Law

My name is April Phillips and I'm a trainee solicitor at Shoosmiths.

I'd enjoyed law when I was at college and wanted to do something that I would be interested in. I knew that law would be quite a broad ranging topic and it would open up a lot of opportunities post-university.

While I was at the University of Portsmouth, I decided to explore different avenues to try and figure out what I wanted to do post-university, and as part of that I found that I really enjoyed the system aspect of it, so I decided to explore that further, which meant I then decided to apply for a training contract.

A number of opportunities were highlighted to me by lecturers, including the City Solicitors Horizons programme, which was a programme based in London, which looked at city firms and gave some insight into those which I otherwise wouldn't have had.

Going into law, it's a competitive field and I needed to get as much experience as I could to demonstrate that I could do the job and would stand out against other candidates from other universities.

I probably wouldn't have been able to make that decision without that experience. My time at the University of Portsmouth changed me in terms of my confidence and my ultimate path.

It gave me the chance to explore that and that confidence grew as a result and I think I'm more of a well-rounded human being now, I like to think.

I've been back a couple of times, done a couple of different events. It's quite nice to go back and hopefully reassure people that it's not as scary as you think and that making those choices and experiencing things while you're at university, that time is really valuable and can change your path.

It's really motivating and it's nice to recognise how I've got here and the success that I've had and pass that on to hopefully see more junior lawyers coming through from Portsmouth.

My name is Sion Evans and I'm a Recruitment Business Partner. I think ever since I was a kid, the plan was to go and be a lawyer. The reason that I chose to go and domy law degree over at the University of Portsmouth was that I love the city, I loved the course itself.

There were a lot of things that actually were going to give me a lot more than what I would get elsewhere - a lot of the commercial thinking. A lot of the commercial mentality that you get at the University of Portsmouth was really key for me and also the courtroom.

For me, advocacy was just a huge part of what I wanted to do. You are encouraged to do more.

As much as your law degree is really important, the rest of it is also just as important. Coming out with the commercial awareness and the commercial mentality that you get from the University of Portsmouth was key.

Going down the legal route wasn't where my calling was. I'd always thought it was and it was hard to say that to myself and to say, actually, it is not right for me. But having that knowledge and having the experiences that I had had at the University of Portsmouth, so whether that be the being head of the law society or whether that be being part of rowing societies, or even just sort of moving away from home and living somewhere else, that gave me the confidence and the ability to go out and actually to say to myself, this isn't what I want to do, but also to then be able to go into the world of work and say, I want to go and do this and I want to look at other options and I think my experience is going to be valuable to what you're doing.

Walking across London Bridge to go to my office is a huge thing for me. It's something which I'm immensely proud of. This is the dream of coming up and working in London, being able to look out the window and seeing the Shard and seeing Tower Bridge and The Gherkin and Canary Wharf and all of these sorts of things. For me, that was a huge, huge thing. I'm immensely proud of that, really, really proud of that.