Brief Encounters: The SQE and non-linear career paths with Maab Saifeldin

Welcome to another episode of Brief Encounters, the Legal 500 Future Lawyers podcast, where we demystify the legal industry for students, career changes and all aspiring lawyers. Today we have Marb Safelton on the podcast. Marb is a trainee solicitor, a seasoned law fluencer and a mother of one. Marb has talked extensively about her route into law and all the ups and downs associated with it. More recently, Marb has spoken candidly about her experience with the much discussed but still not very well understood solicitors qualification exam or SQE. Marb is a font of knowledge and a great example of why if you really want something, you should never give up. Welcome Marb, thanks so much for joining us today. Thank you so much for having me. Let's just dive straight into the questions I think. Do you remember what first sparked your interest in law? Was it always the career you had to mind? Yes, I've always wanted to be a lawyer. The thing that sparked my interest in law is actually my dad. He works for the UN so he would do a lot of humanitarian work and I came from A.W.F.E.G. background so we came to the UK in 2007 as refugees to the UK from Sudan. And so from my knowledge, young I'd always seen my dad going out to war-stricken countries and helping them with policies and providing aid and I always wanted to do something similar to that but more from a legal standpoint because I knew what it's great to provide aid and humanitarian services to people. Real change comes from changing policies in changing the law and enacting humanitarian fair equal equitable law that will ensure that the citizens of that country have a thriving life and that's where my interest started. I knew I'd get one to go into the worst-tuning countries like my dad and be away from my family from once at a time but I knew that I wanted to do something that could make long lasting impact to change and that's what sparked my interest. So I always attribute my love for the law and my love for humanitarian work and on humanity as a whole to my dad. It's really interesting and appreciating you've already said that you didn't want to go into those war-stricken countries necessarily. Was humanitarian law maybe human rights law something you were potentially interested in pursuing as a practice area? Oh yeah, even from university I really did not have a lot of interest in commercial law or corporate law while everyone was talking about commercial awareness. I was like I don't really care about that. I want to be humanitarian lawyer. I want to go and work for the UN. And so if you would look at my years at university and what I focused in a lot was international law and humanitarian law but then I had a conversation with my dad about my career and where I want to be and he advised me that it's best to practice as a lawyer and get that experience and get the training. And then later on in life you can always go and work for the UN and work for charities and that's where my change shifted. I even remember at university we had a law dinner with some of the law firms and I think it was Vincent Mason's and I remember everyone was asking them about the different training structures and the clients that they worked with and all others interested and interested in was Pobono and the fact that they worked with UNICEF sounds like what's it like working with UNICEF? So even then my I guess my focus was on Pobono humanitarian work getting really care about everything else but through life experience and through talking to different lawyers I guess that has shifted but humanitarian law will always have a really special place in my heart and I hope to one day fulfill that dream that young girl mean have. And can you tell us a bit about your background? What path did you take to becoming a lawyer? So I studied international law at Lancaster University. I applied for it at first and I didn't get it because I guess they wanted ABB but I thought BBB so I was accepted into normal law at Lancaster and then after the first week of Freshers I emailed the admissions office at law school and I asked if I could be changed over to international law and they said yeah sure so I was like great that was easy so I did that and then I had a the Rossinus year and I studied at Bergen University in Norway for a year and that was amazing best year of my life and came back I finished my work here and graduated with a two run and then I went to work I had the whole issue I think we're talking about now in the news of graduate it's not being able to find a role in the area that they studied and so I was having that same issue where I would apply for parallel the roles in have the experience no one wanted to do me the experience so I work for a virtual receptionist customer service role for about six seven months and I finally got my parallel role after a few months I did the LPC part-time and then I went over to got my training contract and did the SQL routes so I'd say LLB LPC and SQL you mentioned just now working as a paralegal for a bit and one thing I hear from our student audience often is that they struggle to even find paralegal roles now with a lot of paralegal roles asking for paralegal experience to get the paralegal roles and quite often asked like how what am I supposed to do about this how do I get how do I get a paralegal job honestly it's like if you don't give me the experience I won't get the experience so it's just a loop that you're stuck in