With seat moves just around the corner, we thought we would share 4 of our top tips on moving seat.
When thinking about your next seat move, a good starting point is to speak to the current/most recent trainee in the team that you’re interested in. You can often gain a good understanding about the types of work that a team undertakes, and what it’s like being a trainee within that team, from having those conversations. From there, you can form a better view about whether you think that area of law may be right for you.
Another great person to speak to when you want to find out more information about a particular team is the current trainee supervisor in that team. From this conversation, you can gain further information about the team, and whether they have a current business need for a trainee. It also gives you an opportunity to meet with your potential new supervisor and demonstrate your interest to join the team.
When you’re moving seats, make sure you appreciate that learning about an area of law during your studies, and working in that area in practice are often completely different. You should not completely disregard an area of law because you did not enjoy it during your studies. It’s important to keep an open mind and not to rule anything out as you may end up loving an area that you really didn’t think you would!
Even if you come to the conclusion after a few months within your new seat that it’s not right for you, you can still gain and develop a number of transferable skills from that seat, and it will help you build your legal knowledge base in practice. Moving between different departments also provides you with a chance to build your internal network and develop connections across the business; you never know what opportunities may arise during your time in your seat.
Once your next seat has been confirmed contact your new supervisor and ask if there is anything that you can do to prepare for moving to the department. Moving to a new department is like starting a new job. Depending on your previous seat(s) or experience, you might be going into a whole new area of law. Your department will not expect you to have a broad legal knowledge base for their area of law, but take the time, both in the run up to moving seats and in your first couple of weeks in the department, to use your downtime during the working day to read around the practice area. Practical Law and any specialist legal update feeds are a great place to start.
When moving to your new department you will want to make sure that you are not getting muddled between the work in your new seat to that of your previous seat. A top tip to help with this is to take some time at the end of your seat to wrap up your work. Prepare detailed handover notes to pass on to ensure the team are aware of matters you will need picking up. This will help the team and save them from having to ask questions after you have moved, but it will also help you ensure all your work is passed on providing you with a clean slate to work from in your next seat.
When you move into your next seat, take a little bit of time to set up an organisation system which works for you. That might be folders for each fee earner in your team, or a new department specific precedent folder. Also, remember to set up your new training record log for this seat and aim to keep on top of it each week.
But most importantly, enjoy the new challenge your new seat will bring!
Find out more about our trainee opportunities. You can read more from our trainees here.
We produce a range of insights and publications to help keep our clients up-to-date with legal and sector developments.
Sign up
