i'd be lying if i said that i was in law for everything else but the money if that makes sense
hello hello it's your girl Simranjeet Kaur Mann here and today we're going to be talking about why
i wanted to be a lawyer specifically a solicitor in the uk this video idea was actually recommended
to me by Rach my good friend reached there who is a trusted subscriber thank you so much for your
suggestion for those of you who want to suggest my content have any video ideas feel free to
definitely comment that or dm me i'm really open to suggestions and who knows you may even get a
cheeky shout out as well in this video i'm going to go over the experiences that led me to pursuing
this career and also answering some questions that i've had in the past relating to for example did i
go into law for the money or all of those kind of things but before i start i want to talk a little
bit about the student lawyer and i want to talk about their mentoring scheme and their amazing
podcast so what is the student lawyer first of all well it's a website which i've linked in the video
description below it's created by students for students for those people who are interested in
the legal profession the website contains a range of legal and commercial articles that are written
by graduates and students podcasts are released really regularly with a student lawyer released
every single week so it's consistent content and the guests on these podcasts come from a range of
different backgrounds all related to the legal career guests can include barristers solicitors
trainee solicitors pupils grad recruitment from all different types of firms legal tech
as well as lecturers in-house lawyers commercial awareness finalists so many different range of
guests for you to learn from and also the range of topics is quite broad as well
from topics like improving your confidence hint that might have me in it perhaps there's also
episodes on commercial awareness improving your grades and applying for scholarships that's a
topic that i don't know enough about so i'm definitely gonna try and listen to a podcast
episode about that specifically also you can find their podcasts on loads of different platforms
namely itunes which i personally haven't used in ages since i had like an ipod classic that's crazy
spotify google podcast and also via the link in my video description below student
lawyer are actually smashing it right now because they've also got a weekly newsletter that you can
subscribe to so you can keep updated on the latest developments the latest commercial awareness or
legal articles that have been put out the latest podcast episodes and a little bit excitingly which
i'm going to go and talk about now is their mentorship scheme now i am asked really really
often from my linkedin dms instagram dms i think i'm asked about once a week do you mentor and
in the past i did but due to time constraints i'm no longer able to do that but there are loads of
schemes out there for mentoring and the student lawyer is one where the cycle is open now and
the application window closes in the end of july so what's the objective behind the student lawyer
and in creating this mentorship scheme so essentially the objective here is to level the
playing field and allow people from all different backgrounds all types of experiences to be matched
to a mentor who they can then learn from this isn't solely limited to solicitors you can also
be matched with a barrister if you're interested in going down that route as well what's different
about the student lawyer mentorship scheme so the student lawyer is not only focusing on commercial
law you can be matched with a mentor with lawyers who practice in criminal law or family law and i
think that's really important i think there is a lot of content and a lot of support provided to
those in commercial law whereas other areas in my opinion are somewhat lacking in support and that's
what's so important about this mentorship scheme in terms of providing and catering to everyone's
future aspirations another key thing that i've mentioned is that this mentorship scheme also
helps aspiring barristers now as someone who is in the solicitors kind of line of field i hear a lot
about the different schemes that are available solicitors but not as much that are available
to barristers and i think what's really great about this scheme is again that it's available
for both aspiring solicitors and aspiring barristers furthermore there is no tick box
criteria when it comes to eligibility requirements here all you have to do is either show that you
come from an underrepresented background in the legal industry or you can show that you
have faced adversity or you faced barriers in your life or in your career so for example if you miss
out on the criteria for other mentorship schemes that are available this one may be the perfect
one for you so successful applicants will receive a personal mentor this mentor works in your area
of interest over the course of the year free one-to-one advice and coaching from this mentor
and this can include for example helping to choose which firm or chambers to go with fine-tuning your
cv going over interview preparation or to build your network invitations to exclusive the student
lawyer events networking events skills workshops and panel discussions so as i've mentioned the
applications close for this mentorship scheme at the end of july specifically 31st of july
2021 so definitely do get your applications in asap you can find the link to apply to
the mentorship scheme in the description below right let's get back to the video so honestly i
don't think a lot of people may they may or may not know this my first encounter with the law
and the role of a lawyer of course was from a glamorized aspect was actually in a bollywood
movie i was watching a movie where a famous actor in bollywood was in court he was a barrister
and of course it was a very different depiction of how court was like both the barristers were
shouting over each other the witnesses were in tears the judge was just this old kind of man
back banging his gavel like order and order in the court that kind of thing and yeah it was a huge
glamorization of what the law is actually like and i don't think barristers act like that in person i
mean i hope not i don't think they do but and what i loved about it was the fact that this guy was so
passionate about fighting the case for his client and he just appeared to have it all together he
had that kind of status he had that confidence about him that air of i'm going to win this case
and i i really liked that it made me feel like wow this is so cool this would give me a sense
of fulfillment so that was my first experience uh with you know the first time i'd actually thought
maybe i could do a career in law perhaps and this was around when i was 11 or 12 but i'm not saying
that you should be set on the law when you are so young that's definitely not the case
at all and you'll hear from my experiences that my view of the law definitely changed
as i went along the next reason for wanting to pursue a career in law was through the subjects
that i studied at school so i studied english literature and history throughout even during
my a levels i really enjoyed those subjects and the main reason why is because you are faced with
certain facts or you know pieces of history or pieces of literature and you are expected to write