unfortunately I think a lot of graduates whether you're a lost student or not or non it's something that if you just have to learn to deal with unfortunately yeah it's very very difficult it's always been a difficult career path to get into but I feel like it's almost getting more difficult even though the whole point of the new system was to make it more accessible but we'll get into that in a bit yes so what do you feel was the biggest challenge you personally faced on your journey into law I would say at face to challenges the first one was the not getting that paralegal role I think for seven months I was just losing my mind because I had so many extra clicker activities I thought I had a really strong CV I wasn't just purely academic at university I did other things as well to boost my CV and so I'd say even downgrading myself I'd say that quotation marks to go and work in a call center didn't feel that great because I studied law you know what am I doing at a call center that those skills gave me though that role gave me skills that really helped me as a paralegal learning how to speak on the phone how to deal with irate customers how to multitask so that was my first hurdle and my second hurdle would be I guess the stage that I'm in right now which is that in between of I did the LPC I got my training contract under the SQE at a time when a lot of firms were against the SQE so I was quite a risk taker in that sense and I didn't pass SQE to unfortunately so I am now I've done my training so I'm not a paralegal but I'm not an NQ so I feel very uncertain in my legal journey and where I'm supposed to be and where I thought I would be because training contract is marketed as this golden ticket once you have the training contract you're like a set and a day and two world and your career really starts but I got my training contract but now what do I go back and get another training contract do I find a melody route do I go and sit the SQE for a third time and cough up almost for grand from god knows where especially with this economy so yeah this is at say the hardest point of my career so far yeah it's a really difficult one and a problem that didn't really exist under the oldest because there was really only one way to qualify and it seems to me like this is something that hasn't really been taken into consideration and so it's but it's very interesting to hear from you on this and I'm sure it was something that will resonate with our listeners and especially the ones that are you know looking to take advantage of the more flexible accessible route and to law that the SQE is supposed to provide and so we'll talk a little bit more about that in a bit but I was particularly struck by what you said about working in a call centre and sort of not wanting to do it because as you said you've done a law degree why should you have to work in a call centre everyone's told you you've you know you've done one of the hardest undergraduate degrees you could do you should be able to walk into a job but one thing I always say to our listeners our students when I meet them is that everything you do has gives you skills that you can transfer into law and they sort of look at me incredulously when I say that and and for example last week I was at a apprenticeships show so the students I was speaking to there were younger than the students I usually speak to and I was trying to explain to them that even they have experiences that they can and transfer into a legal career. I was like, you know, do you have a part time job that you've been doing for a number of years, or a number of months? Do you have a hobby you've been doing? Like all these things have the experiences and the skills that you get while doing them will translate into law and other careers somehow. It's just about thinking, hard about it and applying them to your eventual career path as a lawyer. - A hundred. - Really encouraging to hear from you that you found the call center experience really useful. - Yeah. And an example I'd give is at my paralegal job, the interview, they were specifically asking me about an incident I had at the call center where we had a caller who was actively trying to commit suicide. And so I had to try and calm him down whilst my manager was on the phone with the police, trying to get him the help that he needs. So how do you deal with that situation where you're trying to make sure someone doesn't, you know, do something to have a like that, but also not losing it yourself because it is a very high stress situation. And yeah, we just spent most of my interview talking about that, talking about the different calls that I have 'cause we'd have a specific call center, you're working for a hundred clients all at the same time. And they don't want the customer's to know that it's a call center. Even if they know that it's a call center, so I have to adapt my personality when I'm a receptionist at a law office. The second call, maybe I am the assistant to a plumber. The third call is maybe I am a receptionist at a photography studio. So I just have to adapt. The moment I end a call, another call comes in and you don't have a choice to end it, you just have to answer and go with the script. So that really helped me with the job interview that I had and the transferable skills that I got from that call center. So even though at the time, I was still happy and my parents weren't that pleased with me getting a job at the call center. It really, really helped me with that paralegal job. And