A week in the life of a Property Litigation Trainee offers an insightful glimpse into the diverse tasks and responsibilities involved in a training contract. From drafting legal documents and attending court hearings to preparing bundles for trial and engaging with clients, this blog written by Jill London shares a trainee's first-hand experiences of balancing professional duties and extracurricular activities while working in a busy Property Litigation team.
I am in my first seat of my training contract and am sitting in the Property Litigation Team in Yeovil. In this seat, I have had the opportunity to deal with a range of commercial and residential property disputes, including Landlord & Tenant matters, boundary disputes, and advising on rights of way and covenants.
MONDAY
I started off the week by checking the emails that had come in over the weekend and reviewing my week ahead, I knew that we had a trial day on Friday so there would be lots of preparation required for this.
While juggling my daily tasks, e.g., drafting, researching, and taking phone calls, I was tasked with preparing a bundle of correspondence between Porter Dodson and the other side’s solicitors. This involved me going through the entire file history on our internal file site, Peppermint, and collating all of the correspondence between the two law firms chronologically in Adobe. Once my supervisor had reviewed the bundle, it was sent to Counsel who would be representing our client in Court on Friday.
Later that day, I attended a Teams Conference with Counsel and the client in preparation for the hearing on Friday. During the Conference, I was tasked with taking notes that I later used to draft an Attendance Note of the call.
Finally, I drove to Taunton Vale Sports Club to play in the mixed netball game against A C Mole. Porter Dodson offers a range of sports for everyone to get involved in, and I have tried to make the most of these extracurricular opportunities outside of work.
TUESDAY
On Tuesday, we received the hard copy bundle for Friday’s hearing from the Claimant’s legal representative, therefore I was asked to prepare the hard copy bundle for the client. In between this, I drafted a letter and a notice of acting, which I then filed at Court, and was given a research task on break notices by the Associate in our team.
That afternoon, I attended 2 possession hearings with my colleague at Yeovil Court. It was interesting to see how possession hearings are conducted, and the importance of speaking with the other side prior to the hearing, where possible, as this may result in an agreement being reached amicably rather than enforced by the Court. During the hearing, I took notes which I used later to draft a summary of events and the details of the Order for our internal file.
I then finalised the hard copy bundle for the client as I was delivering this on Wednesday morning.
WEDNESDAY
I was asked to deliver the hard copy bundle to the client on my way into work this morning. As the client is Taunton based, my supervisor and I decided it would be easier for us to work from the Taunton office today. In this seat, I have had the opportunity to work in three of the seven offices so far which has allowed me to get to know my colleagues better. It has also given me the chance to chat with lawyers in other teams which will help when I moved seats.
Once I was in the office, I was asked to draft the initial client engagement letter for a new client and prepare a notice of acting to file at Court once we received instruction. I also prepared a Supplemental Bundle of our additional documents for the upcoming hearing on Friday and submitted this to the Court and the Claimant’s legal representatives.
Part of my Training Contract with Porter Dodson involves filling out a weekly training record, recording the work I have done that week and what I learnt while doing it. My supervisor and I have a weekly meeting on Thursday to discuss my training record, so I spent some time just after lunch finalising this and sending it to her.
Later this afternoon, I had a meeting with the other trainees regarding a presentation we had been asked to do for the firm. All of the trainees decided to go for dinner following the meeting. Porter Dodson has a buddy system where all new trainees will have a ‘buddy’ (second year trainee) who works in the same office as them, who they can speak to about any queries or issues however, meeting for dinner as a big group is a fun way to chat to the other trainees who may work in other offices.
THURSDAY
On Thursday, we were pulling together the final items for the hearing on Friday. We received the skeleton argument from Counsel, alongside a list of authorities, and I was asked to prepare the Authorities Bundle based on this list. I was also asked to prepare hard copies of the Supplemental Bundle and Authorities Bundle to be taken to Court in case they were needed.
I have also joined the Yeovil and Sherborne Office Charity Committee and we had a meeting this morning to discuss the raffle that we were organising as a fundraiser for our firm’s charities.
In the afternoon, once everything was prepared for the Court hearing, I was back to working through my to do list which included reading a case file and drafting a chronology to assist the team with understanding what steps were taken by the client prior to instructing us, and what work was outstanding.
I also have my weekly catch up with my supervisor every Thursday afternoon to discuss my work from the week and upcoming tasks that she would like me to do. This gives me a chance to discuss any issues I may have and I like to use this opportunity to help plan the next week in terms of my commitments outside of work/which offices we will be working in/etc. I find it calming to have a clear plan of the upcoming week.
Finally, this Thursday was our firm wide Quiz. Porter Dodson hosts a quiz twice a year, as well as other social events, as a way to include everyone in the firm. The event was held at the Sherborne Golf Club and we were provided with dinner half way through the quiz.
FRIDAY
Finally, the day of the hearing. After spending a large amount of time this week preparing for the hearing, I was a mixture of nervous and excited. I travelled to Bath this morning on the train with a hard copy of the bundles, which had to be thoroughly checked by security before I could enter the Court.
Once I was signed in, I waited for the client to arrive and then we were shown to a private room where we could discuss how the day was going to go. Counsel was also able to answer any last-minute questions the client had.
Throughout the day, my job was to take detailed notes of the hearing which I would use later to type a summary of the day for my supervisor, who was unable to attend herself. I sat at the bench just behind Counsel and had the opportunity to see how a trial proceeds. In this case, the judge did not feel that he needed extra time to look over the documents and was able to provide judgment on the day.
Following judgment, I went back into the private room with Counsel and the client to call my supervisor who was then able to explain the next steps to the client and assure her that we would reach out the following week with any information. I then caught the train home to finish a busy week in this seat.
GET IN TOUCH
If this sounds like something you could see yourself doing, our trainee solicitor application window is currently open until 6th January 2025. For more information please visit our trainees page or click the apply now button below.