Summer Placement Blog by Beverley Nzeadi

My summer placement is nearly over. I can honestly say it's been a pleasure. My placement was spread across two departments, namely Private Wealth and Litigation. The work was quite varied, challenging and at some points a bit unpredictable!

My first week in Private Wealth was excellent. From the outset, I was made to feel like the work I would conduct was important. I was given a task for a real matter to research how much a widow would receive from the estate of her late husband after the deduction of inheritance tax. The task involved intense math calculations which was quite an interesting discovery considering many law practitioners are not self-professed mathematicians. Following this I was given an in depth research task from a Partner in relation to a contentious trust issue. This was a big task and I was enlisted to work beside a trainee and create a memo of advice. Later on in the week the Partner came to thank me for the memo and asked me to explain my points of law! This was very satisfying as well as a little nerve racking as I had to defend my position! It made for very good experience though and satisfied one of my personal objectives I had set at the beginning of the placement. My buddy was a trainee who was very helpful and always accessible if I needed to ask questions. All in all, the tasks given usually involved wills, trusts, inheritance tax, and probate. Towards the end of the week I felt like part of the team as I was invited to working lunch seminars and team updates.

It was in my second week that things turned strangely interesting. The first day of my second week I attended court where I witnessed a Judge throw out our witness for not wearing a tie! Welcome to litigation. Following this on the Thursday of that week, I attended another hearing over a dispute surrounding whether or not the lack of a signature invalidates a statutory form of notice. Surprisingly we won on a technical point of law and proved our point without a signature. The associate I had attended court with had to leave early. Therefore it was my responsibility to take a thorough note of the judgment for the file. I had lunch with Counsel who has been in practice for over 20 years and I enjoyed several interesting stories from his experiences. My supervisor in litigation has been really helpful too, taking time out to explain complex areas of law.

Overall it has been a positive experience. As I write this it is dress down Friday and the firm is buzzing with talk of the annual Rowing Regatta. Nice way to send off the two weeks I think.