likewise, all the other paralegal and training jobs that I had afterwards. - 'Cause a lot of times crisis management, right? Which is essentially what lawyers do all the time. And you get, I rate clients. - Yeah. - And you have to keep your cool. You can't. - You can't be squearing back at the client. - I'll bite off the hand that's feeding you. Yeah, no, that's really, really interesting. And so once you go into law and into your, well, paralegal and your training contract, what's one thing that has surprised you about practicing law? - The thing that surprised me the most is how commercially aware you really have to be as a lawyer. I think especially because I worked in has in my training contract. It's not just you have to be aware of what's happening in the news and, you know, China versus US, tariffs, Trump, whatever else is happening. You have to also understand how the business itself works and what the business wants to achieve in the future 'cause ultimately they are the client. So if you don't know what that business is about, what their ethos, their values, their profits, their vision for the future, how are you even able to give them down advice? You don't know what's going on. So to me, that was a really big shock 'cause I just thought, oh, you know, I just have to like, we go to state the law. You couldn't do this. You can't do that. I didn't think I'd have to come up with different problem solving skills and we create it with the way that we solve problems or sometimes you have to kind of buy your ego and say, even though we don't do this because sales focus is profits. We're going to just say, okay, do it. Even though I know in Michael's a problem, it's fine for now, we'll deal with the issue later. 'Cause you know, you're supposed to be the stopman. You say, no, that's it. Legal says no, that's it. But sometimes you have to kind of buy your ego as a lawyer and say, well, even though legally, we shouldn't have an advice if you do this because right now our focus is profits, but this is a really big client and we don't want to lose relationships with them. We're just going to have to concede and go with it. - And there's a lot of saying yes. - Yes, and that legal is not really very much liked. - Oh, no. - He's no. No, I said, but she's sad. He's just because we're at the parent that says no. - So following on from that, because most of your experience has been in halves rather than in private practice. And when you do work in house, legal is just another department within the business rather than being the sort of main, the main side of the business or the main money making part of the business. I think legal departments are often known for just saying no and blocking things. How do you feel like legal departments are viewed in house in big companies? - So I worked with very different organizations. One of them, they're really like legal and legal had a really good relationship with the rest of the business. And I could see that very clearly. I think because the General Counsel was a little bit more young and hip and he was pro AI, he was pro-change. He was understanding of where the business wants to go and I can emulate it that even in the way that we practiced. Whereas with the other two organizations, say there were more like that cultural gift and that cultural clash between the younger apprentices and associates coming up versus the long life first who've been in the business and want to kind of stay true to what that business is. So it's like new versus old. And you can see that also within the legal team. So with that, I'd say legal wasn't the most favorite 'cause we would just know the parents says no, but the disciplinaries. But I think when legal is more of the visionary, legal is the one who is pushing for change who is championing change and being at the forefront of that change. Our reputation tends to have a much better reputation within the business. We're seeing more as the friends rather than the parents. - What do you think of the benefits of training or being a junior lawyer in an in-house environment? - So I have about three to four years in private practice - Oh you do, okay. - In terms of in-house training is a bit more chaotic just because most in-house teams are a lot smaller and they're made of more senior legal professionals. So they've already done their training, they're kind of aware of what it is that they need to do and they also may not have the budget or the time to be the best in your training. And they just may not have that. And in some in-house teams have never had a paralegal or training before. So you kind of have to take it upon yourself to assist them in assisting you and your training. Or as with fiber practice, because the traditional was training contracts, they have the certificate for greater recognize training. Hey Charlie's very much aware of what it is they need to do under the SRA guidelines that is clear structured training. So you kind of, well they have to take your training into your own hands too. You kind of tend to take the backseat and you're more focused in the seat that you're in now and the team that you're with at that time. Whereas in-house, you could be dealing with the employment is employment dispute. You could be dealing with a commercial contract with the review and board minutes. It's just all over the place. You have no idea what's gonna land on your desk. And I genuinely enjoyed that because I find myself I get to get bored a little bit. So I like the fact that I was a generalist