My legal life: Reena Popat, Carter Bond Solicitors

When I was young I considered many career paths – even going to drama school. What really made me determined to pursue a legal career was being told that I couldn’t. I don’t come from an academic or legal background. When I mentioned to the careers officer at school I was interested in law, I was politely told that likely wasn’t a viable option for me and steered to a different career path. That just made me even more determined to pursue it.

I studied law in Birmingham. However, coming from a background where I had no mentors or connections in the legal world, I initially struggled to find a training contract after graduation. I was working in a conveyancing team while trying to secure a job and decided to write a book on conveyancing aimed at laypeople – a sort of ‘conveyancing for dummies’. I took a draft of it along to an interview and that level of proactivity helped me get the job. I trained at Spearing Waite, then worked at Ashfords and Darlingtons, before I decided to set up on my own.

I reached the stage where I was ready to move into partnership but felt there was nothing suited to where I wanted to be geographically. I also felt there was a gap in the market where I was located – there were lots of excellent smaller firms but they tended to specialise in private client or residential property work. There was a real gap in terms of a quality offering on the corporate side for SMEs and owner-managed businesses. So I could either choose to collaborate with an existing firm to expand their offerings or build my own niche – a boutique corporate law firm. By doing the latter, I could both structure my career in a way that made sense for me, and at the same time step into that gap.

Setting up a law firm is similar to setting up any small business and it brings lots of the same challenges. At the start, I had to wear all of the hats, from marketing to reception, to doing the actual legal work. It took me a while to realise that I couldn’t keep pushing myself at full speed, I needed to take care of myself as well so that I didn’t burn out. I took up boxing training to make sure I kept physically fit and to allow myself a way to release any stress and tension.

'I was at boxing and received a link to join an all-parties call. Turned out we were completing on a transaction. I had to fumble getting my gloves off and deal with the call, then put them back on and rejoin the class'

Then there was the challenge of attracting clients, who were naturally cautious. As a sole practitioner, there was always the issue of what would become of their files if something happened to me. But I managed to build a client base through reputation and recommendation. Then as the firm expanded, that extra capacity alleviated those concerns. Having gone through that experience helps me better serve the firm’s clients. Most of Carter Bond’s clients are business owners, so dealing with a lawyer who genuinely understands what that is like, the pressures and challenges they face, really does make a difference to them.

At the start of setting up a business, you have to do everything, and you don’t really get any time off from that. An instance when that really hit home was when I was at my boxing class and received a link to join an all-parties call. Turned out we were completing on a transaction. I had to fumble getting my gloves off and deal with the call, then put them back on and rejoin the class. It must have looked very strange – I’m glad these were the days before so much was done over Teams so the client couldn’t see what I looked like in the gym. But being available and accessible was essential when I was operating on my own and starting up.

It was an enormous honour to be nominated for Young Entrepreneur of the Year at the London Asian Business Awards 2017 and to be shortlisted in the Law Society Excellence Awards only a few years after founding Carter Bond Solicitors. Starting a business is very lonely and for a while it really was just me doing everything. At the beginning, it’s easy to become too internally focused and introspective. Realising that my work was being recognised, that people were seeing what I was doing and noticing the progress I was making, gave me a fantastic confidence boost and made me even more sure I was on the right track.