My unique career path at Russell-Cooke

My training contract began in September 2023, but my education at Russell-Cooke actually started 14 months prior. In that time I have held four other positions at the firm and each of these have greatly contributed to my legal training, despite none of them being legal roles. 

My summer spent as a receptionist in the Bedford Row office taught me so much about client interaction and thinking on my feet. One of my responsibilities was directing new enquiries to the correct departments based on their requirements and my own knowledge of the law. This was put to the test when one caller simply stated he needed a lawyer who could get his cows some ear tag ‘passports’! (Spoiler: it was the crime department he needed). Adaptability is a cornerstone of the front of house team. 

‘Legal archivist’ was my next job title at the firm. Archiving gave me so much confidence using our internal software, and also taught me a lot about the inner-workings of our document storing system thanks to the risk and compliance team and general office. Having confidence using the daunting document management system has given me slightly more self-assurance in the first few weeks of my training contract, something I hope I can share with my fellow trainees. 

During my grand tour of the many career paths Russell-Cooke has to offer, I took a trip down to the marketing department. Here I was helping the team build our shiny new website and my role was to create the partners’ profiles. Russell-Cooke is well known for its partner approachability so I was not (too) intimidated by the task of asking 60+ partners and consultants for their website bios and discussing feedback with them. This was an interesting project as I felt as though I got to know the firm and its leadership in great detail. 

My most recent role before beginning my formal training was in the private client department as an executive assistant. Not only was this a great opportunity to develop and demonstrate my time management skills, it also required a strict eye for detail and a knack for multitasking. These are all qualities that will support my training contract and my future legal career immensely. I also got the chance to understand the firms billing and accounts procedure in detail and managed to get some letter writing experience. I even had the pleasure of seeing the client care process from start to finish on several matters.