for a lot of different areas rather than a specialist in adjustment area. - And that does open up a lot of career opportunities in the future potentially then. - Exactly. - You're not stuck wedded to one practice area. - Yeah and you're also not stuck to just one career. - And part of my answer with my interview with Flex is that if I turn you know, down the line, decide to no longer practice law and maybe I wanted to go into marketing, I can always go to the marketing department in the company I'm with and get some sort of experience from that. I have colleagues, I have that rapport. But if I'm at a law firm, I can't now message the marketing team in the law firm and say, hi, can I get some experience with you? Because I don't want to be a lawyer. I'm basically telling the entire company, I don't want to be here anymore. And that's just not going to work. - Yeah, your experience is much more generally commercially relevant. And yeah, that's really interesting. I think a lot of our listeners would be interested in a career of that type. In-house training opportunities don't come up as often. or maybe aren't as well advertised. I think there are more and more of them now than before, but it does tend to be something that people often go into after working in private practice for a while, like maybe a few years after qualification, but it's certainly the end goal for a lot of people. So I think having more opportunities to start your training there is excellent. Yes, what's one miss about being a lawyer that needs busting? That we've paid a lot all the time. Of course, if you're working for the big names that comes with the territory, I would say, maybe I shouldn't be saying this on our podcast, but I'd never been the type who aspire to be partner level and kind of break the glass ceiling sort of thing. I always knew Kabil is big numbers come with terms and conditions. And I don't want to accept those terms and conditions. I kind of want to live a good life, get paid a good salary, and do good work, and a good company, and feel like I'm doing my part. But if you're just going into law for the money, which you can, a lot of people do, just go into it knowing when you're signing that dotted line, there's terms and conditions that may not be spoken, but you're accepting because no one pays that much for you to be able to speak out for us. Yeah, there are big sacrifices to be made for those salaries at the top. 100 percent. For sure. And also what's interesting about that is that the law being a lawyer can mean so many different things. Yeah. So being an in-house lawyer is completely different to being say a family lawyer, and that's completely different to working in a high street firm. And that's completely different to being an M&A lawyer in a magic circle firm. They're almost completely different jobs. 100 percent. Yeah. And if you carry them. And you don't have to stick to what you know. So I met a Clifford Chan trainee who had completed his trading contract. And now he's working for an NGO and building a case against Sudan in the Criminal Justice Court. And I was like, Clifford Chan's NGO. These are completely different things. But yeah, you know, you don't have to just stick to the firm that you trained at. You don't have to stick to the big names. The end goal is qualification. And that was a piece of advice that was given to me. Once you qualify, that is when your career begins. And that's when you can create a career that you want and the career that fits you and your lifestyle. So you can be any type of lawyer that you want to be, just have to be strategic and intentional with the sort of views that you take. Yeah. Strategic and intentional are very good words, I think, to describe an approach to becoming a lawyer. And if you could go back in time, what advice would you give your younger self about law? Oh, brace yourself. Brace yourself and get thick skin. Don't take everything so personal because most of the time is not personal. It's just how lawyers are. We're just natural perfectionists. Our clients expect that of us, if you're in private practice, they're paying a lot of money. And so they're expecting perfection for that large sum of money. Even if you're in a no-win-no-feigh agreement, you know, like in road traffic accidents or that type of litigation, they're still sort of paying. And so they expect that perfection for you. And your seniors will also expect that. But I will be forgiving when making mistakes because everybody makes mistakes, but attention to detail, I think, is a skill that is not emphasized as much as it should be to do your lawyers. But brace yourself. Brace yourself. Lawyers have interesting personalities. And I think, because I'm a very sensitive and emotional and empathetic person. And I have really high expectations for myself. So sometimes I take those criticisms really personally because I feel that I'm letting you down. And even though, yes, I'm technically letting them down, I needed to lessen that sense of the part of myself, it kind of be mutual with what I'm hearing and not let the criticism be the end of the all of my confidence. That's, yeah, I remember someone saying to me, because I used to work at a law firm as well, that law firms are full of big egos. And that explains some of the behavior that you used to be. Yeah, learning to kiss ass, that's a thing, we don't have to strategically kiss ass. That's, yeah, that's, yeah, that's a skill that we only to have. But if Alprasty, SQE, LLB, that will absolutely, I think