A day in the life…
I have been put to the task of writing a day in the life of myself, Koren, a Paralegal and Director of Professional Law Services Ltd.
I thought it would be simple to write about my day but upon sitting down and starting I have realised it is not quite that easy! Each day is so different, so, I thought, why not write about a week instead!
With the Covid situation admittedly I have been working from home for the most part and only attend the office one day or sometimes two days a week.
I have just returned from a week of annual leave, having worked mainly from home the last year or so, it has been difficult to not just turn on the laptop, but I have succeeded and managed to restrain myself. I am lucky in the fact that I do not see my work as a chore, I enjoy my job, the learning and the ever-gaining knowledge from working within the profession.
Anyhow, when I returned from leave, I spent the first hour checking through my emails (all 50 of them!) and responding where necessary.
At Pro-law each member of staff has a continuing workload form which is filled out daily, from my emails I was able to update this form and then start working on case load – new and current.
I also checked the social media accounts to ensure they were up to date and responded to any private messages as needed.
In way of case load, I am currently working on drafting Codicils, Wills and Probate applications, Lasting Powers of Attorney, alongside other tasks in the background which are either awaiting information from clients or approval of drafts from my senior Ian Mason.
We use a financial software called XERO so I was also able to reconcile bank entries to payments received or spent, as you can imagine having a week off there was quite a few to catch up on!
In addition, I spent some of this week reading into a few recent Mental Health cases, this is an area I am particularly passionate about.
We had our weekly team catch up meeting at the beginning of the week, this meeting is held via zoom at the moment but used to be carried out pre-covid in the office in person. As a team we do like to chat and sometimes do get carried away so actually using the video platform has helped us keep to a stricter time scale in all honesty!
We are currently in the process of updating our firm’s website, so we discussed some quotes we have received before deciding on the best course of action. At Pro-law we very much work as a team rather than one person making the business decisions, obviously as managing director Ian does have the final say but he ensures he takes all opinions on board before coming to such a decision. As we are a small team this does work very well!
Being on annual leave last week I had quite a few client matters to catch up on which needed discussing with Ian so we also talked through these, answered any queries I had in order for me to proceed with the rest of the matter that day. By having a team meeting like this it does ensure that other members of the team are up to date with how matters are progressing so when a period of illness or annual leave is to arise they can easily pick up with a quick briefing on what needs doing in the absence of myself or Ian.
I have been working on a Court of Protection (COP) application, which, as you can imagine is quite complex. There are many forms which need filling out as well as research on my behalf to ensure the forms are being filled out correctly according to the Practice Directions the COP have in place. Sometimes I do find these types of forms challenging, often requiring additional research on the areas that I am not overly familiar with, but that is one of the reasons I love this job – there is always room to grow.
I am the phone holder, so I have also been answering any calls throughout the day and responding or taking messages to pass through to the relevant member of our team. Throughout the week I have made a few phone calls to clients as well as other companies we are currently dealing with to discuss things needed to progress forward with the relevant matters. Talking on the phone professionally is such a big part of this job, and every phone call helps to refine clear communication skills.
To relieve my workload, I am trying to delegate more tasks to our newest team member which is also so beneficial for her own training and development. I like to make sure she is happy and confident with everything I propose to give her, as it’s so important to us here at pro-law to support one-another.
As mentioned previously our website is currently under review, later in the week we finally decided on the web developer and then had a meeting to discuss how we envisage our new site. Our practice assistant, Grace, kindly took the content from the current website to edit, once Grace completed this I then reviewed it, ready to discuss with the web developer further.
Lastly, as a firm we are passionate about providing education and training to young people wishing to pursue a career in the law (I was the first guinea pig!).
As you can see my work does not only include being a Paralegal but also assisting with other firm projects/community projects we have going on in the background to help the business thrive.
