Life at Brodies: Alternative route to qualifying as a lawyer

00:00:05 David Lee, Host

Hello and welcome to Podcasts by Brodies. My name is David Lee and in this new series, ‘Life at Brodies’, we'll be getting to know more about the firm and its people as they share their own personal experiences and perspectives about working in Scotland's largest legal firm.

Today we're talking about alternative routes to qualifying as a solicitor and I'm delighted to be joined by Eve Gilchrist, a solicitor in the health and safety team and by Alexandra McDonald, a senior paralegal in real estate. They'll share their experiences of qualifying as a lawyer via a pre-PEAT training contract through the Law Society of Scotland's alternative routes to qualification. Welcome to you both.

So, first, Eve, can you tell me about yourself and your life before you decided to train as a solicitor?

00:01:01 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

Yeah, no problem. I left school when I was 16, after I'd finished my highers, and I thought that I had wanted to be a solicitor, but I wasn't entirely sure and the thought of going to university was not something that I was particularly keen on. I left and did a legal secretarial diploma and got a job as a legal secretary at a different firm in Edinburgh and was happy doing that. I then moved firms and found out about the alternative route, which is what my boss at the time did and it just sounded perfect for me so that I didn't have to go to university and could still qualify as a solicitor.

00:01:48 David Lee, Host

Thanks very much. Alex, what about yourself? What was a little bit about your own life and career before you decided you wanted to train as a lawyer?

00:01:56 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

Yeah, of course. Quite similar to Eve. I wasn't a big fan of high school, so I left as soon as I could at 15 and I didn't really know what I wanted to do so I went to college for two years and I just went into admin and then after that I got my first full-time job at a legal firm and did a mixture of reception, admin, court running and it was quite varied. When I decided to leave there, I did a very short stint of thinking, you know, is law for me? I worked in a family run renewable energy company for a while, they dealt in biomass boilers and fuel, but after a very short lived nine months, I missed the law side of things. So, that's when I joined Brodies and as an LDS, a legal document specialist, in the real estate team and became a paralegal in the residential team within real estate and that's where I am now.

00:03:20 David Lee, Host

What was it, Alex, that you said you moved out of the law and worked in for a renewable energy firm for a while? What was it about the law that that you liked? What was it about that life in the legal office that made you realise that you liked it?

00:03:37 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

It's quite varied, fast-paced, and you get to deal with a lot of different people, different clients in all the different areas in the sector and you can pretty much go in any direction you want to as well, which is always really good and you can take it as far as you want, I suppose.

00:03:57 David Lee, Host

What about you, Eve? What is it that you enjoy, personally, about what's going on in the legal office? What is it that you really enjoy about it?

00:04:06 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

Again, same as Alex. It's very varied and I think it's funny actually because Alex and I both worked for the same boss earlier on before we were at Brodies, the different the work that we were able to do and I've always done court work so certainly pre-COVID used just to run up to court all the time and it was quite exciting, but it’s just so varied and the idea of helping clients and formulating arguments has always appealed to me.

00:04:47 David Lee, Host

Obviously, both of you enjoy working in a legal environment and both of you have then made that subsequent decision to go down the route of wanting to become a solicitor. This podcast specifically is about alternative routes into law and both of you have described that you didn't particularly want to go to university, you came at it from a different way. How did you go about deciding the route in? How did you find out about a way that you could get in? When did that happen?

00:05:20 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

I had written it off to be honest. I was working as a legal secretary and I had thought about going to university once I was in the law firm but then thought that I can’t afford to stop working full time, I had my own flat and I couldn’t go back to relying on my parents or anything like that. So, I thought I probably can't go to university full time and socially I didn't really want to either. I had started considering other options until my boss at the time said that that was the way he had qualified 20 years ago and told me about the route because I'd never heard of it until then. There's still not a whole lot of information out there, but we're working on promoting the route a bit more, but yes, I had sort of written it off until he said that. Then once I started looking into it, I printed off every single bit of information I could from the Law Society website and realised that this was actually the perfect way for me to be able to still qualify as a solicitor while still working full time and earning some money and not having to go through what I thought would be a painful experience at university.

00:06:28 David Lee, Host

What is the pre-PEAT training contract Eve? PEAT is just professional education and training. As you say there's not necessarily that wide knowledge about it among people, ironically, who might be the ones who want to do it, can you tell us how you found out about it and what it is and why it attracted you?

