified positions delayed. I really do feel for them because, you know, they have their life mapped out. That's what it looked like. And all this is throwing them up in the air, but I completely agree with you a hundred percent, you know, keep positive, don't give up. It will happen. Things have been shifted around for all of us, but, but the right thing will happen at the right time and keep positive and, and keep networking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, absolutely. And I I mean, you know, I think without a doubt, it just it's a nice way to socialize, you know, because we're not going out anymore. You know, we'll be going out and doing the bare minimum. I know some people are going out more than others, but I personally, you know, I'm going out the bare minimum. You know, it's a great way to meet people. And and you also meet people in a similar position, you know. So I just think. continue with what you're doing. And if you are in a position where you're working as a trainee and it's remotely, think about things like continuing with your CPD, continuing with training. I've had time to be able to attend some amazing webinars. And I attended one recently on a financial remedy and it was fantastic. And the woman that hosted it, I connected with her on LinkedIn afterwards and I told her how wonderful it was. to receive that feedback she was you know really really pleased to hear from me but it had had such an impact on me and it was wonderful and that was something I sat in this very room and just watched a video on the computer but it was so informative you know so the tools and resources are out there you know this doesn't mean an end to your chosen career you know it you know I can't say it enough just be positive and be in the moment but continue to look ahead as far as we possibly can i
SPEAKER_01:can't add anything to that stephanie thank you so much thank you for joining me