Trainee Solicitors – The future of the firm  

Intro

When applying for a training contract, the main thing you perhaps expect a trainee to do is to learn and practice how the law operates in their assigned department.  However, it is important to remember that working for a regional firm can mean that your role is much wider than that, as you will play an active role in forwarding the needs of the business while supporting the crucial community links inside and outside the firm. All of these extra responsibilities can lead to a more well-rounded solicitor once you come to qualify, and can also be lots of fun to get involved with along the way!

Networking

Networking is an important aspect of being a trainee. At Machins, you will be expected to attend networking events throughout the South East and perhaps even London, support the hosting of our own events in Luton or Berkhamsted, and work to build good relationships with the firm’s business contacts as well as establish new connections. Networking is a great learning curve for trainees to understand commercial awareness, build interpersonal skills and develop an understanding of how business connections work in practice. It will also help build prospective solicitors’ own personal profiles as they develop their careers.

Volunteering

Machins encourages all staff to volunteer and get involved with some of the charity and community initiatives that we support, or perhaps start new initiatives. We engage in a wide host of activities from community clean-ups, charity volunteering days, sponsored events and student mentoring. We also support a wide range of charities through fundraising initiatives such as sponsored walks and sleep-outs, bake sales and challenges. Not only is it great to give back, but being a solicitor is ultimately about helping solve problems and helping people. Volunteering provides a way of doing this.

Committee work

Alongside doing legal work, trainee solicitors also get involved with the various committees that we have at Machins. Opportunities include the social committee, diversity and inclusion committee, mental health committee, or even getting involved with the trainee recruitment process for future intakes. In fact, trainee solicitors are often at the forefront of these committees, for example one of our current trainees decided to set up a committee championing diversity, an initiative that has been widely supported by the partners and the firm.

Marketing

An important lesson a trainee solicitor learns is that, while law firms provide an important service to society, they are also businesses like any other. The crucial questions of how do we appeal to a wider range of clients, how do we further improve the firm’s prestige and profile, and how do we recruit new talent from a wide range of different backgrounds are fundamental to the firm’s continued success.  Machins understand that to best address these challenges together innovation and fresh ideas which are not simply limited to the partners alone. In fact, trainee solicitors have been at the forefront of many of the recent changes we have delivered!

Trainee solicitors have regular meetings together with the marketing department to discuss ideas and concepts for making our firm even better. Just some of the ideas trainees have initiated or supported include Gen 20 (our junior networking programme), the Ask Machins podcast series, the Machins Business Mixer networking group, and this very blog! The partners and the firm are supportive of any ideas proposed and know that the trainee solicitors of today are the future of the firm tomorrow.