More than 80 budding solicitors and legal professionals from De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) packed into the Hugh Aston Building to gain insight into securing a graduate job or work experience within the industry.
A panel of solicitors and paralegals from across Leicestershire and the East Midlands – including many DMU alumni – took questions from students about their journeys breaking into the competitive legal sector and their experiences working in practices.
The event, known as Aspiring Solicitors, is the Brainchild of the Law Society of England and Wales, and it’s hoped the initiative will enable more law students to create their own network of professionals who can offer guidance and support during and after their studies.
Aspiring Solicitors is being rolled out to a handful of universities across the UK, with DMU being the first institution to organise the event.
Ayesha Khan, an SQE LLM student, said: “It was a lovely way to meet those in the legal field at different stages of their careers and be able to hear their journey, starting with what we as students should be aiming to do in university.
“I also appreciated how they highlighted ways non-legal work experience can be an important factor in CVs and interviews to help you stand out as a potential employee.
“Many of the panellists got into their careers because they showcased their true personalities and didn’t try to put on a fake persona to land a job. Hearing this from people who own their own firms was super reassuring and knowing that character is something they look for in potential employees.”
Chloe Lake, who was named as Paralegal/Trainee of the Year at the 2023 Leicestershire Law Society Awards, council member at the Law Society of England and Wales, Steven Mather, and Zara Khan were among the DMU alumni to sit on the panel and share their experiences.
Related: DMU Law LLB student Zainab Girarch was named as Paralegal/ Trainee of the Year at this year’s Leicestershire Law Society Awards – read more about here nomination here.
They were joined on the panel by the President of the Leicestershire Law Society (LLS) Bhumika Parmar, LLS Solicitor of the Year 2023 Rakesh Veja, and Louise Hanson and Steven Drew of the Law Society.
Following the panel discussion, students had the chance to network with the panel members and ask more questions about their career challenges and successes.
Returning to the campus that helped shape her legal career, Ms Khan, who works as an Associate at Howes Percival LLP, said it was great to see such a high turnout.
She said: “It was wonderful to see such a breadth of experience, a wide range of practice areas and different types of law firms represented on the panel.
“All of the students were attentive and asked a lot of thoughtful questions. It was lovely to see them making the most of the opportunity to better themselves so incredibly early in their career.
“It was lovely to return to DMU, especially as my time on campus was abruptly cut short due to the pandemic. I’m so grateful for the support I received from my lecturers when I did my LPC at DMU in 2019 and for the support I continue to receive from them now, I still remember what they taught me and use it in practice every day.”
Due to the success of Aspiring Solicitors, organisers Associate Head of Law (Education) Brett Keonig, and Kelly Hughes, Senior Lecturer in Law, hope to make it an annual event to ensure their students have the best opportunities of breaking into the sector.
Kelly Hughes said: “One of the students asked the panel ‘What case made you change your practices?’ It was really fascinating because these are the cases where you feel you could have improved and the panel were very honest and open about their challenging cases where things didn’t quite go to plan.
“We really want to use this event as a big stepping stone for future events, because we can show more potential guests that the appetite to learn is there and we will have more than a handful of students turn up.
“There’s certainly the expectation that there will be more events like this coming in the next academic year.”
Posted on Friday 7 June 2024