Council’s junior lawyers

After a general election there are plenty of new faces in Westminster – first-time MPs walking the same corridors as veterans steeped in the quirks, protocols and tactics of the place. What the newly minted representatives share with their battle-hardened colleagues is the same responsibility to represent. They must acquire the skills and knowledge to do this as fast as possible, learning which experiences from their previous roles they can draw on.

So it must be for Council members Lizzy Lim and Baljinder Atwal, who represent junior lawyers. (There are two other junior lawyer representatives on Council, Jonathan Andrews and Gcobisa Bonani.) Representing junior lawyers at the start of their own legal careers, Lim and Atwal must speak effectively for a group that finds itself at the sharp end of the profession’s challenges.

Many junior lawyers are disproportionately affected by debt, soaring rents, pressures on mental health, and issues such as bullying and harassment in the workplace.

Lim and Atwal start by relating the experiences that have taken them to this point in their careers.

Lim started an economics degree at the University of Westminster. ‘A flatmate was studying law,’ she recalls. ‘I ended up proofreading all her work before she submitted it and I found that more enjoyable than my own work. So, I transferred.’ After her LPC, she secured a training contract at SA Law in St Albans, qualifying into commercial litigation. Last year she moved in-house, to Trustpilot, handling disputes for the online reviews business.

‘I’ve been loving in-house life ever since,’ she adds, but Lim has high praise for her training at SA Law. ‘They really put effort into their training contract. It wasn’t just that you were there for cheap labour. When you start your law degree you think the only options for training contracts are the big City firms. I don’t think you are ever really taught about regional and in-house opportunities.’

Atwal, ‘Birmingham born and raised’, read law at the University of Birmingham. A vacation scheme at Trowers & Hamlin, Birmingham, was followed by a training contract with the firm. ‘I was fortunate that it was a mid-size, international firm, but in a regional growing office,’ he says. ‘There were lots of opportunities for a junior.’

There followed 18 months at DLA Piper, also in Birmingham. He recalls ‘fantastic experience’ working on ‘massive deals’. But the pandemic’s lockdown restrictions were a cause for reflection, Atwal says. ‘The pandemic hit and literally overnight lost all the perks of a big international law firm – it was just you and your laptop at home. I thought to myself, “Where is my career going now and what else is out there for me?”.’

He was ‘very close to joining the British army as a legal officer’, an ‘attractive idea’ at a time when ‘you couldn’t even go to a gym or a restaurant’. But then he saw a position with the West Midlands Police. He ‘could have an in-house role which is in Birmingham, working for a police force, which is really exciting. I could delve into different areas of law and I could still retain all of my [business development] activity’.

Lim and Atwal both regard junior lawyer networks as hugely important. After attending a junior lawyers social event in Hertfordshire, Lim was soon ‘roped in’ to help organise activities. She found access to lawyers outside her firm important for support and sense-checking aspects of work: ‘They provide regional support and networking opportunities for you.’ She joined the Hertfordshire junior lawyers division committee, and represented them at meetings of the national committee.

When Atwal began work as a trainee, it was his ‘first formal office job’ and it came with ‘formal fancy events’. He found the Birmingham Trainee Solicitor Society to be ‘a safe space’ for learning professional norms, including networking. He also gained experience in communications, running the society’s social media accounts. ‘Very early on I realised how important social media was for a business, for lawyers, for your own profile,’ he says. He joined the committee of the Birmingham Solicitors Group as its PR officer and is now the group’s co-chair.

As a JLD national representative, Lim met several Council members, including former JLD chair Laura Uberoi who had represented junior lawyers on council. ‘She’s incredibly passionate about what she does and just lives and breathes the Law Society,’ Lim says. Talking to Uberoi, Lim was struck by the importance and breadth of the issues that come before Council, ‘like criminal legal aid’. Atwal also spoke to Uberoi. Atwal and Lim were elected in October 2021.

‘Every lawyer would say, “I wanted to become a lawyer to make a difference”,’ Atwal says. On the Council, he adds, ‘people are willing to listen’.

So, what are Atwal and Lim keen to say? At the top of the agenda is the way firms and the regulator treat errors by junior lawyers. ‘The SDT has a long track record of dealing with partners and junior lawyers very differently,’ Lim observes. Junior lawyers are much less likely to have insurance cover enabling them to be represented at the SDT.

Regulatory discipline is linked to other problems in the profession, though. Atwal notes that juniors’ fear of failure needs to be recognised and better supported. A junior lawyer, he points out, will think, ‘I’ve studied for how many years and I’m currently in debt. I have to succeed and I have to do well in this’. ‘Unfortunately, a lot of people crumble under that, and it’s not fair because they are often given too much work. They’re in an organisation which perhaps doesn’t support them as much as they should.’

Lim says junior lawyers on Council want to hear from members. ‘Get in contact if you have issues or concerns about being a junior lawyer,’ she says. ‘The chances are if you’re going through something, someone else is as well, and any ideas for improvement would be absolutely fantastic.’

• Lizzy Lim (lizzy@thelims.co.uk) or Baljinder Atwal (intellijatt@hotmail.co.uk) would like to hear from junior lawyers on any professional topic