00:06:38 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

Yes. So, there is a small amount of information on the Law Society website, but most information you can get comes from talking to other people who've done it. Obviously, I spoke to my boss who'd done it at the time, and it's 11 exams over three years, or four if you need it. You work as a trainee at the same time, essentially it is like an apprenticeship, but it's not exactly called that. You must be employed by a law firm to be able to do it but other than that, there's not any requirements to get started as long as there's a firm willing to support you through it.

00:07:32 David Lee, Host

When did you do it? When did you start doing the pre-PEAT training contract?

00:07:37 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

I started in 2017 and I finished in 2020.

00:07:42 David Lee, Host

We'll come and talk about in a while. Alex, what was it that lead you? How did you find out about the pre-PEAT training contract and tell us a bit about what stage you're at with it just now?

00:07:56 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

When I left school, I didn't have any higher qualifications or anything so I thought the only option was to go to university if I wanted to progress and qualify. To get into university I needed to do an access course and I did do a few months of an access course at Edinburgh University, but while I was there, I realised how tough it was going to be in terms of the amount of extra work I would have to do in terms of essays and things like that. I did need to work full time at the time as well just with the time of my life that I was in, in terms of paying my mortgage and I just thought that wasn't going to be viable to then go down to part time, which I would’ve have to have done. It was just conversations in the firm really, it was a couple of partners that mentioned it and I investigated it and thought that would be the perfect solution.

00:08:58 David Lee, Host

Do you think maybe there's not as much information out there as there should be for people like yourself and Eve who either didn't want to or couldn't go to university for whatever reason that this option is out there?

00:09:14 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

Yeah, definitely. I think there needs to be more out there about it.

00:09:20 David Lee, Host

Eve, tell us, why do you think this was a good option for you? How did it work going into the pre-PEAT and how did that fit in with your life and your sort of aspirations and ambitions at the time?

00:09:35 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

So like I said, I couldn't have afforded to stop working full time and needed that that salary, so I couldn't have gone to university full time and it takes an awful lot longer to do the part time LLB than it does to do this route. I didn't really fancy going to university and it meant that I could still get an awful lot of experience in a in an office, in a law firm while qualifying at the same time so it was not the easy way. When you meet people and you tell them that you qualified this way, they either have no idea what you're talking about or they say ‘oh, you did it the hard way’ because it does kind of have that reputation but it is a lot of studying and you have to be very disciplined to fit it all in because there's no set timetable for what exams you sit when you decide which ones you want to sit in each exam diet. So, you have to manage your own studying and make sure you can fit it in. It's a lot of evenings and weekends, pretty much every evening and weekend for three years so there's not a whole lot of social life goes on at that time.

00:10:46 David Lee, Host

We'll come on to how you balance commitments in a minute, but it sounds like you don’t. So, Alex, can you tell, what are the exams that you must pass as part of the pre-PEAT?

00:11:08 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

Yes. So, as Eve mentioned, there's 11 exams. I'm still going through my exams. So I'm not out of the woods just yet, but I really found criminal and evidence really interesting. I'm not sure if that's a field I would like to get into though to be honest, but I did find the sectors of law quite interesting.

00:11:29 David Lee, Host

What stage are you at at the moment, Alex? How long have you got left?

00:11:32 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

So, my three-year contract ends in 2025 and I've got five exams left to pass.

00:11:41 David Lee, Host

So, no free evenings, no free weekends and no summer then basically.

00:11:47 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

No, not at the moment no.

00:11:49 David Lee, Host

Eve, coming back to you, how did you manage to balance it? What were you having to balance in terms of work, family, personal commitments alongside the training contact? How did you manage to do it?

00:12:08 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

I had a timetable that I planned out. From the law society you get a syllabus of what you need to learn and a book list of where you should be able to find that information, there are past papers as well, but that's it really. So, I made a timetable of what books I wanted to read by a certain date. So, if I had, say, finished a book, maybe a couple of days in advance, then I would be able to have a couple of days off, but it was very structured. And I think you must be very organised and know what you intend to read or learn by a certain date so that you could get it all in. I would study on the train and on the way to work and on the way home from work and then I'd do a couple of hours at night as well and then a few hours at the weekend. It was hard going, but it was worth it. I had my son during that time as well, so that was an extra busy period but it's definitely manageable. I think most people that I know who do this route, because we have a WhatsApp group for people who are doing it so that there's a bit more support for people and there is around 40 people on it now and the vast majority work full time and a lot of them also have kids. Everybody is in the same boat really that it is a juggle, but it is, it is doable if you want to do it.

