My trainee experience — solicitor Alanah Mills

Alanah Mills was surprised when she started her traineeship with Ledingham Chalmers, but in a good way.

The employment law solicitor joined our firm in 2017 and worked in the employment, litigation and residential property teams before qualifying last year.

And that ‘seat’ traineeship approach was useful when it came to determining the direction she wanted her career to take. At university, she was pretty sure she wanted to specialise in employment law, but says it was useful to experience other disciplines.

With applications now open for our summer 2020 internship/2021 traineeship, we caught up with Alanah to get the low-down on her time as a trainee with our firm.

Did anything surprise you about a traineeship with us?

Yes, I had a lot of exposure to clients and I was actually quite surprised by that. Before I started, I thought I’d be making coffee. In fact, I asked my mum to teach me how because I don’t drink it myself and I wanted to be prepared!

But the exposure was great, I had quite a lot of leash. It was never long enough that I would trip myself up, and colleagues were always there to help — they’re very supportive — so it was a good balance. And I learnt so much because of that.

One of my proudest trainee moments was assisting with a four-day discrimination hearing in Inverness. Not only was I given a hands-on role preparing the case beforehand, but I was also given the chance to attend the hearing to assist counsel.

I negotiated the figure between our client and the solicitor on the other side. Within a short period of time, I managed to substantially increase the offer made to our client, which led to a fantastic end result.

Why did you choose Ledingham Chalmers?

The human touch. One thing that sticks in my mind is my experience at the Robert Gordon University law fair. I went along prepared. I knew what questions law firms would likely ask, and was ready with the answers.

And things went according to that script with a number of the stands I visited, but when I visited Ledingham Chalmers, the first question I was asked was nothing to do with the law. In fact, I think it was whether I’d seen Bake Off the night before!

It was refreshing, and a normal conversation that immediately put me at ease before we got down to speaking about my career aspirations and what I could bring to the firm. It really reflected our friendly culture.