Siobhan, trainee solicitor, EDF EnergySiobhan is in the second and final year of her training contract in the legal department at EDF Energy. At the end of this year she will have completed her training as a solicitor. Siobhan began her legal education by studying for a law degree (LLB) at Leeds University from where she graduated in 2004. She then took a gap year in order to gain some valuable work experience and to help finance the legal practice course (LPC), the vocational stage of training to be a solicitor. During her gap year, she obtained employment as a legal assistant at a regional law firm in its corporate finance department. In September 2005, she started the LPC at law school. While she was at law school, Siobhan applied for a training contract at EDF Energy, which entailed completing an application form, and undergoing a telephone interview and a two-day assessment centre. Having ‘passed’ those, there was yet another legal test before she was finally offered a contract. Siobhan uses the skills and knowledge she developed in her law degree on a daily basis. Apart from knowledge of the law, which is obviously directly relevant, the skills developed by a law degree include analytical, research and communications skills, as well as organisational and time management skills, which were essential because her workload as a law student was very heavy and she had to be well organised to stay on top of it. For law students looking to improve their chances of obtaining a training contract, Siobhan’s advice is to arrange legal work placements to develop relevant experience and have interests outside law. She feels that her work as a legal assistant helped her to get her training contract. Other factors that helped her were the pro bono (voluntary) legal work she’d done at law school and her position of responsibility as captain of a netball team.
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