00:13:34 David Lee, Host

You threw that in quite casually there, Eve, that you had you had your son while you were doing this, if you'd of had your time again, would you have got that balance a little bit different? That must’ve been genuinely challenging.

00:13:45 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

It was, he was born 12 days before two of my exams as well, but it was fine, I like a challenge. It was all good.

00:13:58 David Lee, Host

Just coming back to what we talked about with Alex there about the different exams that you have to pass, you've done them all obviously. Was there anything that you particularly enjoyed? Anything not so much and did that influence the direction that you’re taking with your legal career?

00:14:17 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

It did. I left EU law till the end in the hopes that Brexit might mean I didn't have to do it but unfortunately that plan didn't work out, so I did have to do it in the end. So that's a hard one. Yeah, the criminal and the evidence, I'm the same as Alex. I really, really enjoyed that and I hadn't done anything in that sphere before. Now that I'm in the health and safety team we do elements of that. So, the exams are what gave me the first experience of the criminal side of things rather than just the civil court stuff that I've been used to, and I did really enjoy it. It did actually influence where I ended up.

00:15:00 David Lee, Host

You have to pass all the exams then, you must get through all the 11 exams, was that quite a high bar? Do you think it is quite tough? Do you have to put a lot of work in Alex?

00:15:14 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

You have to put a lot of work in in terms of studying and just kind of having a base, but all exams are open book now, so you can refer to your reading materials through your exam, which helps for the case.

00:15:31 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

I would say that we've spoken to the Law Society recently and for those who signed up after the 1st May this year (2024) the exams are going back to in person which likely means that they will be closed books. So, they'll be going back to the pre-COVID way so it might be a different way of studying for people who are starting it now.

00:15:54 David Lee, Host

Just to go back to what we talked about with Eve, Alex, that work life balance, how have you found that so far and what are the competing areas of your life that you've had to fit all this into?

00:16:12 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

At the very beginning the partner who was all for me doing the pre-PEAT - we had conversations at the beginning because I was quite keen to just tweak my full-time hours which he was all for. So, what I currently do is two slightly longer days and two slightly shorter days, and then a normal nine to five day. The slightly shorter days are the days that I plan a lot of studying in on top of the weekend which I find is more manageable. I would encourage people to have those conversations if they're comfortable to do so because it's made a big difference. I completely agree with Eve, you do have to be disciplined. If you have got an idea of how many exams you want to sit at the next exam diet then take a note of all the books and how long it would take you to study those books then just draw in a schedule of what you can manage and make sure that you can do that.

00:17:18 David Lee, Host

You've touched a little bit on this already, but what would you say you enjoyed most about the pre-PEAT training contract? Then when you finished it, what happened next and just tell us a little bit about what you're doing now?

00:17:34 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

The on-the-job learning worked quite well for me to be able to sort of put the theory into practice straight away and makes it all makes sense a lot quicker, going up to court and seeing how these laws work in practice. I found the flexibility good in that it isn’t the university telling you what days and times you must be in a classroom you can decide when you’re available to study and it is manageable as long as you're organised. So, after I finished, I did the remote diploma with Robert Gordon University so that's the PEAT 1 is the name of the diploma. So that was evening classes for nine months, so that was also good because it's quite practical as well. Then after that, I moved firms to Brodies to do my PEAT 2 traineeship and I am now just over a year qualified in the health and safety team.

00:18:42 David Lee, Host

I'm not going to ask you whether or not it's easier being qualified now and being in a legal firm, that would be a rude question, but you know, it's been a long path. Alex again, you're in the middle of it now, you've talked a little bit about what you enjoy, what have you enjoyed most so far and what do you see as pros and cons of pre-PEAT? We're hearing that it's not easy, a lot of people see it as a difficult route. From your point of view, what are the pros and cons of doing it from your experience?

00:19:20 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

My pros is if you're at a stage in your life where you’ve got bills mortgage and things like that to pay, it still allows you to work full time. The cons, counteracting with that, is that you then need to be very disciplined with your time. Another con is that you've got no one to bounce back on, there’s no tutors there to help you with any questions that you’ve got. Brodies do have all the facilities there, you've got the library, you've got partners who are qualified in nearly every aspect. So, if there's anything that you're not sure of, you know there is someone there to ask so that you’re never left a loose end. There is definitely a mixture of pros and cons.

