A Day in the Life of a Family Solicitor: Behind the Scenes of the Legal Process

I am a Senior Associate Solicitor at Anthony Gold Solicitors LLP and I work within the family department. I qualified into the department in 2017, having completed my training contract at the firm including a 12-month seat in family. I have known since I was young that I wanted to be a family solicitor and have not looked back!

No day is the same as a family solicitor; you never know what will crop up. That keeps things interesting but also means that you must be adaptable and respond pragmatically to changing circumstances.

I start every day with a strong coffee and tend to work from the office for at least four days each week. Although I love the option of being able to work from home, I much prefer being in the office and surrounded by people – working from home can get very lonely! I also like to keep work and home as separate as possible (both having become almost completely blurred during the pandemic) and find that I learn a lot just by being around others, talking about cases and asking questions.

On a busier day, I might have a meeting with a new client, a couple of existing clients to call and an internal meeting. I then spend the rest of the day preparing correspondence, drafting court documents and various other tasks. My work is incredibly varied and each day will often entail a mix of urgent and non-urgent work.

I write a to-do list each afternoon for the following day and cross tasks off as soon as I complete them. I also triage cases at the beginning of each day, to ensure that I am working on the most urgent tasks first and meet all my deadlines.

As well as my casework, I am a co-chair of our firm’s EDI committee and sit on the London YRes committee. I undertake pro-bono work for Families Need Fathers and volunteer for the National Centre for Domestic Violence.  I also write articles and blogs on a regular basis, and most recently have been working on a couple of books. It is very important generally to keep up to date with case law and updates which impact the work that we do.

I attend around one training or networking event every week and most of these take place during the evening. These events are a great opportunity to meet other family lawyers, learn from each other and develop a network of other professionals that we can refer to.

Work-life balance and well-being are extremely important, and I am fortunate that my firm values this so much. Being a family solicitor can be incredibly stressful at times and we deal with very emotional and, in some cases, traumatic cases. It is so important that we are supported and can talk about our well-being. If we look after ourselves, we can do a better job for our clients.