Our “All you need is Law” series continues with an excellent contribution from Claire Paterson. Claire is an Edinburgh alumna and Senior Solicitor in the personal injury department of Thorntons Solicitors in Edinburgh. Claire highlights that although the path to law isn’t always straightforward, it’s important not to lose sight of your goal. Read on for Claire’s great insights…
How Claire’s interest in law began
From the early days of high school, Claire knew that law was something she wanted to do as it would involve helping others and the analytical and problem-solving aspects also interested her. However, she was terrified of public speaking so she didn’t think she would be able to stand up in a court room and take evidence from someone!
Claire was interested in business law as she enjoyed business management and administrative studies at school so when it came to applying to university, she only chose law. She studied the Scots Law LLB at the University of Dundee and graduated in 2012.
Claire’s route to qualification
During her LLB, she did some work experience at Pagan Osbourne, a firm that Thorntons Solicitors later took over. She shadowed solicitors working in conveyancing and private client.
During her law degree she changed her mind on the type of law she wanted to practice and began to think about being an employment lawyer since she enjoyed her electives and had some personal exposure to this area of the law. Her hope to be an employment lawyer continued with her through to the Diploma at the University of Edinburgh. However, she remained open minded about the area of law that she wanted to do but the only two areas of law she thought weren’t for her were criminal and personal injury.
Claire realised she thrived on the Diploma because it was much more practical, rather than just learning about the principles of law e.g. instead of learning about what property law was; she was drafting a disposition to sell a house.
Many of her classmates either had traineeships before starting the Diploma or secured traineeships during the Diploma year. Upon graduating from the Diploma in 2013, Claire didn’t have a traineeship so she worked as a graduate assistant for a law firm which gave her further practical legal experience and she gained her first taste of personal injury law. At that time, the market for traineeships was very competitive and when her position at the firm ended, she had no work lined up. Claire was almost a year post-graduation by this time, and she found the search for a traineeship quite demoralising. Although Claire applied for jobs in other sectors, she felt that employers thought she would leave as soon as a traineeship offer arrived. Her ambition was still to become a solicitor; she just didn’t have a traineeship secured to take her to the next step.
Bump in the road
As you can imagine, this was an unsettling time for Claire as she didn’t like being out of work but she secured a position as a Customer Assistant with Boots from 2014 to 2015. Through this role, Claire found her confidence again. She also met a great group of people and worked hard which was fulfilling and satisfying.
By this stage, Claire had been out of her Diploma for two years. At that time, the Diploma was valid for two years from graduation and then you could apply to the Law Society of Scotland to have it extended on a yearly basis provided you were able to evidence that you had kept up to date with the law. Despite this, Claire considered letting her Diploma expire; not because her ambition to become a solicitor had changed, she just felt that it wasn’t meant to be or that she simply wasn’t good enough. And, if she didn’t have a valid Diploma, the decision on whether she was going to be a solicitor would be made for her.
However, one of the many benefits of university are the networks that you build. Claire recalled one busy day working on the photo counter in Boots in the lead up to Christmas when she had a chance encounter with one of the Deputy Directors from her Diploma. At that point, Claire felt quite lost and was still deciding whether law was going to be for her or not. Her former Diploma contact was non-judgemental, extremely kind with her time, offered to meet her to discuss her plans for the future and put Claire back in touch with the Careers Service at the University of Edinburgh. Claire attended an appointment with one of the Careers Consultants for CV and application feedback. On reflection, Claire felt the chance encounter and Careers Service appointment gave her some refocus to decide that she was getting a little too comfortable in her retail job and she realised she wanted to get a job in law. It wasn’t necessarily a traineeship; it could be any law job such an administrative assistant or a paralegal.
Light on the horizon
Claire started applying for legal jobs and joined Slater and Gordon Lawyers in November 2015 as a paralegal in personal injury law. She had little legal experience at that time but she was able to pull on transferable skills in her interview such as communication, customer service, team work etc. that she had kept fresh through her year working at Boots.
