Rachel Collins

My personal statement to University, applying for a degree in law, spoke about my early desire as a child to become a ‘bannister’ (barrister) after I was involved in a personal injury claim. But it wasn’t until later on (when I had completed my law degree and began my career in law as a legal secretary), that I realised my skills lay in becoming a solicitor, not a barrister. In short, I enjoyed the ongoing client relationships you build as a solicitor and the day-to-day job - reviewing documents/drafting, advising clients on ad-hoc issues and the lengthy but very important preparatory work involved in defending Employment Tribunal claims.

Picking a career in your early twenties is daunting. When I left university with a law degree, whilst I felt I knew the academic side of law, I really had no idea what the practical aspect entailed so I decided to get some experience by working as a legal secretary in a regional law firm. At the time same, I volunteered at the Citizens Advice Bureau as an adviser. I didn’t know this at the time, but it was a really good foray into the legal world – in the law firm, I had the opportunity to work across several departments, learning quickly what I found interesting, and witnessing solicitors doing the day-to-day job. As an adviser at Citizens Advice, I got my first real taste of speaking to ‘clients’, distilling the issues, and giving practical advice.

I realised very quickly that my passion lay in becoming a solicitor (and gaining the responsibility/knowledge associated with that) so when the Head of the employment team (who I still work for now!) was impressed with my legal researching skills and asked me about my career aspirations, I explained that I wanted to become a solicitor and was put in touch with the Head of HR to discuss this. At the time, I was only aware of one route to becoming a solicitor (the LPC); however, the Head of HR told me about another route – as a legal executive. You could fast track if you had done a law degree and unlike the LPC/training contract route, where you worked across a number of departments with no guaranteed role at the end of it, training as a legal executive focussed on one department which you then qualified into. By this time, having worked on employment issues both at the law firm and Citizens Advice (building on my academic knowledge from university) it had cemented that I wished to qualify as a solicitor in employment – I loved how applicable employment law was to everyone’s day-to-day life. It was so fast-changing, it was built upon a mix of statute/case law and every scenario/case involved different facts. I also enjoyed getting to know the clients in employment – the different industries their businesses operated in, and their businesses’ ethos.

Working full-time whilst studying for my legal executive exams was challenging, but before I knew it, I had qualified – taking on responsibility for my own cases and client issues, all with the ongoing assistance and support of fantastic mentors. It takes a long time in employment law to learn the law (given the size!) but a lot of what goes into being a good employment lawyer is learning how to help clients with their issues in a pragmatic manner – so whilst my mentors not only helped with the academic aspect of employment law, they really were invaluable in terms of the practical advice. We even have days now where a new issue lands (which believe it or not is something we haven’t seen in our years of being employment lawyers) and we have a chat about how best to deal with it.

After I qualified as a legal executive, I decided that I wanted to cross-qualify as a solicitor, so undertook the LPC (again, with the firm’s full support). Working full-time whilst studying again, threw up its challenges, but it was all very much worth it when I joined the roll as a solicitor.

Over the years, we have had new staff join our team who I’ve had the privilege of training, mentoring and supporting with their career aspirations (something I feel very passionately about given all the great support I’ve had during my own career development) and now, as well as doing the day-to-day advice, I head up the Employment Tribunal side of our team. I have been awarded several promotions at Nash – from solicitor to Associate, then to Partner in my early 30’s (which was a fantastic achievement) and I love being part of a great team, with excellent work opportunities – we are fortunate enough to work solely for commercial clients, across a multitude of industries, from SMEs to PLCs, whom I have built close relationships with over the years.

Having worked at other firms, Nash stands out to me as being not only commercial, but personable –you aren’t just a number – you play a key part in the growth of your team/the firm in general, and you are given the flexibility and support to flourish. I am proud of my career journey and feel that I am an example of the fact that with hard work, and the right support, the sky is the limit, and I look forward to seeing where that takes me in the future at Nash.