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Hosted by Osborne Clarke trainees and solicitor apprentices, Law Beyond Limits shares candid conversations with OC lawyers about their routes into the legal profession. Guests reflect on career highlights and hiccups, the realities of progression, and lessons learned. At its heart is social mobility: what it means, why it matters, and how we can support people from diverse backgrounds by removing barriers.
My name is Millie Brown. I'm one of the trainee solicitors at Osborne Clarke. As part of the OC Social Mobility Network, myself and some apprentices across the firm are hosting a series of interviews to shine a spotlight onto people's journeys into law and any potential diversity that they've overcome. Watch out for our series on Instagram and LinkedIn. So we're joined here today with Peter Day, Head of London office, to talk about his journey into law.
Speaker 1:Thank you for joining us, Peter.
Speaker 2:A pleasure, Millie, pleasure.
Speaker 1:So I think it makes sense to start out thirty years ago or over thirty years ago when you joined the profession.
Speaker 2:Slightly over.
Speaker 1:Slightly over. What was it like entering the legal profession back then?
Speaker 2:Strange for me. So there were no lawyers in the family or family friends who were lawyers or anything like that. So it was quite a new sort of thing for family. No one had gone down that route before. I wasn't overly organised with it.
Speaker 2:So for instance, I didn't know you had to apply for what were then articles, now training contract, in your second year. So I didn't, which meant I didn't apply to my third year, which meant I had an enforced year off, which kind of wasn't a gap year because gap years weren't fashionable. So they weren't a thing. And I had to tell my parents that I just thought I needed a year to get my head around being a lawyer. I didn't tell them that I'd just not apply because I didn't realise you had to.
Speaker 2:So things like that made it interesting.
Speaker 1:What inspired you to pursue a legal career then? So if you had no one in your family, how did you kind of figure it out?
Speaker 2:I was kind of one of those children that argued quite a lot. So, know, so sort of within the family it was always like, you're going to end up being a lawyer because you just argue a lot. Somehow that sits in you. Yeah. I then didn't think I'd get the grades to do law at uni and I certainly didn't.
Speaker 2:I went for like a PPP equivalent type course. Okay. I thought I'd get in easily, so didn't overly work for my A levels, really messed them up, for family reasons wasn't allowed to retake. So I had a sort of week to decide what to do and I just thought, well, we've always sort of talked about law, so I'll just do it somewhere where I wouldn't have applied in the first place. But I'll just do law because it's a good degree and being a lawyer is sort of what I've always thought I'd end up doing.
Speaker 2:So yes, I ended up going to Northstaff Poly now, University of Stafford or Stafford University or something like that. And that's how I sort of stumbled into it. And I think I found once you start, you know, I lucky, good, lucky, and so moved through. And once you start moving through, you're sort of on the treadmill.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so it's that first entrance.
Speaker 2:Yes, exactly. Once you're in, you can see the progression is quite a nice place to be.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that's probably not too dissimilar to the kind of climate now, but I guess, again, that first getting into it is the difficulty and people knowing it exists and that the opportunities are around.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And do you feel like you fit the mould of a city lawyer at the time or how did you, kind of when did it feel natural for you?
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's, you know, again, another thing was applying for articles or a training contract and there wasn't the sort of, you know, I mean, there weren't computers. So, you I had to send all my applications by courier pigeon. But no, we didn't know any law firms. So there was like a big book, a massive book that had all the law firms in it. And then one of my mum's friends who was a surveyor said, these are the 10 law firms that I deal with most, why don't you apply to those?
Speaker 2:And Clifford Chance was at the top at the time the biggest law firm in the world. Funnily enough, I didn't get. I don't think I even got a rejection letter from them, you know, so appalled by my application. And a small firm in Covent Garden called Wedlake Bell was the tenth. And I applied to all 10 as well as a lot of others from two, three partner firms in Hoburn.
Speaker 2:I wanted to work in London because I'm from London and then luckily got the articles at Westlake Bell, so obviously a year late because I applied a year late. That, you know, that was judgement, think as people are feeling now, you know, it's feast or famine with traineesarticles clerks at the time and at the time it wasn't a bad time to be going for it, so firms were generally at least filling their sort of recruitment quota, if not pushing it a bit, because feeling there weren't quite enough lawyers. So if you hit, and that is luck, and if you hit your applications at that time, you've got a chance of getting a half decent articles or training contract.
