Inspiring Grads: Law 3

Hannah Delit

Job history

2021–Present Senior – Legal Managed Services EY (USA)

2020–2021 Legal Process Lead Radiant Law (England)

2019–2020 Candidate Attorney De Beer Attorneys Inc

Academic history

2018 LLM in Commercial Law University of Cape Town

2014–2017 LLB University of Cape Town

Describe your job – what do you do?

I recently started a new job as a senior in Contract Lifecycle Management. My job entails working with legal departments and other stakeholders to improve and implement contract management needs.

My favourite part about my job is transforming and optimising the contracting process and adding value for clients.

How have your degrees helped you in your career?

My degrees have been instrumental in my career to date, particularly my LLM in Commercial Law, which provided me with a more focused learning on what I was interested in. The UCT Law Faculty is rated highly around the world and it has been invaluable to have degrees from a globally recognised institution.

What has been a highlight of your career so far?

The highlight of my career has been moving from working in a traditional law practice to working in legal managed services. Working in an alternative legal industry has been exciting and it is great to see how traditional law and existing practises can evolve in the future.

What advice would you give to law graduates entering the world of work?

Write everything down and use a diary or calendar! It is normal to make mistakes, but it is important to use those mistakes as opportunities to learn and grow so that you don’t repeat them.

Did you have to adopt new and different ways of working when you started practising law in the USA?

There are definitely some cultural differences, but it has been great to work with people from all over the world. Since COVID-19, we have all had to adapt to working remotely and I think this has been helpful in adjusting to different ways of working! Right now the biggest adaptation has been spelling certain words with a “z” instead of an “s”!

How do you see commercial law evolving in the future?

There is increased demand from legal departments and companies to reduce their legal costs and speed up the contracting life cycle. Law firms will need to embrace technology and focus on improving the efficiency of outputs to create real value for clients.

BOOK & COURSE recommendations

I recently completed a “Visually Effective Excel Dashboards” course on Udemy which I found to be very interesting! I would recommend this course to anyone looking to brush up on their Excel skills and present data in the most impactful ways.