Well, this is my first attempt at a “blog� and as my boss, Andy Cross has coined it “Joe Blogs" ( a verb and a noun he says ) but it seems to have a familiar ring to it!
I am honoured to have been asked and appear to be in the company of several esteemed individuals, so thank you very much and please allow me to introduce myself, I am Joseph Walsh and I am fairly new to the legal world as I am only two months into my training contract! So apologies if my blog appears a little less sophisticated than everybody else’s!
I don’t know if it is because it is all very new and exciting from what I have been doing previously but I am really enjoying myself! Don’t get me wrong it is a massive difference from what I was doing and a huge shock to the system. Things I always took for granted in my old job are not there now and I miss being able to manage my own day to do the mundane personal admin I took for granted like paying the bills or arranging for the plumber which I could do so easily when I worked from home and try now to squeeze everything into my lunch hour! However, the trouble with working from home is you never switch your lap top off and could stay on it forever!
I hate getting the train and miss my TT and in three months I can honestly say I haven’t sat down once on it yet, (why do they not lay on another coach when everybody is crammed in like sardines?) I took a big pay cut to do what I am doing and made quite a few lifestyle changes, which is never good when you have just bought a new house and planning a wedding next year but I hope long term it will all be worth it and for the first time in my life I am thinking of the bigger picture.
But do you know what? I am loving it! Working in an office environment every day and building up new friendships, going out with my new “team�, job wise, it’s great too, every day is different, different clients, real issues to solve and challenging new problems. I enjoy learning and its great finally putting into practice all those “case studies� at Chester! Once I can conquer my fear of the train every day I will be fine!!
I am slightly older than the normal trainee intake who are usually around 25, I celebrate my 31st birthday today so I have had a few years sampling other “industries�. Initially, when most people finish Uni they usually go travelling the world, I decided that when I finished my LPC at Chester I wanted to become a Radio Presenter to take some time away from a “proper job�, I ended up doing it for 2 years and loved every minute of it and had some amazing times and interviewed some great people but I knew it was never going to be my career.
So I moved on and I was then fortunate enough to pass one of those awful assessment centres for a company called Diageo who are now becoming more well known even though their brands are huge. They are the worlds biggest drinks company and own brands such as Smirnoff, Johnnie Walker, Baileys and Guinness to name but a few. I ended up staying 5 years and loved it. I worked my way up through the business to a senior contracts manager and it was my role to negotiate head office contracts with global hotel companies like Hilton, Intercontinental and Marriott International. The perks were great, nice company car, fab offices in London, lots of travel and lots of drink! I went to some great places that I could never do on my own in a million years like the pit lane at the British Grand Prix and staying with the British Lions in New Zealand.
However, it was always my intention to one day to return home, as London is great but my home city of Liverpool is better! It was also important to me to embark on a career in what I had studied so hard for. I was then very determined to work for the one firm that I had heard so many positive things about through friends and that was Brabners Chaffe Street. I loved the fact Brabners gave me a chance and unlike other firms valued my experience and recognised how far I had gone for a global blue chip company. They allowed me to reflect this at an interview unlike other firms. I can honestly say that everybody has been so welcoming and friendly and it is a great place to work. My first seat is Employment and everybody is lovely, it’s strange but I feel like I have known everybody for ages and feel really at home. It was the seat I was looking forward to most and I haven’t been disappointed. I wouldn’t change a thing about my career path as I can compare all the positives and minuses with them all and feel I have made the right choice now. Hopefully, now I am finally ready to embark on a career in the law and given my background feel I have a diverse experience to be a real asset to Brabners Chaffe Street.