End of PPC1!
April 2011
Blackhall is now over and I’m looking forward to getting back into the office for my second rotation. I can’t believe it’s been more than six months that I’ve spent at Blackhall. I’ve learned so much. Since Christmas we’ve also taken classes in advocacy skills, client consultation and negotiation. The tutorials have been hard work but I’ve learned so much.
The social reps organised a fantastic Blackhall Ball which was held at the Shelbourne and saw everyone come out to celebrate, dressed in their finest. It was a great night and we all managed to forget about the looming exams for the night. I’ve made great friends at Blackhall who will now be heading all over the country to work. Blackhall is great for getting future solicitors into contact with each other, and no doubt lots of us will be working with each other in the future, whether on the same sides of transactions or cases or on opposite sides!
My team and I also worked really hard at our moot court competition. We won the Irish final held in February and so travelled to the University of Maryland in Baltimore a few weeks ago to compete in the international finals. After a gruelling 3 days of preliminary rounds and knock-out rounds we were named the winners after a hard-fought final! We were delighted and it made all of the hard work over the last 5 months all worth it. We arrived back in Dublin to sit the PPCI exams. They were definitely hard going, but I’ll keep the fingers crossed until the results come out!
I’ve found out that I’m going into the Property department, so I’ll be heading back to the office in the next few weeks and I’ll let you know how the next rotation goes.
PPC1 (Blackhall)
October 2010
I’m at PPCI now, or Blackhall as it’s called by the students here. There’s so much going on here and we’ve all been kept really busy. All of the students have been put into tutorial groups, which consist of about 12-16 people. We’ll attend all of our tutorials with this group and we’ve already been socialising with our groups. The four examinable subjects we study are Probate and Taxation, Litigation, Business law and Applied Land Law which includes Conveyancing and Landlord and Tenant law. We’ve also been taking really interesting classes in professional development, legal research and writing and Irish language.
Everything we’ve been learning is so practical and the lessons are given by highly qualified practitioners which is great. I’ve also found that when studying Business law in particular I am coming across topics that I have worked on in the office. This gives me a great practical knowledge of what I’m learning, which is invaluable.
I’ve also gotten accepted onto a team to take part in an international moot court competition, called the Stetson International Environmental Law Moot Court competition. We will have to compete in an Irish regional final and then hopefully travel to the University of Maryland in March next year to compete in the international finals. It’s a lot of work so far but incredibly rewarding. The topic concerns international liability for transboundary harm caused by an oil spill, and at the moment my team and I are preparing written submissions that will be submitted to the University of Maryland in November.
There are also plenty of social nights being organised by the two dedicated social reps, and the upcoming Halloween party and the Movember festivities should be great fun.
End of my first rotation!
August 2010
I can’t believe my first rotation is over. Tomorrow I head off for a holiday before starting PPCI. The last part of my rotation has been really busy. I’ve been getting together all of the bits and pieces that I need to hand over to the incoming trainee. Even though trainees leave departments, the projects don’t finish up! So it’s very important to get together anything that will need to be taken over by the next trainee. I’ve been writing memos, compiling documents and sorting through correspondence, and putting these all into a handover file. I’ve also had to complete a trainee evaluation form reflecting on my time during my first rotation. This helped me to assess what I’ve learned and how I’ve improved during the last three months, whether it’s in drafting, research or client consultation. I will meet with the head of my practice group to discuss this review and get feedback on my performance in the department, which should be very worthwhile. And of course, just before finishing up in the office I got to cheer on the Arthur Cox team to victory in the Dublin Solicitors Bar Association football league!
I’ve had a great summer in the office, and can’t believe how much I’ve learned in the past three months. Now I’m heading down to PPCI and I’ll keep you updated on how that goes.
First rotation - Corporate
July 2010
So I’m now mid-way through my first rotation. Things are moving pretty quickly! What has really struck me is how quickly you come to feel part of the place. After about three weeks I felt like I knew how things operate, and knew my role and I had my routine down.
The most daunting thing is the first time I’m asked to do a new task, and it seems totally impossible! But I’ve found that we all learn very quickly here, and once the task is explained and I’ve completed it once, I feel confident approaching similar tasks again and it’s hard to believe I ever thought they were so difficult!
Creating bibles of documents is just such a task. Trainees will often be asked to compile a bible of all the documents relating to a transaction the department have worked on – this might be for sending to clients, for solicitors acting on the other side of a transaction, or for Arthur Cox’s own files. I found this to be a brilliant way of learning about the documents that are used in a transaction, what they look like (I now know what a real-life share transfer form looks like!) and generally learning what documents like a share purchase agreement or escrow agreement involve.
The corporate groups are also really proactive in holding training sessions for the trainees in corporate groups 1, 2 and 3. For the first six weeks of my rotation I attended sessions in everything from the Companies Acts, to drafting commercial agreements and the mechanics of takeovers. The sessions involved just about 10 trainees and 1 or 2 partners, who would assign reading and questions to be considered before the session and we would come prepared to discuss the material. These sessions are so useful, it really helped me in knowing exactly what sort of work is being done in the department I’m working in, and the practical issues that are going to arise and how I can approach them. For example, the first time I was asked to draft some clauses for a contract, I hadn’t a clue where to start. I knew my contract law, about intention to create legal relations and the difference between conditions precedent and subsequent, but that didn’t help me much in starting with a blank sheet of paper and writing down clauses! The sessions then gave really practical guidance and I knew just how to start the next time I had such a task. The sessions also reassured me that the partners know what we’re going through as new trainees and the problems we face as we start out.
There has also been a fair bit of fun involved in my first 6 weeks, with groups heading to watch the World Cup matches after work, taking part in tag rugby tournaments and the Arthur Cox 2010 Table Quiz (although my team may or may not have qualified for the final…and by may or may not I mean we definitely didn’t).
Stay tuned for more updates when I finish my first rotation and get ready to head to PPCI!
Day 1 as a new trainee at Arthur Cox
The prospect of starting work at Arthur Cox made me both excited and terrified. I was excited to be starting a “real job”, to be taking my first step into the world of work. I’d done an internship with the firm, and knew Arthur Cox to be really friendly, with dynamic people and with so much going on. I was terrified too, at the thought of putting all that study of law into practice, and not knowing if I could do it, or if it would make any sense to me, or if I could do work that would be of any value to the firm! The first day then is designed to ease you into the office. The trainees in the previous year’s intake came to meet the new trainees, and settled our nerves by chatting about their experiences. The orientation throughout the day helped us to learn all about the firm, our roles within the departments we would be working in, and how to navigate the different software and research programmes. The new batch of trainees all got to know each other well, being encouraged to share stories about our travels, work experiences, studies and hobbies. Heading to the pub after work to chat over a drink also got everyone talking and feeling more comfortable with the people we’ll be working alongside for the next 2 ½ years.
I’ll be doing my first rotation in the Corporate 3 department, and I’ll let you know more when I find my feet!
