Law school was actually quite fun. It is quite refreshing to go through being a student once again. It kind of pushes your mid life crisis further down the road. There is something invigorating about learning. I enjoyed it even though a lot of discipline was required.

I have heard people comment that I usually put a positive spin on things and so when I comment that something is tough, then people start to take notice.

The toughest part of becoming a lawyer is the practice training. One year is a very long time. I had the misfortune of starting law school with the impression that the practice training period would be six months only to have it doubled to a year just as I was about to graduate. I genuinely believe that if one had the desire to get good at what he or she does, six months is more than sufficient. However, if one had no desire to get good, then a year is insufficient. That being said, I am treating this practice training seriously but I am struggling to juggle family commitments with the traineeship.

If you had been following my journey, I started my training at a boutique law firm. That firm had 7 lawyers and I was the sole trainee. I left the firm as I could not juggle family matters with trainee work. I think they might have acceded to my request for more flexible working hours but I did not ask. For one, everyone shows up in office daily and thus the culture is a more collaborative one. I genuinely prefer it when everyone is in office as it is easier to communicate. I just have to walk over to the next room to ask my colleagues and I would get an answer. Yes it is good to figure things out yourself by referring to the rules of court and practice directions but when work is piling up it is good to just ask and receive the answer… I truly miss that. Oh yes, I share the room with one of the directors who does commercial work. He is often not in office so I basically have the room to myself. Having your own space is ideal when you are mired in deep thought. So yes, I felt like I was treated like one of the lawyers even though I am yet to be called. Quite cool huh?

Now I am at a small firm with just two lawyers. I know them both personally. When I transferred my training contract over to this firm, there was another lawyer but she has since left the firm. The work is primarily now done by me. I have to take notes, draft just about every summons, serve documents (through the process server or otherwise), do billing, open new files, the lot. The administrative part of lawyering is a chore. There is literally so much paperwork to figure out. I can safely say that as soon as I can, I would hire someone to take all of this off me.

The good part is that the arrangement is now flexible. I still start my day at about 745am. Most of the time, instead of heading down to the firm, I asked my previous company whether I could have a corner for me to do my work. Since I founded the company, of course they had to agree! (I guess)… Initially work was decently busy but when that 3rd lawyer left, all her work fell on me. So basically I am the one drafting, compiling and filing various court documents. Oh yes I just completed 7 affidavits for a High Court matter. with one affidavit in excess of 70 pages long. I already tried to be succinct!

I think the tough part of being a trainee is the grind. (Here is my positive spin) I think being thrown at the deep end of the pool is alright. You get to figure out what works and what does not. However, it can be a little overwhelming when you are trying to take your time to understand what is going on but then the next piece of work is just around the corner.

Another tough part is the drop in income. You are given an honorarium and that, well to me at least, is a large drop in income compared to my previous drawn salary. I anticipated this ahead of time and hence for this period I cannot incur any new loans or refinance my current housing loan with another bank. So if you are looking to read law and embark on a mid career switch to law, you really need to consider the drastic drop in income. I could only reprice my housing loan and not refinance it with another bank this time round. I also could not purchase a commercial property which my wife had spotted and wanted to acquire.

One thing to note, it is my personal view that the legal industry is not ready for an influx of mid career graduates from SUSS. Based off what I gather from some of my batch mates, firms still treat mid career law graduates as though they are fresh out of law school in their early to mid twenties with no working experience and families.

I think the one year practice traineeship is prohibitively long. Six months was a sweet spot but I would think that this was studied and the relevant authorities would have their reasons. The gripe I have is that the traineeship should be treated as such. The supervising solicitor overseeing and guiding the practice trainee. To many fresh law graduates, platforms like eLitigation and the Integrated Case Management System are things we have never seen before. I used to take on interns from SMU for my company. For the period that they are with me, I will make sure that there is a timetable of what I want to cover with them. Also, after every client meeting that they are in, I would likely have a debrief to tell them what happened. I also guided them to do filings on the various platforms. These interns were with my company for only about 6-8 weeks. Practice trainees are ideally going to be retained by the firms after the training period. Therefore I believe the level of effort that is required to guide and train for retention should be relatively high. Unless from the start the intention was never to retain but to have someone come in and clear the work.

So yes, I think I have picked up a great deal during my practice traineeship. I am almost done. It will be such a relief to close this particular chapter.

Yours sincerely,

Daryl