Speaker 1:Yeah. At what moment then, so you kind of talked about once you became in the profession, the progression was gradual. At what moment do you think in your career you felt like you actually belonged?
Speaker 2:Not yet. Bit late. There's only four of us in our cohort. I had a very different background to the other four at state school. I kind of lived this weird life where, because my mum and dad, my mum in particular, just made me speak in her words properly, and so I kind of sound like I come from the background where the rest of them came from.
Speaker 2:But I didn't. So I was a bit sort of out of my depth.
Speaker 1:Did that make you feel kind of overlooked or invisible at times?
Speaker 2:Yeah, because
Speaker 1:there's certainly one, are four, as I say, of us
Speaker 2:in the cohort. The other one, the one I was sort of probably best friends with and competing, you know, that horrible thing of when you're doing a training contract, you're best friends with them, but you're also competing.
Speaker 1:Yeah, frenemies.
Speaker 2:Yeah, frenemies, very good, yeah. You know, he was an unbelievably confident sort of classic, you know, privately educated, just really confident. Yeah. And I just couldn't compete, you know. But, you know, we worked our way through it and was fine.
Speaker 2:We're still best friends, so it has sort of worked out in the end. But yeah, it was hard. You go home and there's no one to talk to because you can't say to, you know, my mum and dad didn't know what was going on.
Speaker 1:Relatable. Yeah.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so you just sort of sit there and you try and find, and hopefully it happens here, you know, you try and find a partner who you can talk to openly and who you can explain that sort of stuff to, who understand it. And if you get that, which I did have, then you start to feel part of it because they reassure you that you're fine.
Speaker 1:I guess as location head of Hosborn Clarke London, how do you bring that journey and those feelings you felt as a trainee or young lawyer into your leadership style at Osborne Clarke?
Speaker 2:We're quite a flat structure, in fact, a law firm, very non hierarchical. And I think that kind of says it. I think doing things like this and Ray did it before Comrade and Comrade's done it. Yeah. You know, a lot of partners do this sort of thing.
Speaker 2:Yeah. And even if they don't do it the sort of video way, they'll do it in conversation and when they're talking to, mentoring, supervising, whatever people. And this is definitely not just fear, this is everyone. And if you can try and just be you, then hopefully that, including your vulnerabilities, including what doesn't go well, hopefully that shows to other people, people coming up through, again, not just lawyers, whoever in the firm coming through, that no one's perfect, no one's getting all of this right. We're all to a degree, you know, making it up as we go along.
Speaker 2:You know, hopefully we're clever people, we get a lot of it right. It's a very successful firm, so a lot is going very
Speaker 1:well. Yes.
Speaker 2:A lot of it is going right. Yeah. But no one's like magic,
Speaker 1:you
Speaker 2:know, no one gets everything right and it's making that, just being open about that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I guess that's why representation just in any sector is so important, to be able to see people like yourself or state school or female partners come to the top. Yeah. So you can see, oh, I want to be that. Like, you didn't have to say, like, with your parents as lawyers, guess if it's at the firm or if it's on the Instagram account or if it's wherever people can find it, then they can see themselves in it and that's that's representation, Yeah. Isn't And what changes do you yourself think need to be made to make the legal sector more inclusive and accessible?
Speaker 2:It's really hard because, you know, fundamentally it goes we can do what we you know, and again, I would say this wouldn't I, but I do think Osmond Clark does a lot, I really genuinely do, as do a lot of other law firms. But we're hitting it, we're too late, you know, by the time we're influencing things, people's lives have already got to a position where they are where they are a bit. And so I think the outreach programmes with schools and stuff, I think that's the magic, that's the bit we've got to get right. It's demystifying being a lawyer to 13, 14, 15 year olds and saying this is, you know, I've told you the story but you know in that fourth year off, I worked on a building site for six months, which was brilliant because I was literally the lowest of the low. And, you know, it dawned on me really quickly that Ginge and Mitch were the two guys that sort of ran me and that was quite hard work and they were about my age.
Speaker 2:Certainly one of them, Mitch, I could see in him, he could have done whatever he wanted. I was no more clever, you know, we were the same people, except I turned left at one point and he turned right. And I don't know what he does now but I hope that he's running a really successful construction business and has made way more money than me and he's way more successful. But, you know, it's just that left right turn
Speaker 1:that
Speaker 2:someone, somehow, it happens to you.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so if we can help open path Exactly, up to
Speaker 2:so you can turn left, you can, it's fine.
