Reflection on My Work Placement: Opinion Essay

For my work placement, I chose to work at a Law firm called Morgan Has (Morgan Has Solicitors, 2019). In this report, I will be outlining the nature, opportunities and responsibilities of the work I undertook during my placement. Along with this, I will address the career management skills that I have obtained. Career management skills are those involved in obtaining suitable employment and further educational opportunities, and intentionally building a career (Bridgstock, 2009). When preparing for my placement, I started off by questioning whether I wanted to enter an environment that I am looking to work in after my degree, at University, or whether I wanted to explore my creative side and work within the beauty industry, which I have a huge passion for. After doing some research, I came across an interesting article which states “So many people have degrees these days that you will need to stand out from the crowd when applying for jobs. Employers increasingly want new recruits to be able to add value straightaway. If you can demonstrate that you have already achieved a certain level of competence, you will be far more likely to get the job you want” (Work Experience and Internships, 2020). After reading this article, I was certain that I wanted to work somewhere that was going to stand out and add that extra support for when I do go into my future career in Law. I was also sure that I wanted to take full use out of this placement as it was an incredible opportunity to give any job application a head start.

I started off by setting myself realistic aims and objectives following the guidelines for SMART objectives (Watts, J. 2020). One of my aims I set myself to achieve by the end of my work placement was to gain more knowledge of the Justice System and to properly understand how it works. My objectives in how to achieve this was to shadow one of the solicitors who worked closely with the courts and represented for the firm in front of the judge and juries the most. Another objective I set in order to achieve my goal was to help prepare the documents that were needed to be presented in the courts. This helped me gain an insight into what is to be prepared for a court visit and how everything is to be presented which encouraged an idea of what a day in the court would look like. Besides this, I would also ask questions to prepare any extra support that may be needed before or after a court visit. This would include things such as transportation to the court and back, any assistance needed in court and calls to the client who is also expected at court, if needs be.

Another aim I set myself was to analyse at least three cases effectively, with one being a large case to challenge myself and my capability of doing so. At the time of my placement, I was fortunate enough to come across a very large case that had been ongoing for a period of time. To create an idea of what a small case looked like in comparison to a large case, I was able to analyse small cases within a day or two, however, the large case took up most of my time within the placement as it was a case which persisted of 10,000 pages which needed to be carefully analysed. My objectives to achieve this was to firstly analyse the smaller cases using CCTV footage, witness statements and the study of the case itself in order to familiarise myself with the cases and create my own interpretations. I would then check back with the team to report my findings in which we would have a group discussion and come to an overall conclusion. I then moved onto looking at the larger case, we worked on this case as a team which really encouraged my team work and communication skills as there was a lot of room for debate during the analysis of this case.

The firm had a small team working in the crime sector with a highly successful leader in which I was shadowing throughout my placement. My responsibilities included updating clients on their cases depending on what the police or courts had advised us, analysing CCTV footage, cross-matching witness statements and analysing the case studies itself. I also had to organise each client’s files, making sure that I file any new sources of evidence or update that is found for a case. This role at Morgan Has had proven to be the ideal step for my future career in Law as I strongly believe that just as important it is that I gained an incredible experience, I also had the opportunity to build numerous relationships with other people in the Law industry. By socialising within my placement, I was able to create close bonds with new people who were kind enough to provide me with a greater insight into this career. In terms of the benefits that this placement has on my future plans, I have the opportunity to continue working here if I wish to, and my relationships can potentially help increase my chances of career success.

Factors which contributed to my success within the firm were analysing a different variety of documents which enhanced my skills in paying attention to detail which is a transferable skill I can apply to my studies at university. Another factor of success was my growth in being able to work in a team effectively as there was a lot of group discussions and the team was really good at supporting one another’s interpretations and providing critical feedback. On the other hand, a problem which had occurred during my placement was a client’s file being lost. To resolve this issue, I first searched the firm in case the file had just been misplaced, however, after still not being able to find it, I resorted to building the client’s file from scratch. I had to access the client’s documents using our online services and any letters that were sent to the client were kept as a copy on our drive in which I had to print out all of these documents and arrange them back into their correct orders. Although this problem did cause some stress, I definitely believe that I was able to tackle the situation effectively as I was determined to waste as little time as possible and just rebuilt the clients file again in which this worked out well for us all.