certainly up until the point of qualification, if you can just get your head down, do what people tell you, even if that's not really what you want to do. And even if you're not really getting along with those people, it's worth it to get to that qualification stage because that then you get to really choose your career path. And yeah, I agree with that. And just fearing off course for a minute, because I do want to talk a little bit more about the SQE and the kind of new pro-servant of qualifying in qualifying as a lawyer, the new educational system and all that. Do you have any frustrations with the SQE system? I do. I'd say my frustration is how expensive it is and the fact that you only get three tries. For me, I did my first SQE and I didn't pass by 1%. There's no way for me to ask for a reset. I can pay and ask for them to review my scoring, but the terms and conditions clearly state that they don't do that. So I'm just giving it for you money. For you to say now. So it's by 1%. I think it was not 0.3%. The second time I sat to I was 6 months pregnant, which please do not do this examic their pregnancy just just way until you have your baby. That was by 4%. That was never safe thing. And now I only have one chance to sit it. And if I don't pass, you have to wait 6 years. Which by that point, I would have been, I went to university at 2014. It would be well over 10 years. I think I just kind of take that aside from God that this is not my profanement one. I'm not way to 6 years to sit in exam again, which will probably be twice or maybe twice as expensive due to inflation and everything else. So those are my biggest motivation with it. So if you fail 3 times, you then have to wait 6 years before trying again. What do they expect you to do during that time? Just get more practical experience or something. And if you are not part of that transitional period where you could do, let's say equivalent means, and you can't go into the LBC because it's phased out, you're just my advice then would be just become a professional paralegal. Because it's cheaper. And you're still working in a law firm, you're just never going to I guess qualify in that sense. So yeah, those are my biggest question. But I think also the fact that professional, like legal professionals, whether you are a solicitor in another jurisdiction, have also not been able to pass the exam, but students fresh out of university have. So I think it's the sense of because those students are a fresh canvas, they can prepare for the exam in the way that the SRA wants you to prepare for the exam and answer the question. Whereas if you've been a solicitor in Nigeria, Pakistan, India, whatever, you already are coming with your own preconceived ways of writing a letter, drafting legal research, advocacy, whatever. And it may not be in the same way that the SRA believes is the appropriate answer question. Because one of the students in Michael Hoerford, the SQE the second time, he was a qualified lawyer in another jurisdiction and he also didn't pass. So like you're smart enough to qualify in your country, but not smart enough to qualify in the UK. Yeah, just a big loss. No, that does seem ridiculous. So I think the reasons they said for introducing a new system, the SQE was to improve accessibility to the profession, which is, has notoriously been like, let's face it, quite like elitist and narrow, and also to make it cheaper. I mean, I've had a look at the prices, it doesn't seem much cheaper to me, especially when you're paying for the prep courses to do the exams in the first place. - Yeah. - And in terms of accessibility, do you think it's improved that side of it at all? - I haven't looked at the data, so I can't specifically say whether it has or hasn't, but I guess from a personal standpoint, I can't, I could accessibility with financial means. I don't know if anyone in this current state who has foreground, foreground in the bank, just for an exam, it could be for, if you're, you know, if your boiler breaks down, if your call breaks down, if you need to maybe go and use private healthcare, but no one has quite where I'm sitting in the bank. Yeah, just so I can sit and examine. So unless you have the bank of mum and dad, how really are you able to access an exam that is so expensive? If you're a parent or someone who is a career change, or you may have a mortgage to pay or daycare, if you're a student, you're probably doing this part time, so is your very small paralegal salary that really doesn't pay much, going to help you access that exam as well, if you're having to cut down your hours, so you can have time to sit for the exam. So accessibility, I don't know, it's just, doesn't make sense, Nini. No, okay. If you weren't a lawyer, what'd you think you'd be doing right now instead? I think I'd be a therapist, 'cause I just, I'm really nosy, and I love to hear about people's problems, and I love to solve people's problems, and I guess you do that a lot as a lawyer, and people just divulge all of their personal issues to you. I remember when I was a litigation paralegal, I loved reading through the medical records of clients, I mean, oh, that's interesting. So that just I think probably where I would be at. I think you'd be a good therapist. And I know what you mean, there are certain areas of law where you do get to assume that role a little bit. Yeah. (laughs) And can you sum up your legal journey in three words? - I was actually thinking of this last night. I say unconventional. Residium. - Absolutely. - And