Her role as a paralegal was incredibly rewarding and gave her a lot of responsibility early on. She gained many practical legal skills by working independently on cases through taking new client statements, intimating cases, investigating cases via liability investigations such as requesting police reports, CCTV footage and instructing reports from medical experts. She settled cases and learned a lot. Through this role, Claire managed to silence the voice that was telling her that law wasn’t meant to be or that she wasn’t good enough.
How Claire turned her goal into reality
At that point in time, Claire was informed that Slater and Gordon didn’t have the structure for a trainee solicitor. With her new found experience and motivation, Claire turned her attention to applying for traineeships again. When Claire thought back to applications and interviews, the paralegal experience that she had gained was something that she was able to pull on to demonstrate a lot of the skills that firms were looking for from a trainee solicitor. Having worked at that point in personal injury for about a year, she was also able to draw upon what interested her in that particular area of law. She was also able to articulate how she would apply those skills in other practice areas when considering different firms that perhaps had other areas of law.
She applied for roles externally and was finally offered a traineeship but when it came to telling Slater and Gordon about the traineeship offer, they didn’t want to lose her and put in place arrangements for her to do a traineeship with them. After years of searching for one traineeship, Claire now had two traineeship offers and a very difficult decision to make but she chose to stay with Slater and Gordon. Her traineeship was dedicated to personal injury law and Claire kept the same cases that she had worked on as a paralegal but began to get much more exposure to litigating cases and working on more high value cases. For instance, she was involved in a fatal accident inquiry during her traineeship which was something completely new. She built on the skills she learned as a paralegal and grew more and more confident in her ability to manage cases to conclusion.
Claire completed her traineeship in 2019 and was offered a job working in clinical negligence within Slater and Gordon. At that point, she hadn’t worked in the area of clinical negligence but by building on the skills she had gained during her traineeship through working on complex cases, working alongside counsel and dealing with technically challenging information, she felt this area of law seemed to suit her.
The next few years after qualifying, Claire built up her practice in clinical negligence to the point that she is now recognised as an Associate to Watch by Chambers and Partners. In 2023, after seven years at Slater and Gordon, Claire made the move to Thorntons as a Senior Solicitor as she was attracted to move to a full service Scottish firm to progress her career further.
Lessons learned along the way
Seek practical opportunities
Looking back, Claire felt that although the LLB taught her the theory and fundamentals of law, she found it quite difficult to translate the theory into an actual job. Claire would encourage students to get involved in opportunities within the University e.g. a free legal advice clinic or externally run vacation schemes, Citizens Advice or events that are run by Scottish Young Lawyers Association (SYLA).
Don’t undervalue your transferable skills
A lot of the skills that Claire was able to pull into the paralegal interview were those that she maintained working at Boots. She was able to give current examples of customer service, team work and organisational skills.
Build and utilise networks
Claire advised not to be afraid to go to events and speak to people. Make connections on LinkedIn and send people a speculative email if you’re interested in a particular practice area or firm.
Not all career paths are straightforward
It’s important not to compare yourself to others e.g. that friend who has had their traineeship sorted since third year and not to give up achieving your goal.
Claire’s insight into personal injury law
- Very interesting and technically challenging area of law.
- Act for people who have been involved in road traffic accidents, accidents at work or who have been affected by medical negligence, so has the tendency to touch into other practice areas e.g. employment law when dealing with someone who has suffered an accident at work or estates when dealing with fatal claims.
- Deal with a mix of non-litigated and litigated cases in both the Sheriff Court and the Court of Session.
- Day to day work can involve drafting; could be letters of claim, court papers or instruction letters to experts to help prove their case.
- Review medical records to check the details of an injury that a client has had but also check relevant medical history for anything that may be crucial for medical experts to know about or anything that could perhaps impact on the value of a case.
- Identify and instruct medical experts to be able to comment on the injuries that clients have sustained.
- Carry out research in order to help value the case and also negotiate settlement offers for clients and be able to give them advice when offers come through.
- Can work on cases alongside counsel or can work independently on preparing a case for a civil trial.
- On occasion, use advocacy skills at court hearings. However, a lot of cases do settle before they reach the court stage.
Many thanks Claire.
Claire highlighted the importance of networking and not giving up on your goal, no matter how hard things get. Have a look at our advice on:
Using social media to find out and stand out
Create your own opportunity – speculative applications
