A friend I have known since I was an Articled Clerk asked me over the holidays whether I would start my legal career now if I had my time all over again.

It is an interesting question that I have been asked a lot this year by people in a range of different positions.  Some people want to know whether I would recommend it for their children, law students want to know if they have made the right choice and some people are really just curious about my own story.

I answered Camilla immediately with a resounding “yes”.  While she wasn’t surprised by my answer, I think she was a little surprised by my certainty.  She had seen the tears and anxiety over the years and I am sure she wondered whether I had forgotten all the pain of the past.

It is true that my legal career has not all been plain sailing.  I struggled to get into the degree in the first place and then found myself sitting in lectures thinking I must be the stupidest person in the room since everyone seemed so exceptionally bright.  Despite that, I loved law school and I have very fond memories of the friendships forged in the law library.  I also found the study of the law, by and large, very interesting.  For a bookish type like me, being told that I needed to spend 40 hours a week reading cases was not a challenge.  I did fairly well at moot competitions which gave me the opportunity to travel and meet law students from around Australia and South East Asia.

The next major hurdle was finding employment in the middle of the last recession with no contacts and no money.  I feel for the current crop of students who are straddled with much higher HECS debts and who have to complete more expensive practical legal training before they can get work.

Although my supervising partner during my Articles was very patient, the learning curve was overwhelming.  I remember picking up the phone within an hour of arriving to have a senior practitioner from a Defendant firm yell at me about an application my predecessor had made and of which I was blissfully unaware.  There were so many late nights and weekends where I found myself staring at my files at a loss as to what to do with them.

Legal secretaries would often point out that they knew so much more about the practice of law than Articled Clerks.  It was true and I am sure they made the point to take a few arrogant graduates down a peg or two but I needed no such encouragement.

In those days, Articled Clerks were paid below minimum wage and usually needed to work upwards of 50 hours per week.  It was an apprenticeship of fire.

Then there was the issue of vicarious trauma.  Unlike medical practitioners, we received no guidance or training in how to manage the effects of trauma.  In my 20s, I struggled to deal with the anger, desperation and sadness of people going through the darkest periods of their lives.

Things have got easier as I have got older.  With experience, I know which things matter to a claim and which do not.  I am able to stay calm because I am not just putting out fires and I have confidence in my own ability to see the claim through.  Most importantly, I have developed an ability to empathise and suggest strategies that may help people without taking their suffering on board.  I once thought that I could not do this without selling out or becoming an ice queen.  I now know that it is necessary self preservation so that I can continue to support my clients.

The one thing I keep saying is that I am so grateful I did not have a trust fund to fall back on.  I have no doubt that I would have during some of the tougher times and that would have been a mistake.

My advice to young lawyers or would be lawyers – there are easier ways to make a living but law is and has always been a calling.  It is fascinating and rewarding and allows you to make a real difference to people’s lives.  Happiness experts regularly say that feeling your work matters is important.

Hence, I have no regrets.