My fortnight work shadowing at Passmore & Oliver Partners

At the start of this month, I had the privilege of spending two weeks shadowing the founders of Passmore & Oliver Partners, Juliet and Crispin. This was a hugely varied and stimulating experience, through which I learnt a great deal about how legal businesses operate in practice and how current developments in technology and investment strategies are transforming the legal sector.

I was able to get stuck in from the outset. Juliet arranged for me to attend meetings with industry leaders from the UK and US so that I could observe and learn from these conversations, and I was able to get involved in client briefings and legal research. I was given constructive feedback on the work I produced and a debrief after events, which helped consolidate my learning.

Highlights included:

·       Attending a meeting of the Private Equity Lawyers Forum and hearing from in-house solicitors in FCA-regulated businesses about how to approach the new FCA non-financial conduct rules.

·       Completing authorisation forms for submission to the SRA and attending a Solicitors Disciplinary Tribunal hearing. By the end of my first week, I had doubled my knowledge of regulatory requirements!

·       Learning about how non-traditional law firm structures and funding can drive growth and improve outcomes. I met the head of an AI-native conveyancing firm, an investment broker who helped me understand litigation funding, and rounded off my two weeks with a presentation on private equity in the US.

Crispin was also generous with his time, and even jumped on a call with me from Canada – where it was 7am for him – so that we could discuss law firm investment structures and strategies ahead of his keynote address at the Law Society of Alberta Bencher Retreat.

I left Passmore & Oliver Partners having learnt a few tips, such as the need to take a client-focused approach to tasks and to tailor your style of writing for particular forms of communication and audiences. And not to panic if your tech fails when you try to join a client meeting!

The most valuable aspect of this experience was learning that understanding the commercial realities of legal practice is essential as an effective member of the legal profession, something that degree programmes often overlook. Above all, Juliet and Crispin’s relentlessly outcomes-focused approach taught me how to deliver the best results for clients in the most efficient way.

Iona Salter