This year, we once again sponsored the Scottish Paralegal Association conference. Find out why we have been supporting for six years and why paralegals are so important to what we do.
If you’re a regular reader of lindsays life, you’ll know that we have various sponsorship activities, including supporting the annual Scottish Cross Country Season and Eilish McColgan.
One sponsorship you may not yet know about is our support for the Scottish Paralegal Association (SPA) annual conferences, which this year took place in Glasgow in April.
The conference, which we have sponsored since 2018, is an opportunity for paralegals to network, do their continuing professional development (CPD), and share learning. In this way, it links into the Lindsays ethos of developing our team, investing in talent and delivering for our clients.
Core to what we do
Our own 38 paralegals are an indispensable part of life at Lindsays, supporting solicitors and clients on a range of different services, depending on their department.
In our Private Client department, they may work on executries; in Rural, they may be involved in the purchase or sale of farms, estates, crofts or even islands; in Litigation, they may offer support on debt recovery; and so on.
Iona Kelly, HR Director says: ‘Our paralegals work across our different offices and teams, but the common factor is how important they are to the smooth running of our work for clients.
‘That’s why we believe so strongly in backing them and progressing their careers, from supporting the annual SPA conference, to sponsoring our own team to take the paralegal exams and then the voluntary Law Society paralegal accreditation, often with the help of in-house mentors.
'At the same time, as a full-service law firm, with five offices and 46 partners and almost 300 people, we’re big enough to offer career progression and opportunities.'
Routes into the profession
Our paralegals come to us via different routes. Some join in administration roles, and then decide to embark on paralegal qualifications; others are graduates who then go on to do paralegal training or traineeships; and others have law qualifications and decide to stay as a paralegal rather than train as a solicitor.
Scotland has a variety of paralegal qualifications, from Modern Apprenticeships, to diplomas, to professional development awards in defined areas such as debt recovery, conveyancing or executries.
More recently, the Law Society of Scotland has offered further career progression with a voluntary accreditation scheme for paralegals, covering different areas of practice, and we’re very pleased to say that ten of our paralegals at Lindsays have already achieved this accreditation.
Other paralegals have used their experience to progress further in the profession.
One of these is Kirsten Boettcher, who joined Lindsays as a paralegal in 2019 following our merger with Hadden Rankin. Kirsten has since completed her law degree and diploma, and is now a trainee solicitor with Lindsays, working in our Private Client team in Edinburgh
A word from one of our Paralegals
Christine Jamieson is a Senior Paralegal in our Employment team having been with Lindsays for 15 years. She qualified as a paralegal in 2008 and since then has successfully achieved Law Society accreditation.
Christine says: 'I’m glad I worked towards the accreditation and am grateful to Lindsays for supporting me in my progression on my paralegal career path.'