Speaker 1:Showing people what left is, and we've had this conversation before that I didn't even know what corporate law was until literally probably a week before I started my law degree. Yeah. And telling my lecturers in first year what a vacation scheme was. And it's putting out that left path or the right path for people and telling them it exists for sure. So what advice would you give to someone applying to Osborne Clarke today?
Speaker 1:Or specifically someone maybe who has come from a state school background?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I've sort of got a lot of friends whose kids are coming up at that sort of, you know, either through it or coming up through it. And a lot of people want to do that. And I say, you know, you've ultimately got to be true to yourself. You really have, because if you're not, then, you know, building a career on you pretending to be what you're not. I mean, that's hard work, right?
Speaker 2:Is
Speaker 1:hard It's a
Speaker 2:long time, isn't it? It's a long time and you're at work a lot. So, you know, you really need to, I think you really need to be clear as to who you are and what you want to do. Other than that, it's, you know, be interested, be really interested and not in a kind of obvious way. You know, always say to people, if you're lucky enough to get through to a sort of interview stage, research.
Speaker 2:You know, all are different, law firms are no different to, you know, people on the street who love being flattered. They love to think that someone's interested in them and not in an obvious way, not the headline. Maybe something, you know, if you Google it, page two.
Speaker 1:And
Speaker 2:it's like, oh my gosh, they've really looked at us or really interrogate one of the strategies or the transformation drivers or the sectors or something, a case we've been on, something like that I think is really important. But ultimately, only do that if you're interested in it. Because again, you know, there's no point in making it up, right, just to get the job and then find this is the wrong place.
Speaker 1:Yeah. And I think that advice, you know, I've just asked you your top tip for for being successful at Osborne Clarke, and you've given something that anyone from any background can do, and that is showing interest, be yourself, look at the tools that are available to everyone on those websites, and hopefully, with all the initiatives that Osborne Clarke do, by putting our name and even other law firms' names out there in commercial law itself, you know, anyone can go and find that interest and start looking at page two. Yeah, exactly. Does social mobility mean to you?
Speaker 2:It is literally, it's the turn left. Everyone should be given the opportunity to turn left or right to be told it's not that difficult. And some of it is super difficult, of course some of it is, but it's not so difficult that only four people in the world can do it, right? A lot of people can do it if they're focused early enough and if they know that if they go down the path, they will get an opportunity. And
Speaker 1:that's our bit on
Speaker 2:our end that's our bit, yeah.
Speaker 1:I remember actually when I was on my vacation scheme, I was worried about being part of quite an Oxbridge cohort And I spoke to another partner in employment who said to me, it's not the only reason we employ people. And I think, oh, why am I here then? Like, so what's my bit?
Speaker 2:And so I guess
Speaker 1:it's finding your kind of USP, your unique selling point and sticking to it and not being ashamed of it.
Speaker 2:You know, the law firm, the partnership in particular, is an orchestra, right? It is an orchestra and that means that you need great violinists. As important as anyone is the triangle. Because if you get the triangle wrong during a piece, it ruins the whole concert. So even the person and all they do is bang the triangle twice, Without that, it doesn't work.
Speaker 2:And so it's working out, not trying to be brilliant at everything because we're not, which instrument is your instrument? Be really, really good at it. Can mess around with some of the others as well, you have to be able to that. But what's your instrument?
Speaker 1:So finish this sentence, I made it into law because
Speaker 2:I'm lucky.
Speaker 1:That wasn't the answer we were
Speaker 2:looking for. No, relatively I have been true to myself. I've got massive self doubts, massive imposter syndrome, and, you know, I had my breakdown during Covid and I had CBT and one of the things I learnt in that was to look at what I'm good at, don't look at what you're not so good at. You know, there are very few people in any walk of life, let alone lawyers, who can do everything brilliantly. But we all need to do something really well to be a firm called Osborne Clarke and focus more on that bit that you do well rather than the bit that we probably all tend to look at, which is I'm not as good at this as X.
Speaker 2:You don't say I'm better than most other people at Y because that's not
Speaker 1:how we yeah,
Speaker 2:yeah. So it's constantly reaffirming that.
Speaker 1:Yeah, okay. I think that says it all. So thank you so much for It joining us, was great to hear about your perspective and journey into law once again.
Speaker 2:I hope to see you soon. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you.