Jonathan Campbell

FIRM Capital Defence Lawyers
CURRENT SEAT Purely criminal law
UNIVERSITY Glasgow, law (2007)

I’ve always been interested in criminal trials, and enjoyed criminal law at university. I therefore wanted a traineeship that was predominantly court based: since I started, I’ve been in court every day. My responsibilities include instructing solicitor advocates and counsel, precognition (the preliminary examination of witnesses) and liaising with the police and with lawyers and trainees at the Crown Office and Procurator Fiscal Service.

I’ve learned that I need to be flexible as it can be difficult to predict how each case will develop. There are no set working hours and the workload in a given week largely depends on the number of cases due to call. This is not the sort of job that you can leave at the office and I find myself thinking about cases long after I’ve finished for the day. However, I enjoy the pressure and the satisfaction derived from successfully completing a case.