Weekly Newsletter #3

Here’s what to expect this week…

Let’s get into it 👇

📍 Work experience and insight days

💼 Trainee Roles

📍 Paralegal/Entry Level Roles

Our response:

A lot of students think commercial awareness means memorising business headlines before an interview or learning complicated financial terms. In reality, employers are usually looking for something much simpler: can you understand what challenges a business or client is facing, and think about how a lawyer would help to solve them?

The key is building the habit of connecting legal issues to business decisions. Here are a few ways you could do that each week:

🌟 Read the business news (I’d suggest BBC Business as a good place to start) with a legal mindset. Instead of just asking “What happened?”, ask:

Examples of relevant stories could be mergers and acquisitions, employment law updates, competition investigations or data breaches.

🌟 Look at what the law firms you’re interested in are publishing. Many firms post short articles about recent transactions, regulatory updates and market trends. Some even host webinars or podcasts you can listen to.

🌟 Try doing simple SWOT analyses on companies or firms you are applying to. Think about their strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. This is a great way to practise thinking commercially and understanding the pressures businesses face.

Even if you dedicate 30 minutes a week, soon enough you’ll start thinking less like a student memorising headlines and more like someone who understands how law and business connect (remembering, of course, that law firms themselves are businesses).

I speak to so many aspiring lawyers who haven’t landed their first legal role yet. That’s one of the reasons I’m so excited to feature Grace in this week’s newsletter. She’s an Australian qualified Litigation and Disputes Associate and speaks so thoughtfully about how the experiences she had before qualifying, both inside and outside the legal world, helped shape the lawyer she is today.

During this time, I qualified as a lawyer back in Australia. Like many, my next step was impacted by COVID-19, which changed my original plan to qualify as an NQ here in the UK.

When the pandemic shifted the landscape, I was grateful to have had the opportunity to broaden my experience and build on my interest in insurance. I moved into the insurance market, taking on claims handling and underwriting roles. This period was incredibly valuable, giving me hands-on insight into the industry and allowing me to develop a deeper understanding of the insurance process with a commercial perspective.

After three years in the market, working with a range of organisations, I returned to the legal side as an NQ at an insurance law firm, which included a really valuable secondment. A couple of years later, I joined Norton Rose Fulbright in January 2026.

Q: Before joining NRF, you had experience outside of the legal world. Looking back, what skills or perspectives from those roles have helped you most in your career as a lawyer?

All of my experiences to date have given me a deeper and nuanced perspective on the insurance process and introduced me to fantastic people, many of whom I still work with today. This experience made my transition back into law feel more grounded and purposeful, and it gave me great understanding of the commercial realities our clients face.

Stepping outside the legal world, even briefly, can open up new opportunities and strengthen your overall skillset. It also highlighted the diverse range of roles within insurance and the importance of understanding the wider ecosystem in which legal advice operates.

Q: You work in insurance/disputes now. What do you enjoy most about that area of law and what do you find challenging?

One of the most enjoyable aspects of my role is helping people understand just how central insurance is to major disputes. While it often works behind the scenes, insurance underpins key decisions and outcomes in ways that aren’t always immediately visible.

The insurance ecosystem brings together lawyers, brokers, underwriters, and clients, so I’m constantly engaging with different stakeholders, all representing different but often aligned interests in a collaborative environment.

In terms of challenges, the work is varied and constantly evolving. Each matter brings its own complexities, requiring a mix of legal analysis, commercial thinking, and strategy. No two cases are the same, which means there’s always something new to learn - and that’s part of what makes it so engaging.

Q: And finally, if you could give one piece of advice to aspiring lawyers, what would it be?

Trust the process and stay open to opportunities, even if they don’t look like part of the “plan.” The relationships and experience I gained from taking a non-traditional route gave me a different perspective and made my move back into the legal world much easier. 

A robust network, with peers, mentors and those you aspire to be, can help nurture your career in ways you may not see at the time. Invest in attending mentoring programs and seek guidance from colleagues, peers and senior management. The time, kindness, generosity and investment from various peers, clients, colleagues and senior management has provided immense comfort and support throughout my journey so far - the value of my network is immeasurable.

Most importantly, enjoy the journey!

Thank you so much, Grace. You can find out more about opportunities at Norton Rose Fulbright, in their London and Newcastle offices, on their website.

They also run RISE, a work experience programme aimed at Year 12 students, for which applications will open in August. We’ll let you know when applications open!

This week’s career tip comes from Julie Campana-Davies, a dual-qualified Commercial and Technology Lawyer at Pinsent Masons.

Julie has had her own “squiggly” career journey. Early in her career, she worked in-house at BT and Marriott International before moving into private practice in 2023. She often speaks about how her early in-house experiences shape the way she works today, particularly when it comes to translating complex legal concepts into clear, practical advice for clients.

The career advice she shared with me, originally passed down from her own mentor, is to occasionally pause and reflect on what you have achieved over the past six months or year. So many of us move straight on to the next application, deadline or goal without properly recognising how far we have already come.

Julie reminds us that taking time to acknowledge your progress is an important habit to build. Reflection can bring perspective, confidence and a sense of calm, while also giving you the energy to keep moving forward.

I’d also add that writing down key achievements, skills you’ve built and matters you’ve worked on every six months or so is a good idea. It’ll be helpful to refer back to when you’re next updating your CV.

That’s all for now. See you next week!

^{The careers advice shared in this newsletter is intended as general guidance and should not be treated as formal legal or recruitment advice. I do my best to keep all opportunities and deadlines accurate and up-to-date at the time of writing, but always double-check the employer’s website before applying.}