00:20:18 David Lee, Host

Have you found that people in the firm are quite supportive when you are following this route? Or that there is a lot of help there, but you just have to go and ask?

00:20:30 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

Yes, 100%. They are always more than happy to help, but you just need to something to pluck up the courage and ask for.

00:20:39 David Lee, Host

What about you, Eve? What would you say, from your perspective, the pros and cons of pre-PEAT are? Again, on that point that Alex just made, have you found people are quite open in giving you their experience and talking to you about it?

00:20:53 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

Yes, definitely. People were really helpful and especially if you're doing an exam where you don't have experience and to be able to ask somebody in a different team if they can assist makes such a difference to again get that practical knowledge as well. The pros, financially, your £55 in exams compared to however many thousands of pounds a year for university and you can still work full time. Financially, it’s a much better option for people, I think. Lots of people who do it aren't financially able to go to university and might be older or have financial commitments or have kids. So, I feel like it levels the playing field for a lot of people and it's really good for diversity in the profession so that people can qualify who otherwise wouldn't have because I don't think I would have if this route wasn’t available.

00:21:51 David Lee, Host

Having said all that, would you recommend if someone who is in those life circumstances that suit this, they would go for it? Would you recommend them to?

00:22:02 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

Absolutely. I tell everybody as loudly as I can, as often as I can, how great the route is, and it's not for everybody, but for those that it is for it is life changing.

00:22:17 David Lee, Host

Alex, the same for you?

00:22:19 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

Completely agree, would highly recommend it.

00:22:22 David Lee, Host

For both of you, some people might look at Brodies as this huge law firm and the general thought might be that you've got to go to university, you've got to be a bit of a highflyer. Do you think that you two have really proved by going in from a very different route, you've come in through a very different door that there is more diversity, there is more openness in the profession and that's sending out a positive message?

00:22:51 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

Yes, I really do. We held an event recently to give out more information that isn’t currently available about the pre-PEAT route and we had people come in, including HR coming from lots of firms across Scotland, from smaller firms to the biggest firms. Brodies has just finalised its pre-PEAT policy. So, it is on the up that firms are looking to take more people on, and I think it's a win-win. You get to keep your best staff who are not going to go off either to another firm or reduce their hours to go to university and you get to train them and keep them and it's great.

00:23:37 David Lee, Host

Alex, let's look forward, what about your legal career? Obviously, you're training contract finishes next year, once you've got beyond that what are you looking forward to most? How do you see your legal career shaping up?

00:23:55 Alexandra McDonald, Senior Paralegal

Well, although the exams and my training contract will end next year. I will then be doing a year’s diploma, and then my two-year traineeship. So, I think people just need to bear that in mind that it's not just the exams, you do still have to do your diploma and your traineeship. After that, the sky is the limit, you can go where you want to go. Because I am so experienced in real estate, particularly residential, I am more leaning towards coming back into that and seeing where I can go from there, but at the same time, I am an open book and I would like to try different sectors and departments during my traineeship to see what I like.

00:24:46 David Lee, Host

What about you Eve? What is your ambition as you look ahead to a long legal career?

00:24:52 Eve Gilchrist, Solicitor

It's really the same as Alex's, who knows, I think that's the thing about this is once you qualify this way, you're as qualified as anyone else and it doesn’t have any impact on where you can go after this. I know a KC who qualified from this route, so it doesn't hold you back in any way. So, lots of opportunities, I'm really enjoying being in the health and safety and criminal sphere, so who knows.

00:25:21 David Lee, Host

That's an interesting point you made there that a KC, you know, came into the law through the pre-PEAT training contract so as you say, the sky is very much the limit.

Thank you very much indeed to Eve Gilchrist and to Alex McDonald for sharing their stories with us today about alternative routes to becoming a lawyer part of the ‘Life at Brodies’ series. Please listen out for other episodes in the series. Wherever you are in your career, you can find out more about making that next step at brodies by visiting brodies.com/careers.

You've been listening today to Podcasts by Brodies, where some of the country's leading lawyers and special guests share their Enlightened Thinking about issues and developments affecting the legal sector. If you'd like to hear more, please subscribe to Podcasts by Brodies on all your favourite podcast platforms.