8 minute read
Letter to my younger self: What 21 years of practice has taught me about change
Letter to my younger self: What 21 years of practice has taught me about change
Interview with Pauline Campbell – Principal Lawyer at London Borough of Waltham Forest & Social Justice Author
Nedra: How long have you been practicing law?
Pauline: I started late, and by late I mean in my 30’s and qualified in my early 40’s. So, I’d say I’ve been practicing law for around 21 years now.
Nedra: What was your biggest fear when you first started out and how does it look to you now 21 years later? Do you have any early career anecdotes?
Pauline: My biggest fear I’d say was, wondering if I was good enough, or could I do it, because people are going to rely on me for legal advice.
My first job was working in Hounslow Council as a prosecutor for revenues and housing benefits. My very first meeting, my boss started to talk about a case and she kept talking about counsel and I was too frightened to ask what she meant and why she was saying counsel. In my previous job I worked as a council officer and I was confused as to what she was talking about. It was only after the meeting I looked it up and realised that she was talking about the barrister. The hard part was that I didn’t let them know that I didn’t know what they were talking about. I was too terrified that I didn’t know what it was.
Nedra: Describe a moment early in your career where you feel completely out of your depth that has since shaped your legal career.
Pauline: It is different when it’s a legal thing that is out of your depth, which you are able to research and learn from it. In law if you don’t know the answer to a legal question you could always find it, there’s always a colleague and information out there for when ever you need it. The best person to go to is someone who’s been in the job for a while, who will know the answer to your legal question and that’s really important.
It’s harder when you’re out of your depth because of the environment that you’re in or because of how people perceive you, which places you at a disadvantage. This is not necessarily due to the colour of your skin, it could be having a cockney accent like me or being a woman or even due to being in an environment that you’re unfamiliar with. The only way you are going to gain experience to deal with situations when you’re out of your depth comes with time. Never do a knee jerk reaction when you’re out of your depth, step back and think before you place yourself in a difficult situation.
I’ve read too many stories of lawyers being dishonest about where they are with a case or say they’ve submitted a document when they haven’t and get struck off. Because they’re out of their depth made a mistake and did a knee jerk reaction to protect themselves, on the basis of worry. When faced with a difficulty, step back, think hard and get advice from somebody who would be able to help you through it.
Nedra: What’s the most significant change you’ve witnessed in legal practice over your legal career that you wished you’d been better prepared for?
Pauline: I’d say the dissipation of the court system and how bad it is right now. How unprepared we all have been for how bad things are now. Now we have young lawyers coming into a system which is completely and utterly flawed. Maybe when we saw all the courts being closed, we saw all these things happening, we should have done more about it at the time.
Now these young lawyers have to hit the ground running in a system that’s not workable. I wish I was actually strong enough to speak out about it then, I would’ve felt a bit better about the legacy we’re leaving for the young people that would be taking over from us.
Nedra: If you could give your younger self one piece of advice about building client relationships, what would this advice be?
Pauline: Don’t be afraid to show who you are. For me, for example it’s my accent. When I first started as a lawyer I tried to hide my accent for about 2-3 weeks because I was embarrassed about being a cockney girl from Hackney. My younger self was denied the right to be the real person that I could be and I regret that.
If your clients see you for who you are and you’re fair but firm, then that makes you a stronger lawyer. It’s not what you do, it’s how you do it that makes a difference between the client respecting you and the client running off for a second decision or the client reporting you to your line manager, because they are not happy about the way you handled something. So, I think communication skills are crucial which is more important than any other aspect of law, when it comes to your clients. Communication skills is something you need to build on as a young lawyer.
Nedra: What aspect of legal practice has remained fundamentally unchanged despite all the technological advances?
Pauline: People. The people who utilise the system has never changed. There will always be vulnerable people who need the court system and they will always be a part of the process and that is something we must never forget, which unfortunately we’re letting them down because of the way the system is broken. There’ll always be an individual, a defendant, or a claimant, or a witness or somebody who will always need the court system and for me that would be something that will never change.
Nedra: What do you wish you had known about work life balance when you were first starting out?
Pauline: I know more about work/life balance when I first started off than now. The more you do in law the less opportunity you have to have a work/life balance. The more successful I’ve become it’s the harder for me to do work/life balance and that’s a choice that I have made. So many lawyers have 2 jobs, so many are authors, so many do things outside their day job, so many do things alongside their day job. With me, I’m an author, a TedX speaker, I’m a pro bono lawyer for Windrush, Chair of the Race Equality Network for Waltham Forest, I wear so many hats, theirs no work life balance for me anymore and this is a choice I have made. This is because I’m on a journey of social justice, so I have to put the hours in because it means a lot to me.
If you want a work life balance don’t take on much more than you could manage, but if you choose to build your profile and step outside the box, you’ll have to put the work in, and your work/life balance will be affected.
Nedra: How has the definition of what makes a good lawyer evolved over your career?
Pauline: Communication skills as I mentioned before is one of the fundamental things that makes a good lawyer. The ability to have people trust your word through your hard work and judgement and your ability to deal with them in a fair and open transparent way. If you get something wrong hold your hands up straightaway, don’t hide it because you’ll lose all credibility if it’s found out afterwards that you tried to hide it. It’s not easy to accept your mistakes, but being a good lawyer is being able to accept you’ve made mistakes and can live with them and come back to the table and learn from them. We could deal with legal conundrums, we could read books, seek advice, but how do you deal with difficulties within yourself and your own mindset it’s much harder – but what makes a good lawyer is that they accept and be humble when things go wrong and to learn from that mistake.
Nedra: So, Pauline what’s next for you?
Pauline: My book “Lefty Lawyer” which is traditionally published and scheduled to be released in March. This book captures a detailed journey about my life of how I became a lawyer over the last 20 odd years. This follows my previous publication –– “Rice and Peas and Fish and Chips” which is about my younger years before law.
“Lefty Lawyer” sets out my career of how I became a pro bono lawyer dealing with people who are vulnerable alongside being a prosecutor – and it shows how I wear these 2 hats. It also highlights the first time I’d seen a black defendant which I hadn’t seen in a long time and sometimes you’re faced with the conundrum of how do I deal with this, do I put aside my personal feelings and the pain impacting on the job, but you just got to deal with it and work your way through find a way to navigate. We have all these hats to wear as black lawyers and learn how to navigate and to not impede our future. So, Lefty Lawyer was written to help other people, to let them know, not to worry if you’re feeling this way and tying in your first question, what is my biggest fear, Lefty Lawyer highlights that “I did it” and “I was good enough” and still is and you could be too. ■
