Crafting a Legal Career: Embracing Unconventional Routes to Professional Growth

In this Article Hana Ingram interviews Adnan Rafique on his legal career, marked by determination and seizing opportunities.

Hi Adnan! Could you please start by giving us a brief background of your legal studies and work experience?

A really funny story about me entering the legal profession is that, upon graduating from school, I was due to study medicine. I had a scholarship set up, and then, on the day of my A Level results, I got a phone call that the financial aid had been withdrawn. As you can imagine, I was quite stunned and did not know what to do next. Then I thought, since I had taken English Literature and Language as part of my A Levels, Law might be a good option to pursue as a degree and a career. This led to going through the clearing process and finding a law firm to get some experience, to see if this career would be a good fit for me. I ended up walking into a firm called Devonshires Solicitors in Moorgate, and asking to see Daniel Clifford, who was a partner at the time. He must have thought, “yes! I’ve got a new client”, and then came down to meet them and behold it was me asking for work experience for that summer. He ended up giving me 12 weeks of paid experience. That really solidified my career aspirations, as it gave me a taste of the legal field, and showed me that I was capable of doing the work.

This was my entrance into the legal field. I then studied law at London Metropolitan as a part time student for the next eight years, while also working full time. From 2010 to 2018 I completed two degrees (I might just be one of the longest standing students!), working full time during the days and studying in the early mornings and evenings. I chose to work alongside my studies in order to fund them; I didn’t want to be saddled with a huge student loan at the end of my studies. It was definitely very difficult to study and work at the same time, but there were a lot of people in similar positions studying at the same university. I think one of the reasons I chose London Metropolitan was because it was at the footstep of many major law firms in the country. This meant it provided easier access to firms, professional networks, and work experience. I didn’t end up pursuing vacation schemes in that sense, I instead continued to work full time, initially as a Real Estate Paralegal for five years, and then in a Business Development role at the same law firm.

Did you find it challenging to secure this Paralegal position because you hadn’t completed your legal studies yet?

I got this role off the back of walking into Devonshires and asking for work experience. One of the solicitors who worked at Devonshires went on to set up her own firm, and I reached out to her, and essentially networked my way to securing that position. The thing is, a lot of people think that it’s about applying to as many places as possible, but I think I have a less conventional approach which is: I’m in a pickle, how do I get myself out of this pickle, how do I get unstuck, how to I free myself from the situation that I’m in and what step can I take that is unconventional enough to help me stand out amongst my competition. Sometimes it really is as simple as just asking that question, of reaching out to someone and saying: “Hey, I’m really interested in this area of law, would you consider taking me on?”

There are a lot of motivational things that I could say, but really I think any success that I have had and any door that has been opened for me, has stemmed from the fact that I haven’t been afraid to be told no. I think aspiring lawyers need to remind themselves that it is ok to be told no, it is ok to be different, and it is ok to put yourself out there by asking for a job or for work experience outside of a traditional application. That often means reaching out to people you do know and people you don’t know and being confident in both scenarios.

Do you think this more personalised form of networking, of just speaking to someone face to face or emailing them directly, and utilising your contacts in that sense, can be more effective than using LinkedIn or doing numerous applications; and do you think today’s aspiring solicitors often forget this, and would never think of simply walking into a firm and asking for experience as you did?

I’m laughing because I’m sure Daniel Clifford must have thought I was a nut case, but sometimes that is what it takes – that extra element of guts to really show an employer what you are made of and how you can add value to their business.

Putting it another way, I was used to being punched and kicked in the face as a martial arts competitor in kickboxing and taekwondo. After you’ve been in the ring with a four-time Russian kick boxing champion who is 7 ½ foot tall and 3 ¼ foot wide, completely battering each other to pieces, nothing else can really hurt you; your pride cannot be hurt after that. So, I wasn’t afraid of rejection, I wasn’t afraid of hearing the word “no”. I think, especially at the beginning of your career, there is always an opportunity for you to humble yourself and ask for a chance. But also, in the same vein, an opportunity to find unique ways of demonstrating how you can add value. It’s not just about the power of asking, it is also about the power of showing what it is about you specifically that will help you benefit a prospective employer.

When you approached Devonshires asking for work experience, and when you secured your first legal role as a Paralegal, how did you present yourself as someone who could add value?

I can’t recall exactly what I said in both instances, but I do know that when applying for the Paralegal position, I really tried to leverage the 12 weeks work experience I had completed. I focused on showing how my practical work experiences, both within and outside of the legal profession, made me a good fit for the position.

My first job wasn’t as a Paralegal, it was in something totally different; working as a panel beater. In car accidents, the frame of the car often gets battered and crushed, and the job of a panel beater is to use a panel beating tool (which is basically a hammer with a rubber end) to smooth out the panels around the four sides of the vehicle until the frame is back to its original shape.

