What's your job about?
Duncan Cotterill is a large nationwide law firm with offices in Auckland, Wellington, Christchurch, Nelson and Queenstown. I am a junior solicitor in the Auckland office’s litigation team.
Starting off, you will generally be assisting senior lawyers with legal research, discovery, or drafting pleadings (aka Court documents). Law school probably prepares you the best for legal research, as your knowledge of the law is the most up to date and you will be valued for your ability to navigate legal databases (Westlaw or Lexis) to provide references for legal arguments that your colleagues want to run.
Discovery is the most grindy task and involves the exchange, inspection, and review of documents to and from other parties in the proceeding. Drafting pleadings is probably the most complex task and is a skill that is not taught well in law school which you will have to learn on the job (and in Profs). For example, I recently helped to prepare and file an interlocutory application and third-party proceedings in the District Court. It involved checking the District Court rules, researching the scope of a geotechnical engineer’s duty of care, and reviewing our client’s files to determine which documents we could rely on to defend the claim.
What's your background?
I grew up in Auckland where I was fortunate enough to go to a school offering the International Baccalaureate Diploma. My decision to study law only came about in Year 13 when I reflected upon the fact that (despite doing alright academically) I did not enjoy chemistry or higher-level maths. I did however enjoy English class, mostly due to my English teacher who inspired me to consider the humanities. After obtaining my IB diploma, I spent five years in the University of Otago where I graduated with a Law and Commerce double degree. In my penultimate year of law school, I applied for and received a summer clerkship at DC. I was then offered a graduate role the following year.
Could someone with a different background do your job?
Broadly speaking, yes. The hurdles to being a lawyer is completing an LLB, Professional Legal Studies Course, and being approved by the Law Society as “fit and proper” (mostly to do with whether you have a record of plagiarism or criminal offences). Although it is true that most people coming into the profession are from privileged backgrounds, it is still mostly up to the content of one’s character and their willingness to persist through a challenging four or five-year degree.
What's the coolest thing about your job?
Being exposed to a wide range of work from all kinds of clients. The summer clerk and graduate program gives juniors the chance to rotate through the firm’s three main practice areas (commercial, employment, litigation) which gave me the chance to work out what I enjoyed and what I did not enjoy.
What are the limitations of your job?
Your experience at DC depends a lot on the partners that you work with. Although there is no expectation to work late, there are times in which you may be required to work late due to the demands of clients. Working from home is dependent on your supervising partner. From my experience, most prefer you to be in the office, which can be challenging due to the dubious nature of Auckland’s public transport system. Finally, you will be sitting at a desk for most of the day which is not necessarily conducive to an active lifestyle.
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