the last one, that's where I struggled the most, I'd say maybe impactful, because I'm hoping that through me being vulnerable and sharing the stories of my failures and how hard it's been for me or the struggles that I've been through in the legal profession, especially as a black practicing Muslim woman. I can make some sort of an impact that help other people who either look like me or don't look like me, but can resonate with my story. And that can be, I guess, a small little impact that I've made in the industry. I would say it's more than a small little impact. But, I guess. (laughs) And where can we find you on social media, Marb? - So I am on Instagram and TikTok at Life with My Ab and on LinkedIn, it's just my ab-sacr all to me. - Okay, and what inspired you to start your social media, your legal social media presence in the first place? - COVID. - COVID. - I was anti-instagram all of universities, oh my God, Instagram. I think COVID started. I was doing the LPC. How's it all my life? I'm really lonely. Everyone in my house is either not working or not studying and I'm all by myself. So I thought maybe I'll find people who are like lawyers, like me and using social media. So I start today and yeah, haven't stopped since. I've been addicted to social media. - It's been. - That's really good. And it's always good to have that creative outlet, isn't it, on the side of whatever else you're doing professionally. - And I'm really glad now that the industry has opened its eyes to I guess law-fluencers because at the time, I had a very difficult time with some of the organizations being happy with my social media 'cause they didn't understand it. It was sort of a, why would you put yourself out there? Like that's too risky or, you know, you should care more about your reputation in the company rather than out of the company. But now I'm so glad that this other paralegals and trainees and lawyers using social media because it's all about having that access to the law be more open because before it was just to a small few. But now it's widened that gap. And yes, there are risks to social media and you have to be boy. Very careful with how you use it as a legal professional, but if you get it right, and if you know why you're on it and the body you want to bring, not only would it help you in your professional career, but I think it helps the company as well thrive. - Absolutely. - Yeah. - Deep of listen to you. Although obviously you don't talk specifically about the company that you work for at the time. But that's great. Is there anything else you'd like to add? - I think my only thing is, and this is a mantra that I guess myself every day is, my career is mine. A career break doesn't break my career or diminish my ambition. And I'm not in a race against anyone but myself. I have to just constantly remind that myself, that because I go on LinkedIn and I see people in a show where they're qualification so they think it's like, oh, they're paying in the heart. Just like before, open my LinkedIn and I say, oh, go on training, come on, strap with so and so, and you're like, oh, I want to be there too. Or you got a powerful legal job. So it's constant like paying in the heart. Well, everyone else's career goes the way that they want it to go. My career is going to go the way it needs to go. And there's no competition with anyone but myself. And I just have to take this time and just slow down. I look at this career break as a special opportunity for me to spend time with my daughter. Look, I'm a first time mom. And in a really privileged position where I can stay at home and to care of her and not miss all those firsts that I probably won't actually be able to experience again. Because if I was at work, I'd feel guilt that she's at daycare and I'm missing that. Or I'd feel guilt at the fact that I've got my qualification, but I'm at home. How am I going to explain that to recruit her? Is that they're going to think that she has another baby? She's also going to be taking time off. Whereas now I have a perfectly explainable reason as true I am not working. And so I take that with gratitude and just take to myself qualification will happen. When I'm not sure, but I know it will happen in what it does, it's only going to make me a better lawyer than I am now or I would have been if I qualified two years ago or a year ago. I think that's a really important message. Career breaks aren't something we see often publicly anyway in the legal industry. There are very linear roots in. And there are a lot of people who have just gone straight from school to university to the law degree to law firm. And you feel even more like an outsider, I think sometimes if you do it anyway, you can do it differently to that, whether that's because you took some time out because you couldn't find a job or because you wanted to go traveling or because you did another job first, another career first, this sort of idea that's highly unusual and how on earth are you going to sit into this legal industry? So I think that's a really, really important thing for people to hear. Yeah. Don't compare yourself to people as hard as it is. Just focus on yourself, and everything will happen, everything will fall into place. So stop being a controlled freak. That's accusing. Stop being a controlled freak. Just say thank God and just take a break. We will finish there with stop being a controlled freak, I think. Yes. Right. Thank you, Ma'am. Thanks so much for joining us. Thank you for having me.