Brooke Ericson

6.00 AM

I usually wake up around this time so I can take my dog Bodhi for a walk before I head into the office. If it’s the middle of a Canberra winter this can be quite a struggle so it doesn’t always happen! I normally listen to some sort of podcast and we walk for about half an hour.

6.45 AM

Once we get back I’ll get ready for work, pack my food for the day, feed Bodhi and eat breakfast. I pay for parking and coffee so try to save a bit of money by packing food.

7.45 AM

Drive to work. I live near Belconnen so it takes me about 25 minutes to drive into the office and I pay to use the carpark across the street. Most Canberra locals are horrified to hear I live on the North side and work on the South side but being from Sydney this is a quick commute for me. Public transport is also an option but it takes closer to an hour so I prefer to drive.

8.15 AM

Unless I have something urgent that I’m working on, once I get into the office I take the morning to plan out my day and do admin tasks. I’ll check my emails and Webex to see if anything has come through since logging off the day before and will reply to anything urgent (e.g. requests for advice, follow-up questions from clients). I’ll also check our shared section mailbox for any new emails and file any emails from the day before. I will also try and plan out my day by making notes of what needs to be done.

9.30 AM

Team meeting - on the days when we are in the office together, my team prefers to have our morning meeting over coffee. We’ll catch up and discuss what work we all have on that day and any priorities. The best coffee in Woden is a pretty controversial topic but we usually stick to either Songlines or Gemini - both close to the office and both very good.

10.00 AM

After I’m caffeinated, I get started on my important work for the day. Today I am continuing to review a draft explanatory statement that I started working on yesterday afternoon. The client wanted our legal comments ASAP as they were on a tight timeframe to have their legislative instrument finalised. Once I’m done, I email my comments and thoughts to my supervisor who will then review them.

1.00 PM

Lunchtime! I like to get out of the office on my break and will often walk to the shops to get anything I need or just to get some steps in. I normally take a 30 minutes lunch break but can take up to an hour if needed, as long as I get my 7.5 hours in.

1.30 PM

Once I’m back from lunch I’ll check my inbox and our shared section inbox for any new emails. Today we received a new request for legal advice, so I have a quick chat with my supervisor to see if we have the capacity and if we need to set up a meeting with the client to discuss this. I draft a reply back to the client acknowledging their request and letting them know we’ll be in touch if we have any questions.

2.00 PM

I am sitting in on a meeting with a client area to discuss an existing matter. This one is quite complex with more issues popping up the more my team looks into it. So I take notes and make sure I have the important points. Once it’s over I will fix up my notes so they are readable, write down the next steps, file them and send them to my team.

3.00 PM

I have a meeting with my supervisor to go over the explanatory statement I was working on this morning. We go through any further comments she has and discuss the points I raised while I was reviewing them. Once we are done, I draft an email and send it back to the client.

3.45 PM

I continue working on advice that has been sitting with me for a few days. This one is not urgent so I am working through it when I have time. I have spent the past couple of days looking through relevant legislation and setting out a plan for how I want to structure the advice. Now I start to draft it.

5.00 PM 

Home time! I have an indoor netball game at 6 pm so I stop off at home to get changed and am off again.

7.00 PM

As it’s still light out when I get home, I take Bodhi to the park and throw the ball around for him.

7.45 PM

Once we get back I’ll eat a quick dinner and unpack all of my stuff from the day. I am working from home tomorrow so I’ll put my laptop, planner etc out on my desk ready for the day.

8.30 PM

Depending on how tired I am I’ll either watch TV or read and then I’m off to bed!

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