Burges Salmon LLP |

Neurodiversity is a hot topic currently and having people who think differently as part of your team is now almost universally acknowledged as not just a benefit, but essential.

This increased acceptance is great news for those of us who come into the wide and varied category of ‘neurodiverse’, but it is still often difficult for many to navigate a world designed for the ‘neurotypical’.

So what is ‘Neurodiversity’?

Neurodiversity refers to a range of naturally occurring variations in the human brain, such as dyspraxia, dyslexia, ADHD, autism and more. These lead to differences in the way individuals process information and perceive the world, which can create challenges but also unique strengths.

Benefits to firms and people

The Law Society believes 'the profession benefits greatly from neurodivergent minds'. Neurodivergent people often have key skills to bring to a team such as problem-solving, communications, strategy creation, trouble-shooting, improving processes, and lateral and creative thinking, all qualities essential and relevant to the legal profession. Additionally having a range of different ways of thinking keeps firms innovating and progressing. Put simply, having a varied workforce that includes neurodiverse people, who are supported to be at their best, is a competitive advantage.

My experience

My experience is of dyspraxia and auditory processing difficulties. Dyspraxia affects the way the brain organises movement and thought, linked to that I have to work harder to process information, particularly sound. Though my ears work perfectly, sometimes I won’t ‘hear’ you and I use lip-reading to support my understanding of conversations. The classic symptom of dyspraxia is clumsiness (called ‘Clumsy Child Syndrome’ right into the 2000s!), but I don’t often find being a trainee requires obstacle courses.

It does impact the way I work, making some things more difficult such as taking attendance notes and following virtual meetings, but it does not mean I am unable to do those things, just that I have to work that bit harder to get the task done to the standard I want. Dyspraxia also helps me, I have developed strong organisational skills from a childhood of forgetting the next lesson and how to get there. I also look at problems differently and have a strong awareness of others. All together I actually think it helps me be a better trainee, just like all our experiences shape us.

Burges Salmon

I am proud to say that Burges Salmon is genuinely invested in helping all its people succeed. I only received my diagnosis the year before I started at the firm so I am still figuring things out myself. Having one to one coaching on developing techniques to help achieve my potential has been extremely helpful. Equally the friendly nature of the firm has meant I do not feel the need to hide this aspect of myself, but rather have an open dialogue about it with my supervisor and others.

The firm also has an internal employee-led group, BEnabled, of which I am a member. It works to support and raise awareness of the issues affecting people with disabilities, long-term health conditions (including mental health conditions) and neurodiversities. Having this group creates not only a safe space to discuss ideas and challenges, but also helps to break the stigma of talking about disabilities and create tangible change.

It is not always easy to talk openly about being neurodiverse, there is a worry people will look at you differently or judge your ability to do your job, but ultimately everyone has something unique to offer and it is gratifying to see that being accepted more and more in the commercial world.

Go Luck Yourself by Andy Nairn

In this insightful handbook, Andy Nairn – a creative genius in the advertising world and named the country’s top strategist for the last three years in a row – explains how we are often blind to the valuable skills and experiences that we have and that through revaluating our existing assets we can make full use of a competitive advantage that we may have previously underappreciated.

In Go Luck Yourself , you’ll learn how an odd accent led the way for an effective rebrand (Loyd Grossman), how a business’ geographic origins was the catalyst for a successful campaign centred around product quality (Yorkshire Tea), and how a heavyweight supermarket harnessed a three year old’s suggestion to go viral (Tesco).

Best book for: improving your communication skills

Made to Stick by Chip and Dan Heath

In an age of both information overload and disinformation, how do you make information stick?

Made to Stick encourages you to be ruthless with your messaging, you’ll be enlightened that as curious, inquisitive animals, unpredictability is key to commandeering our attention, and you’ll be armed with the knowledge that specific details (such as the Millennium Falcon making the Kessel Run in less than twelve parsecs) make a story more credible.

Best book for: what to do when you’re not sure

Improvise! by Max Dickins

For most of us, it would be our worst nightmare.

Imagine that you are standing aimlessly on a stage, with no direction as to what is going to happen next. This would be nothing short of a petrifying, blood-curdling experience.

In Improvise! , Max Dickens reveals the secrets of improvisation and how you can use them. These secrets are valuable because we all improvise all of the time – in every conversation, for instance – and as a Trainee Solicitor you will improvise in pretty much every task that you’re set.

After reading this book, you’ll discover why your first twenty ideas in response to a problem are less original than your next fifteen, you’ll understand how being present to the words people use will help you to decipher what they value and their pain points, and you’ll be reminded that the goal of collaboration is to unlock the collective intelligence of a group.

Best book for: learning something from everything

Range by David Epstein

Your stomach drops, like you’re on Oblivion at Alton Towers. The dreaded email has arrived – you have received a ‘no choice’. This is where your next seat in your training contract will be one that you did not put down as a ‘preference’. Essentially, you’ll be heading to a department that you might not want to.

However, you might be able to apply the drafting and research approaches in that area of law, for example, going forward. This is the breadth and interdisciplinary thinking that David Epstein advocates for.

In Range , you’ll be shocked to learn that the world’s most successful sportspersons (counterintuitively) sample widely when younger, you’ll see how transferring knowledge across domains (namely, from the use of a calculator on a commute) supercharged Nintendo’s success, and you’ll consider how (unbelievably) a calligraphy class influenced Steve Jobs’ beliefs on design aesthetics.

