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April 30 2021

April '21 Paralegal of the Month: Julia Wilson

Case Studies

Tanya Robinson

Julia Wilson, the Flex Legal Paralegal of the Month

We’re phenomenally pleased to announce that Julia Wilson is our Paralegal of the Month for April 2021! Julia signed up to work through Flex in January of this year, looking for more corporate experience before she began her Training Contract this coming August. We were able to quickly place her with Trustpilot, helping them prepare for their recent IPO.

We caught up with Julia to pick her brains about her legal career journey, her Trustpilot placement, and what she’s most looking forward to post-Covid!

Hi Julia, could you tell us a bit about yourself and your background?

Hi! I am Julia and I am originally from Birmingham. I moved to London when I was 18 to study history at UCL. I graduated from UCL in 2017 and after this, I went on to do my GDL at BPP. After completing my GDL I decided I wanted to gain more experience before I went on to do my LPC so I worked as a paralegal for a year and a half - mainly doing restructuring, banking and corporate governance work. During this time I managed to secure a training contract at Orrick, Herrington and Sutcliffe to start in August 2021. I completed my LPC in January 2021 and I have been working through Flex Legal since then.

How did you first become interested in working in law?

It was during my time at university that I decided I wanted a career in law. In my second year summer holiday I worked at an accountancy firm working in a department which assisted companies in distress. The team worked closely with legal advisers and it was working closely with them that made me realise I would really enjoy working on the legal side of things. I then carried out work as a paralegal in the summer after I graduated university in a restructuring team at a law firm and this really confirmed my interest in a career in law.

Could you tell us about your experience working through Flex Legal?

I have really enjoyed working through Flex Legal. From when I signed up, I was sent multiple roles which suited what I was looking for. I finished my LPC at the start of January and with flex I was able to start my job at Trustpilot a week later. Everyone has been extremely friendly and quick to respond to any queries I have had. So overall it has been a great experience working through Flex Legal.

Where are you currently working?

I am currently working in the legal team at Trustpilot. I have been predominantly helping them with the legal work that has been involved in their floating on the stock exchange last month.

What have you found interesting about your most recent role?

I have found seeing closely the actual mechanics of the work that goes into how a company floats on the stock exchange the most interesting part of my current role. It has been really interesting seeing close hand a company go through one of the most fundamental growth stages a company can go through. I have also found working in an in-house legal team really interesting about my role at Trustpilot and seeing how this differs and is similar to working in a big law firm.

What advice would you give to those looking to get into paralegal work?

It can be very intimidating coming out of university and deciding you wish to pursue a career in law and knowing where to start with looking to get your first paralegal job. I would say don’t get too despondent if you are feeling like you are getting a lot of rejections and to just keep persevering as something will come along which suits you.

And when you do secure a paralegal job it is definitely worth it as my paralegal experience really helped me to secure my training contract as it gave me real life experiences to use in my application and interview answers. It also meant that when I answered why I wanted a career in law I sounded more convincing as I actually knew what legal work was like.

Finally, with society steadily reopening, what are you most excited about getting back?

I am most excited about being able to play team sports again - I played netball all through university and afterwards and I have been really missing it since the start of lockdown. I am also looking forward to going back into an office environment and being able to chat and have fun with work colleagues. And I am of course really excited to be able to socialise with my friends again and see my wider family.

When you're shooting the video, it'd really help the editing if you could answer all the questions in one video! As in - just keeping the camera rolling whilst you answer each question. Don't worry about getting any of the questions wrong or tripping over your words, just start again and have another go and we can easily edit any mistakes out. If you also please could send us 3 different takes of answering the questions that would give us plenty of footage to work with.

Additional Resources:

Trustpilot and Flex Legal - read a more comprehensive summary of the work Julia did with Trustpilot, featuring quotes from Trustpilot’s VP of Legal.
April 2021 Lawyer of the Month: Tam - read a highly comparable post to this one, covering this month’s LOTM Tam Irvine!
The A to Z of Paralegal Tasks - we’re constantly fielding interesting requests from our clients for paralegals who can cover all kinds of roles and service areas. Read some of the more common ones!