Senior Solicitor, Tranter Lawyers
After graduating from Law School, I honestly felt very lost. I was unsure about what I wanted to do, and exactly where I wanted to go.
That’s why I decided to undertake the Leo Cussen PLT as it taught me how the legal world functioned in a practical sense, from high-level lessons such as setting up your own practice, right down to the detail of how to structure your questions when interviewing your client.
When I applied for my first consultancy job, I realised the true impact that Leo Cussen had on me. One of the tests at the interview was to read 25 pages of information, filter out what was important, and then draft a letter to a client. All in just 45 minutes. Thanks to the mock files and consistent feedback from my mentor, Stephen Fair, I managed to quickly hone in on the pivotal issues and produce a letter.
When I was offered the job, they made the point of saying how experienced and professional I came across in my letter. At that point the impact of Leo Cussen was clear: being at Leo’s accelerates your learning curve and really gives you an edge in the workplace. I am still finding this in my everyday role as a senior solicitor at Tranter Lawyers.
After six years with working overseas with KPMG and Baker & McKenzie in tax, trade and customs, I returned to Australia to raise my young family and joined Sparke Helmore’s commercial team. I eventually joined a firm closer to my home in Maitland in 2019 and am now a senior solicitor within the commercial team at Tranter Lawyers.
I now regularly advise clients on a broad range of corporate and commercial matters and find myself constantly relying on the strong foundation set, and drawing on the broad exposure to various areas of legal practice provided to me, during my time at Leo Cussen.
I highly recommend the Leo Cussen PLT course for budding lawyers and those who might not quite have made up their minds just yet on where they think their law degree will take them. It certainly helped me make up mine.