Retail Legal Intern Review

Overall it was really enjoyable. The work was varied and my team were all very welcoming and kind to me. I was happy to go into work and felt that the workload was manageable and had a good working life balance throughout the placement.

I think this depended on the particular colleague. There were some members of the team who rarely included me in their projects / would only approach me for administrative tasks. Those who did delegate me tasks however, were always very appreciative and would take the time to give me constructive, helpful feedback.

My line manager was often quite busy / did not work in the office 5 days a week. However, when she was around and available the advice she gave me was always useful and I appreciate that she gave me a degree of autonomy with how I wanted to spend my placement. She also assigned other members of the team to be my first points of contact in her absence.

I feel as though the workload was manageable, but overall I definitely could have done more. There was however a few sporadic bursts of going from having not much on to suddenly having several deadlines due on the same day. I appreciate this is partly the nature of the job though.

I was able to work on my own claims, draft real responses and report back on calls, and my advice would then go on to be used by the business. There were several projects which I was included on from start to finish and I feel that this was a good level of responsibility and my team were receptive to my capabilities.

In regards to my degree, the skills will not be as useful as they are not directly related. However, beyond this I feel I have acquired / developed a number of transferrable skills which will benefit me in the work place in the long run and it has certainly been a good use of my time.

Although everyone in my team was friendly, there was not much of a team environment amongst colleagues. People would tend to stay at their desks all day hardly interacting with one another / keeping up to date with what the others were doing. There was also no social aspect to the office - people would eat their lunches at their desks and being the only intern in my office meant this could be quite lonely.

I think that my line manager had taken the approach that she would leave me to source my own work from other members of the team if I was having a quiet day etc so there was not a lot of structure to my days. I did not necessarily mind this as I am quite independent and capable to so. But it did quite often seem that my line manager was out of touch with what was going on with the internship placement as a whole.

I was very happy that the company allowed me to go to Edinburgh and London offices to visit different teams and to gain insight into some of the areas that I felt would be most beneficial for me. Also, I feel as though being able to set aside the time to do the professional banking course our personal development journeys was also beneficial.

Whilst I have enjoyed my placement and could imagine myself working somewhere like Lloyd's I think that these 10 weeks have confirmed where my interests lie, and that there may be other organisations which will better suit my degree and the kind of work that I want to be doing on a daily basis.

Notably, I was the only intern in my office, and whilst my other colleagues were friendly they were seemingly only in the office to get through their work and go home, there was no real social aspect at all. I was in accommodation with other interns who were all lovely, but I would say this was separate to my working life.

The most expensive aspect for me, was commuting from Leeds to Halifax every day, whilst other interns in my accommodation only had a short 15 minute walk, I was having to manage a 1hr 15 minute commute each way. Eating out and going for a couple of drinks on the weekend was pretty reasonably priced for a city.

I think that it was quite a nice city and there was a good variety of places to go. I did not go out too much, especially since I did not know that many people in the local area as I had not listed it as one of my preferences which made going out less appealing, as it was quite hard to make new friends in 10 weeks whilst working full time and still getting accustomed to a new area yourself.

In terms of being organised by the organisation not so much. But in general I was in quite a nice, lively city. My long commute made going out for dinner / social activities on week nights a lot more difficult as all of the other interns I lived with would be finished and ready to go an hour and a half or so before I would make it back into the city.