One of the most important lessons this job taught me was how to add value with my hands. As lawyers, we work with our minds, our intellectual capabilities, and our language. However, we also work with our hands, whether we’re writing notes in meetings, annotating contracts or typing up edits into other documents. This process I repeated every day as a panel beater, of mending something back together, is similar to what lawyers do. On a daily basis, they are mending flawed documents, they are mending someone’s lives, they are mending any issue that a client brings to them. Panel beating really opened my eyes to the skillset required to fix what is in front of you; of assessing the damage, hammering out the imperfections and putting the pieces back together. These acts require you to pay attention to the smallest detail, to ensure that there is no misspelled word or ambiguous phrase or harmful clause left up in the air to blemish that document or any future document that comes next in the transaction.

As a transactional lawyer now, that is what I do – I fix up the documents that lay the groundwork for the purchase of shares or the merging of two companies or a real estate transaction between multiple parties. My job as a panel beater showed me that I had this mending quality, and that is what I think set me apart and helped me, and others, see that I could add value – through my desire to fix the imperfections, whether they are on a car or within a contract. When you’re given a term sheet from a lender or borrower and you have to fix up a draft document based on these terms, aren’t you really just mending it? You’re not starting from scratch, you’re mending what already exists, you’re piecing together existing work to formulate a consistent, detailed and comprehensive document.

It’s very refreshing to hear someone talk about their work in a really personal way; I think a lot of lawyers take a more impersonal approach – where does your tendency to romanticize and sentimentalize come from?

Each of my experiences before becoming a transactional lawyer coloured my perspective of the work that I do now, and how I approach my legal career every day. The best thing about my job might be the huge high that I get every four or five weeks after a transaction closes; after being in the trenches with my colleagues, almost feeling like we’re at war with the other side and then finally achieving a mutual peace once the transaction completes. The huge sense of relief I feel after weeks of buildup is very similar to how I felt when a customer came to collect his car and would be in awe at how we were able to fix the damage and mend it until it looked brand new. You’ve got to try and capture all of these little moments that form part of whatever job you have, which is quite difficult to do day in and day out.

Following your first role as Paralegal, you became a Business Development Executive – can you speak a bit about this work?

I hadn’t completed the LPC at that time, and I wasn’t really on the Training Contract track. I took this BD role because being in Business Development is such a huge part of what most law firms do. I think all trainee solicitors should have a full training contract seat in Business Development, so they can learn the art of persuading a potential client on why and how they are able to add value to a project. Trainees really need to learn how to be part lawyer and part salesperson. There is a huge pressure on young lawyers to understand economics and commercial awareness and how market trends will influence a client or a law firm. Of course, these are important to learn, but without lawyers there is no business, and without business there are no lawyers, so being able to jump in between both law and BD is hugely important within private practice.

I also think recent graduates need to have some form of exposure to it as early as they can in their legal career, because, without this exposure, I think it can be difficult to develop the skills necessary to really go far in this career. The partners who are heading a firm are engaging in this dual work of law and BD constantly – they go out and find business, they pitch their firm to potential clients, and they supervise and train juniors to ensure these individuals can add to the business of their firm.

Based on these experiences working in law and business development, what do you think are the main parallels and distinctions between these two professions?

In both lines of work, everyone you speak to has a problem – either a problem they come to you with or one that you have identified. In law, the client will bring you a problem and, as a lawyer, you have to resolve it, first by understanding it and presenting it back to the client, and then through finding an effective solution for it. My work as a Paralegal revolved around fixing these problems, either in the form of internal issues that were brought to me by an associate or partner who I was supporting within the firm, or an issue within a client matter.

Business Development differs in that it places a lot of focus on identifying the problem, and then persuading the potential client that you are a good fit to resolve the issue you’ve identified. The aim is to persuade the client of this value that you can add. In a way it is very manipulative, in that you are convincing the client that only you have the solution to their problem and, therefore, the client has to come to you.

However, this process is also very reflective of how lawyers have to work – they have to be able to communicate their value in order to build a sense of trust with the client. Once this trust is there, business comes through and will, hopefully, continue to flow, because clients tell others of your work, and you have built a good rapport with existing clients to ensure they keep coming back. It’s also important to build good relationships with other professionals within the legal field, as this makes it more likely for them to refer clients to you, and to see you as a go-to as opposed to a competitor. This all links back to how I entered the legal field to begin with – by understanding the importance of building strong professional relationships and using this network effectively.