One of my aims and objectives were achieved through working closely with my team and taking notes from their critical feedback in order to improve myself on areas that I was struggling in. I also studied the Justice System in more depth with the encouragement of one of the team members who were very familiar with the system in particular, in which, by the end of my placement I was able to properly understand how the Justice System works. However, one of my aims were to study three cases with one being a major case, although I managed to stick to my aim by getting through two minor cases and attempted at a major case, I did not have enough time to conclude on the larger case. Despite not being able to finish this case study, I believe that I did study it well enough in the time that I was given to make strong enough interpretations that the team in fact valued and took into account. I think next time, when setting myself any aims and objectives I would definitely be more critical about my given time frame and whether the aims and objectives are realistically achievable. In reflection on what I have learnt about myself on a professional level, I saw that I am definitely more analytical than I actually thought of myself and that I can work very well in a team as I usually prefer working more independently. This environment taught me to work well as a team and to also work independently, but even then, making sure that our independent work conducted well when put together. I will definitely admit that with university being more of an independent environment, I did lack in some skills in working well as a team, especially with people I have newly met. Personally, I did not think of myself as a very debateable person who could speak out with courage as I used to fear saying something in front of a crowd and being wrong, or sounding completely out of place. However, this placement has really boosted my confidence in speaking out in front of an audience as I realised that my peers were not judgemental and instead were very encouraging. This placement has definitely helped me reflect on myself from both a personal and professional level and I believe that “we reflect in order to learn something, or we learn as a result of reflecting” (Moon, J.A 2004).

Studying criminology at university, with my mind set on becoming a lawyer in the future, I was looking to do a work placement where I could successfully apply it to my future career as ‘it makes sense that tenacious graduates with strong internal drive and well‐developed career management competencies will experience better outcomes’ (Ball, 2003; Harvey and Blackwell, 1999). I initially wanted to develop my skills in analysing real life case studies to better understand the difficulties I may come across in university when making certain explanations on case studies and readings. This placement definitely gave me the opportunity to think more outside of the ordinary as in an environment like this, I saw that my interpretations of a certain incident would be a lot different to the lawyers I was working closely with. I was encouraged to make more in depth analysis from studies and gather more support for this which is a very useful skill I can carry all throughout my studies at university and also in my future career. My experience at the firm has also taught me that learning from others at work is a crucial part of development which is important for many reasons. For example, there have been frequent suggestions that formal systematic learning is of lesser importance than informal learning. Both Garrick’s (1998) analysis of the building industry and Boud’s (1999) consideration of the academic profession suggest that informal interactions with peers are predominant ways of learning and that the impact of formal training on practice can be quite marginal. I believe that my placement worked well with my studies at university as it was not an environment I felt unfamiliar with. Studying criminology definitely helped when analysing real life case studies as I was able to effectively apply my existing knowledge to these real-life scenarios.

To conclude my overall experience, I would say that I met my aims and objectives to great extent with little room for improvement. For instance, I should have chosen a large case which I would have realistically been capable to finish by the end of my placement. The working environment, on the other hand, was definitely more overwhelming than I was expecting as there is a lot of work load which some days could become very draining. Despite the workload being very overwhelming, I was surprised at how fun it was to work together in a team as it was not always silent, independent work. For example, we held a lot of debates and conversations which kept the whole team actively engaged while still completing the work required. In my first week, I definitely found myself reaching out for help a lot more in which I felt as though I was becoming a bit too dependent on the rest of the team, whereas, as the weeks went on, I felt more comfortable in creating my own interpretations of cases and writing back to clients became very natural to me. I really enjoyed the experience of work-based learning and feel as though it has definitely allowed me to obtain transferable skills such as: working in a team, working under pressure, analysing and thinking outside of the norm and most importantly, this placement has taught me how to manage my time effectively. These are skills that I feel will definitely help me in the future when applying for a job as this was an experience I will be able to apply to my future work environment. The placement itself being the job I want to pursue in the future definitely made my experience more worthwhile as every new day at the office offered me a new insight into my future career.