Adam Shaw talks about his work experience at WTB

Over the course of the week’s work experience I was able to experience a wide range of legal work from the Family department, the Housing department and the Immigration department of the firm.

From my first day, I was given the opportunity to work along side solicitors with a very busy case load, upon arrival I was told I could attend a court hearing which followed a case from the Family department of the firm. Prior to the hearing, I was given the case file and had to gain a basic understanding of what the case concerned, following this, I met with the client and was able to observe the solicitor handling his case provide advice and a possible outcome to the case in question, here I learnt how crucial it is to try and get across every potential outcome of the trial so that the client is not left confused, I also learnt that trying to alleviate the worries of the client and reduce any stress is highly important.

Whilst sitting in the Housing department of the firm, I was able to shadow the work of Ben Taylor, one of the firm’s partner solicitors. Here I was challenged with researching details relating to a case concerning the disrepair of houses and the legislation setting the standard in which a rented home should be kept. This research allowed me to gain an insight of the work the Housing department undertake on a day to day basis and so when I was able to meet clients and observe Ben, I found I was able to understand the basics of the client’s case; this understanding was further extended with questions from Ben on what I had learnt and what I thought of a case based on what I had read.

I also enjoyed my time in the Immigration department as the cases files I was given access to were very interesting and detailed and I could briefly observe the type of difficult and complex work the department do. Here, I was again able to read case files and conduct research and provide details to a client of their expenses claim by researching the costs and consulting with the costings department.

I would like to thank every member of staff at WTB whom I was able to meet, I felt very accepted and supported form the first day to the last.