LITMIR.BIZ

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arrived on my first day fully anticipating the most boring two weeks of my life, stuck in a dusty office with a bunch of middle-aged men talking over my head in legalese while I made them endless cups of tea.

      I couldn’t have been more wrong.

      The job did involve some photocopying and filing, of course. But Terry, the flamboyantly camp and surprisingly young legal assistant to the family law team, actually let me shadow him in everything he did and explained it all to me with infinite patience and enthusiasm. The most fascinating parts were the client interviews. I would never have imagined the variety of waifs and strays that pass through a family solicitor’s waiting room every day. People in the most heartbreaking, desperate situations. Fathers separated from their children, daughters searching for their mothers, men facing homelessness after unfair dismissal from work, women battling discrimination or abuse.

      I spent an open-mouthed two weeks watching Terry deftly interview each applicant, simultaneously cheering them up and extracting all the necessary information with a series of sensitive yet probing questions, establishing whether or not the solicitors would be able to represent them. I think on more than one occasion he exaggerated the facts to ensure they would.

      One man really stuck in my memory. Joel. His surname is long forgotten, but I can still recall every detail of his face, and the desperation written all over it when he first came to Bourne & Bond. He’d just been released from prison after a two-year sentence for drink-driving. He had lost everything – his house, his job, custody of his children. He was appealing for legal support in a court hearing against the local housing authority, who had repeatedly sent his application to the back of the list. And without a stable address – he argued in near-tears during his interview with Terry – he could not secure a job, reopen his bank account, or even take out a mobile phone contract. His life was literally on pause.

      Joel was probably only in his early thirties, which seemed really old to me at the time, although on all the subsequent occasions I’ve thought about him, I’ve been conscious of that age looming nearer and nearer in my own future, and its being really very young indeed to lose everything and have to start your life all over again.

      He wasn’t the most tragic or desperate case I watched Terry interview during my two-week work experience, nor the most complicated. But something about Joel cemented him in my mind from that moment on. I looked at his face as he begged Terry to take on his case, and I saw an underdog. And, for some reason that I couldn’t quite place, I identified with that.

      Joel’s court hearing came up on the penultimate day of my work experience, and I was allowed to attend, albeit under strict instructions not to move from my seat next to Terry in his note-taking role, and not to speak under any circumstances.

      He was represented by Tracey, the only female solicitor in the family law team and someone I’d only brushed past a couple of times. Until that day she’d seemed like an unremarkable, greying, forty-something woman with photos of cats surrounding her desk. Not someone I would have remembered after leaving. But that day in court she became my idol. I watched in awe as she tore apart the prosecution’s arguments about Joel being an unreliable candidate for a housing contract, and firmly and eloquently, yet fiercely, presented an array of evidence proving that Joel had got his life back on track, conquered his alcohol problem and deserved a chance to change his future. By the end of her discourse everyone in the room was wholeheartedly convinced by Tracey, including – perhaps most importantly – Joel himself, who sat with tears of gratitude streaming down his face as he was awarded a housing contract then and there. As I watched him shaking Tracey’s hand ecstatically and telling everyone in the room how he was going to change and turn his life around, a realisation about my own future began to take shape.

      Nobody paid any attention to the wide-eyed seventeen-year-old sitting in the stands watching events unfold in rapt fascination; but it was that day that really convinced me to pursue a career in law. The next month we had to make our A-level choices and, a year later, university applications.

      Of course, with time I realised I was being a little idealistic. A law degree wasn’t all standing up in front of your classmates and reciting passionate arguments to save innocent people from death row. In fact, it involved memorising a lot of obscure clauses and articles in areas that didn’t hold my interest so much, like commercial rights. But I threw myself into it, keeping in mind my reasons for doing it all in the first place. I wanted to defend people. I probably earned myself a reputation for being boring and nerdy all over again, but I told myself all the work would be worth it.

      But then, of course, it’s not like you graduate and are immediately out there fighting for people’s rights on international television. There’s the bloody Law Practice Course, obviously, then you need to get years of experience before you can be out there on the front line. So that’s why the job at Home from Home, when it came up, at least seemed like a step towards my ambitions. Relevant experience to be gained in the meantime, until Harry’s and my circumstances changed.

      Of course, sometimes I can’t help longing to be part of the team of solicitors directly helping the people who apply for assistance. At times, I find myself loitering by the case files at the end of the day, leafing through the most recent applicant’s papers and reading the arguments put together by the solicitor to defend their case. When I hear of a positive outcome, someone winning an appeal against a landlord and being allowed to stay in their home, even now I still think of Joel.

      On a good day, I go home from work feeling I’ve contributed to something important, something that benefits humanity.

      Not to mention that a smaller charity like Home from Home is inclined to be far more understanding about maternity leave.

      Or a four-month unpaid sabbatical.

      After getting my request provisionally approved by my line manager, I had to get it signed off by Angela, Head of Legal and a formidable woman who terrified even the solicitors.

      ‘South America, eh?’ She peered at me over her dramatic, gold-rimmed glasses, doing her best Devil Wears Prada impression. ‘Backpacking, is it? Or are you more of a – what do they call it – glamping type?’

      I blinked at her, not sure what glamping was but not feeling able to admit it.

      ‘We’re going to do the Inca trail,’ I ended up mumbling, suddenly wondering if this was a terrible mistake and she was going to sack me for my impertinence. And then wondering, to my own surprise, whether that would actually be such a bad thing. ‘The Inca trail and the Andean region. Peru, Ecuador, Venez…’

      ‘You know, Kirsty,’ Angela interrupted me, obliviously, ‘I have to say that when you asked for this meeting, I was expecting you to talk to me about the Team Leader vacancy.’

      The… what?

      I remembered seeing something advertised on the internal monthly email bulletin, but it hadn’t really drawn my attention. There didn’t seem much point applying for a minor promotion within Home from Home when I was only going to be there temporarily anyway.

      ‘In fact, I would even go as far as to say I was hoping you were going to talk to me about it.’ Angela settled back in her chair and observed me over her glasses, arms folded. ‘As one of our most qualified – no, the most qualified member of the support team – it seemed an obvious choice for you.’

      ‘Er, thank you – that’s a great compli—’

      Angela waved one hand at me, cutting me off again.

      ‘But, if a four-month sabbatical is what’s on your agenda right now, then fair enough – you know our open-door policy on staff extracurricular development. And in some respects it is actually good to see you making a decision.’ Angela suddenly seemed to lose interest in the conversation. ‘Good luck, Kirsty – and enjoy the old mundo latino.’ She flicked me a cringe-worthy wink as if waiting for me to say something.

      There was a long pause.

      ‘I did GCSE Spanish.’

      ‘Ah, right.’

      As

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