As a Business Development executive, you are trying to persuade a client to come to you and you are identifying where the value can be added. As a practicing solicitor, you are working on fixing that problem, while building a relationship of trust and support. The obvious difference is that a BD executive is not working on the legal side – although, it is great if you do have a basic understanding of the legal elements because this increases the value and expertise you can provide to the client. BD is also a lot more sales – centric. Lawyers often lack that salesman quality, especially when they are in the early stage of their career, however they must learn to build that skill. As I mentioned earlier, one way of doing so is through having a training contract seat in a Business Development or Marketing team. If they are training at a firm that does not have these practice areas, one alternative is to sit in on partnership calls and meetings with potential clients, observe these interactions and understand this process of marketing yourself and your firm to a client.

Do you think the diversity of your CV is testament to the flexibility that a legal education can offer in terms of future employment, or do you think this had to do with your personal willingness to utilise your legal skillset to engage in very diverse areas within the legal profession? 

I think it has a lot to do with the individual themselves, and their willingness to try different practice areas and fields of law, to see where their skills and ambitions lie. I started off in litigation and ended up as a banking and finance transaction lawyer. Those are two completely different fields; very little about them overlaps. But you have to see where your personality fits – are you somebody that enjoys working on short-term projects, where you will feel that dopamine hit once a transaction completes or are you someone who likes litigation work and has the patience to wait years for a case to settle? I personally am not that patient; I like to see a project through from start to finish within at a few months, so that I have something to look forward to in the short-term. It’s also about who you want to interact with in your career – do you like the advocacy styles of different barristers and do you enjoy building strong working relationships with top QCs and KCs, or do you prefer working in the brokering world or the banking origination world, making contacts with agents and brokers who will help your client obtain a specific type of lending.

It takes a lot of patience, and it is ultimately a process of elimination. Law is a huge field with many distinct and competing areas, so you must be willing to try a lot of different things to see what you really enjoy. What you enjoy might not be the thing that makes you a lot of money, but it will develop that sense of appreciation for what you do, and the feeling that you are adding value to the world that we live in. It’s not always about money; in the beginning pursuing litigation wasn’t about money for me, and to be honest it still isn’t about money. It’s about asking myself what I can do and how I can improve to become the best solicitor, and what kinds of experiences it takes to rise to that level.

That is not an easy thing to go through, it’s difficult and really not fun sometimes because it means opening yourself up to a lot of criticism and confronting any insecurity you may have in your abilities. But then, slowly, you start to think, “actually wait, I am doing this job, I can do this job, I’m ok at this job, I’m great at this job” – and getting to that place will involve a lot of trial and error.

Ultimately, I think law students who are unsure of what practice area they’d like to pursue should try to narrow it down to the areas that best reflects and compliments their personality, and try to get some experience in each one.

It sounds like you believe the nature of a practice area is equally as important as its content. Students often see Land Law as one of the more tedious and difficult subjects due to its academic content – did you feel this way when you studied it, and how did you find the reality of practicing this area of law, and the nature of this work, in your role as a Real Estate Paralegal?

I’ll be honest with you, I found Land Law as a topic to be quite tedious, but I quickly learned that what you study has very little to do with what you practice. Of course, there were times where I’d think “oh I remember this from my studies’, but really Land Law is about so much more than what we learn at university.

When I went on my first gondola journey in Cambridge and rowed through the rivers of all the colleges, I remember thinking, “wow, look at this magnificent building, look at the way the architect put this structure together; look at this bridge, look at how it arches over the river to connect these buildings, look at the bricks used”. For me, appreciating the buildings and the actual land that formed the basis of real estate transactions helped me fall in love with this area of law. Sadly, very few real estate lawyers get to work on projects that involve developing and building the next architectural wonder, but sometimes you get to work on huge sales or transfers or disposals or acquisitions of Grade 2 listed buildings, and this can still be very exciting. When you go from studying the Land Registry and the boundaries of a building to actually seeing it right in front of you, and you realise that you have helped to build or conserve a piece of land or helped someone achieve a dream of owning a property, it is very rewarding. It’s about looking at the bigger picture of what all the little actions that you do every day, that may seem mundane at the time, will eventually culminate in.  

During my work experience at Devonshires, I assisted on a transaction that involved a 200-year-old Title Deed. This deed had been rolled up and tied with a piece of string, and I remember looking at it in awe at the idea that somebody decades ago had to sit and handwrite this deed in order to register this piece of land for the first time. That really made me appreciate the history of that specific land, and how this deed represented that history, and how it was now part of a transaction that I was working on 200 years later. It was a funny realization that, on one hand, had nothing to do with what I studied, but, on the other, had everything to do with it. I know that’s a really vague answer but, at the end of the day, very little influenced me to go into real estate law when I studied Land Law. However, that experience at Devonshires, and that practical knowledge and that smallest of insights into what Land Law can be, pushed me towards it, and it became the first step in my legal career.