Ben Hughes
As a legal professional, you can pursue a range of careers with Pinsent Masons Vario. All of our Vario Stories up to this point have given you examples of people who have worked within our Flexible Legal Services offering. However, our latest piece give you an insight into the sort of career you can pursue within our Managed Legal Services offering and more specifically within our Paralegal Centre of Excellence.
Ben Hughes is a future trainee with Pinsent Masons and he initially approached the firm looking for a paralegal role but with only a few months of availability. He’ll be studying the SQE2 prior to his training contract but because he couldn’t manage a full-time role when he contacted Pinsent Masons, he was recommended Vario as a perfect solution.
What Vario offered me was a flexible work model that allowed me to work with lawyers and professionals from a top international law firm when I only had a few months of time available.
Although he didn’t initially come from a legal background, Ben decided he wanted to pursue a legal career whilst he was an undergraduate. Already having a keen interest in global affairs and history, it was the problem solving and creative use of language which pulled him towards the legal profession.
A key appeal of the Vario paralegal model was the ability to get involved in a range of projects as opposed to being kept within one department. Working in this way exposed Ben to a fast-paced project involving legal professionals from across the Vario network. This is invaluable to any early career professional as there is a massive difference between studying law at university and then actually being involved in practicing it.
Making this step can be overwhelming, which makes an experience like this all the more valuable when trying to find your feet in the legal profession. It also highlights the importance of good mentors and strong leaders. Ben was working elsewhere at the same time as he was working as a Vario and he credits the work of senior members of the team with helping him to balance his commitments. He maintains that the leaders within the Vario team were more than accommodating of his circumstances and always set him clear and achievable targets.
Although I was initially concerned that it would be difficult to balance my time, this was not the case. There was always someone to reach out to for guidance and people from the team always made sure I was up to date when I picked up my work for the week.
In his time working with Vario, Ben had two main assignments and got to experience both remote and in-office working arrangements for each. When you’re an early career professional, communication is especially important when you are away from the office and this was one aspect of the Vario experience that really impressed Ben.
Someone would always check in with me each week to fill me in on any new developments.
He was also particularly appreciative of the coordination within his team regarding work socials and in office working, rather than being left to be in on his own on occasions.
Ben returning to Pinsent Masons for his training contract is a real success story for the Vario Paralegal Centre of Excellence. Given this, we were especially keen to see if he would recommend that others in his position take up an opportunity to work with Vario. Fortunately for us, his answer was a resounding yes!
The breadth of opportunity which is on offer is very appealing as there is scope to be involved in all sorts of projects. Being dropped into a busy team is a fun experience, which, coupled with the flexibility of the Vario model makes it something I would definitely do again.
If you think that Vario might be for you, then you can find out more about our Flexible Legal Services team here or our Managed Legal Services team here.
If you want to read more about the people who work with us, you check out our last Vario Story to see if we are the right fit for you.