As most training contract seats are in one particular department it is quite unusual to be split between two different departments (although they do sit within the same wider team). This blog post illustrates a day in the life of a trainee split between Corporate Finance and Incentives, some of the work you might expect to be tasked with as a trainee and some suggestions on how to deal with being a split department trainee.

7:30: It is currently the UK’s record heatwave (July 2022) and with the sun shining I get up early to head to the gym prior to starting the working day. I am very lucky to live a 5-minute walk from the office so I am able to wake up at a reasonable time and still exercise before work.

8:45: Walk to the office and log in to my computer, check my emails and respond to anything that might have come in overnight. I will also take this time to make a rough to-do list for the day ahead and try to mentally block out time in the day to complete my tasks. I will usually prioritise what I do in a day by the urgency of the task.

9:30: Join the Incentives team weekly call. This is usually held via Teams as there are members of the team based in both the Bristol and Edinburgh office and on this occasion there was also someone in the London Office. In this meeting everyone in the team is asked to give their ‘MITTs’ (Most Important Three Things) for the week. These are non-negotiable tasks that you have to complete during the week and often include a non-work related task. I decided that I would have one Corporate Finance task, one Incentives task and one non-work task for this week. This is also a great opportunity to let the team know what you expect your capacity to be like for the week as well as your expected split for the week. Each week is different and communicating to both teams is important to ensure that you are completing all of your work but also that you are not being flooded with work from both departments.

10:00 – 13:00: Attend a meeting with a colleague in the Corporate Finance team to discuss work we completed last week and agree on next steps. I am tasked with drafting a number of corporate ancillary documents that we will be sending to the client for their review later in the week. As the discussion was fresh in my head I decided to start drafting the documents straight away as there were a number of complexities that I wanted to make sure I captured in the documents.

13:00-14:00: Attend a lunch and learn session entitled ‘Male Mental Fitness’. This was a really interesting talk and was attended by over 300 people at the firm. The firm often runs full firm lunch and learn sessions on a variety of different topics and they are all very well attended.

14:30: Receive a Team’s call from a colleague in the Incentives team to review a set of plan rules and option agreement that I assisted with drafting last week. This is a long term incentives plan for a subsidiary of a key client so it is great to feel involved and know that you are contributing in a meaningful way to work being sent to clients.

15:30-16:00: Join the wider Corporate team weekly call. This meeting is run by the head of the Corporate team and they run through a number of different topics ranging from any new or completed work, if there is any upcoming team training as well as general team updates.

16:00-18:00: After a quick trip down to Glassworks (the firm’s café) for a take-away coffee I started on a due diligence exercise of reviewing documents for a deal that was expected to close by the end of the month. I had a kick-off call with a Corporate Finance colleague earlier in the week and I had mentally blocked this time out in my day to make a start on the documents. I was able to get through them a bit quicker than I had expected which gave me the chance to start on the next phase of the transaction which was drafting a suite of ancillary documents that would be signed as part of completion of the deal.

18:30: I run through my to-do list to make sure I have ticked off everything I had wanted to complete for the day. I send off a few final emails before logging off and meeting some of the other trainees for a drink in the sun!

It’s a feature of any trainee solicitor or legal apprentice’s training experience – changing seats and moving into a new department intermittently throughout your training. The process can feel somewhat like starting a new job each time - and with Burges Salmon adopting the six seat rotation to its training contract – this is a process that trainees undergo every four months.

The bottom line is that each seat rotation offers new opportunities and experiences which should be embraced. After recently changing seats for the third time – here’s some reflections on the process.

People

As you approach the four month mark in your seat, you may have only just finally learnt everyone’s name in your department, got confident with who does what and established your phone-a-friend contact for when you’ve managed to break the printer again. You will have undoubtedly built some great work relationships and it can feel daunting to start that process all over again.

Yet the benefit of the seat rotation process is that it allows you build those great work relationships right across the firm. With each rotation you will build up a strong work network across different departments, practice areas and sectors – which you can refer to throughout your Burges Salmon career.

You will also get an insight into how different people work and will be able to draw upon the myriad of different approaches to providing legal services to develop your own unique style.

Place

Undoubtedly the biggest challenge of a seat rotation is trying to locate your new desk on day one. Grab yourself a floor plan and a compass and away you go.

Once again, I can only advise embracing the change – there’s no better way to get to know One Glass Wharf, all the different departments within it and the diverse range of characters that occupy them than moving desks every four months. I learnt this only too well when I recently started in the Pensions department, which is located within our new open-plan agile working space. I am now a dedicated convert to the open plan way of life and have got to meet lots of new friendly colleagues.

Work

The best aspect of each seat rotation is the renewed opportunity to work within and learn about a completely different area of law. Despite drawing upon shared sector expertise, each department at Burges Salmon tackles a different area of law – whether it be property law, employment practice or disputes for example.

The benefit from your perspective is that as a trainee or apprentice you can learn about the key principles and practice within each of these different areas of law, gain an insight into how different teams operate and understand the range of clients that they work for.

No matter what area of law you end up specialising, this wider exposure will benefit you later on as you will be able to understand the interconnections between different legal problems and provide clients with legal advice grounded in wider-commercial understanding. And if you can’t get the answer to the problem yourself – you’ll know who to go to within the firm to pester to get it!

Development

Throughout your career you should grab the opportunities to push yourself out of your comfort zone to learn new skills, ideas and practice in order to develop. The seat rotation aspect of the training contract is a great opportunity to do just that early on in your legal career.

So although you may be getting comfortable at your desk after four months, embrace the change and enjoy the opportunity to learn something new within each seat rotation.