Apprenticeships have had a bad rap over the last few decades. Historically deemed as the unpopular and less academic option than a university degree, the early 00’s saw apprenticeship registration numbers across the UK take a nose dive.
But the tides are turning as young people are rejecting the notion that a university education is nessesary for career progression and many are now looking for ways to enter their chosen profession without the crippling debt of tuition fees, years of extended higher-education and lack of first-hand work experience.
For a young person seeking a route into the industry, an apprenticeship is a great opportunity to enter a company and start a career in conveyancing. It also offers young people from a wider range of backgrounds the chance to enter the law profession, something which has historically been more of a challenge without the adequate funding.
Conveyancing by the nature of the job requires a skill-set that can only really be honed by working with a team, within the office environment. The process itself isn’t always the challenge – it’s the soft skills that demand the most experience. Managing client expectations, developing excellent communication skills and learning how to keep a case file moving are parts of the job that need time and practice.
To celebrate National Apprentice Week, we asked one of our trainees, Maisie Baker, to tell us why she chose a career in conveyancing.
- Hi Maisie. Why did you choose to do an apprenticeship in conveyancing?
I chose to do my apprenticeship with Aconveyancing as I wanted a new challenge. I always wanted to study law, but I had never heard of conveyancing before. When I looked into it in more detail, I realised I could apply and gain the qualifications I needed whilst learning and earning on the job, so I believed it was the best way of getting into this.
– What are the benefits of an apprenticeship?
One benefit of an apprenticeship is that I am training every single day. No day is the same, and quite a lot of the time we are learning on the spot and constantly thinking of new ways to do things. It’s a challenge, but when we work as part of a team it’s also highly rewarding. Because I am learning alongside a small team of trainees, we all help each other, we’re all going through this processes together and slowly we are learning how to do things on our own.
– What is the best thing about your training so far?
I believe there are two things that have been the best during my training:
The first is seeing a file complete and having done all the work on it. Getting the appreciation from clients is a really really nice feeling. The sense of achievement makes the training and hard work worthwhile and it’s great to see that we are developing as we progress through the training programme.
The second one is definitely the people I work with. I have made some really good friends across the whole business and it wouldn’t be the same experience without them.
– What advice would you give to someone who was considering an apprenticeship?
I would advise not to be scared to ask questions because everyone has been in the same position at one point in time. I would also advise to give it time, it isn’t just all steam ahead to start with, be patient with the process and focus on the details.