about it answer a question about it solve problems using the information that's available to you and
that's quite similar to how the law operates as well i attended law taster days at both oxford
and cambridge where we were given certain cases for example i think one was about euthanasia
and it involved human rights law and it was just super interesting when you read about this case
law and you just think about the effects that it has on day-to-day life and that's what i
became really interested in so before university i thought that i wanted to be a solicitor because
i was interested in the law when i was at university that changed i actually didn't
really enjoy learning about the law as much until my final year when i started doing subjects like
company law medical law when i started writing my disso i think it was the more practical subjects
which weren't so heavy on statutes and case law it was those areas of law that i ended up enjoying
the most but when i was at university i actually started considering other career options because i
just didn't feel personally engaged with studying law and i guess that might sound really strange
hearing that you know you're literally a lawyer why are you not engaged in learning about the law
but that's honestly how i felt so what i did was i did internships in other places i did an
internship at ey in tax soon found out that tax wasn't for me but that's a story for another day
but what i really learned from that experience specifically was that i wanted to work in the
corporate sphere i wanted to work in london i'm not saying that you know london's the elite place
to work in the uk but i think it is actually you know what arguable because it is so expensive and
there are definitely other cities that provide the same that london does perhaps actually no
that's a lie i'm just very pro london if i'm honest with you i love the city and i just
knew that i wanted to work there and i also knew i wanted to work in the corporate sphere
because it was just that feeling i don't know what this feeling is but when you are at work and
you're dressed like really smart and you just got that corporate kind of vibe about you i don't know
what it is but i feel very fulfilled from that so i think i'm definitely going to remain a corporate
kind of person throughout my life so yeah i knew i wanted to work in london i knew i wanted the
corporate lifestyle while i was at university but i just wasn't sure about the law itself
but there were certain things that happened during near in my final year of university and afterwards
that led me to really you know confirmed that i wanted this career first of those being
my work in pro bono so i worked in a legal advice center i was providing advice to clients quite
directly literally having client interviews having my own caseload being responsible for my own tasks
and i think the legal advice center actually really drew me back into considering law as
a potential career option paralegaling also helped reaffirm my decision to have a career
in law again the responsibility that was provided the ability to work in teams mainly actually the
responsibility and the challenge is what really pushed me towards applying for you know training
contracts and having that passion to apply because again it was that feeling of fulfillment and i
think for me that's the main thing that i want in my career another thing that's developed my
passion for this career is actually while i'm on my training contract itself and i'm also
i'm still reflective of being a lawyer whether i'd want this in the future i'm still i'm still
reflective of that just because i've got a training contract doesn't necessarily mean
right that's it i have to stick to law for the rest of my life i don't really think in that way
so hence why i'm always reflecting on whether this is the right career for me altogether and during
my training contract so far it's confirmed that yes i am doing the right thing i am doing what's
right for me and one of the reasons for that is because of that business focus that you gain in
your training contract you are encouraged to learn about how businesses operate and also
again during my training contract the times where i have been challenged the times where i've been
out of my comfort zone those are the times where i look back and i have the most fondness about
so that's another indicator to me that i'm in the right career if you are someone perhaps who
doesn't like that pressure at law in my opinion can be a little bit too much because there is a
lot of stress involved in this career i'm not i'm not going to downplay that in my opinion there is
and yeah i think i think my ability to handle pressure my ability to kind of
keep a calm head i still i'm not saying i'm the most collected person ever sometimes i do lose my
crap but i still manage to kind of think in a practical manner try and solve situations we
are essentially problem solvers at the end of the day so you've got to be able to think in that kind
of mindset also like i said i'm quite fluid about where i go with my career so the fact that having
a career in law is quite versatile there's a lot of people who used to practice law but they've
now gone into different things their business owners they're politicians they're you know so
many different fields that lawyers can go into now i'm also going to end this video by talking about
superficial reasons for pursuing this career as well i may have hinted at it throughout this video
i'd be lying if i said that i was in law for everything else but the money if that makes
sense having a career in law means that you are i guess financially stable it also comforts me to
know that once i've qualified unless there's some massive thing that happens in the world
like a massive recession i don't think i'd ever be out of a job that's one thing that does lead
me towards this career another superficial reason for wanting a career in law is also the status
i i like when people's eyebrows are raised like i'm a lawyer i'm practicing law the reason why
i call this a superficial reason is for example i could easily lose that status or lose that title
so my reasoning for wanting to pursue this career shouldn't solely be focused on that it's
like saying for example if you're going to marry someone purely for their status if they then lose
that status it basically means that you'd like leave them basically does that make sense i don't
know whether that makes sense but basically that's not the only reason why i applied for a career in
law as you can see in this video but it was one of the reasons and i'm going to be honest about that
i'm not going to sit here and say i did law purely because i love the law it's a job that pays well
and it gives you that status in society it makes people believe that you're educated and you know
what you're talking about sometimes you know that's a little bit debatable with me but
it's okay so yeah that's how i'm going to end the video it's really chatty and thank
you Rach again for the suggestion for the video and hopefully this helps answer a few questions
to you about why i pursued this career i think for me personally i've got more of a business interest
than an interest in the law itself like legislation black letter law
but i've not let that prevent me from developing a passion in this career yeah i think i just want
to leave it like that thank you so much for watching i'll see you all in the next video