Thinking about a career in law? Start before you think you’re ready.

When Natasha Bassett first contacted Leigh Duncan Solicitors in 2021, she was 16 years old and looking for some after-school work experience.

Five years later, she has graduated from the University of Birmingham with a First Class Honours degree in LLB Law, having spent much of that time gaining practical legal experience alongside her studies with Leigh Duncan.

Natasha started with the basics: organising paperwork, opening files and finding out how a law firm works when there are real clients, real cases and work to be done.

After leaving school and starting her law degree, she returned to Leigh Duncan during her university holidays. As she learned more, she was given more to do. Most recently, as a Junior Paralegal within the Conveyancing team, she supported Janine and the wider team with drafting documents, client communications and enquiries throughout the property process.

She also learned a good deal that cannot be picked up from a textbook. She spoke with clients, worked alongside solicitors and saw first-hand the pace and responsibility of legal work. She learned how to deal with people making some of the biggest decisions of their lives and what it means to be part of a busy legal team.

Finding out what a career in law is really like

Work experience is a chance to see a profession from the inside: how the work gets done, what interests you and whether the career you have in mind suits you quite as well in practice as it does on paper.

For Natasha, the answer was yes.

Writing about her experience at Leigh Duncan in 2025, she reflected that getting in touch with the firm at 16 helped make becoming a solicitor feel less like a distant ambition and more like something she could actually do.

That is why Leigh Duncan believes there is real value in giving young people the opportunity to experience working in a law firm.

Nobody expects a 16-year-old to arrive knowing how a law firm works. What matters is being interested enough to ask, willing to learn and prepared to have a go. Now, after several years as part of the team, Natasha is leaving Leigh Duncan and taking her next steps in law.

Janine, Ingmar and everyone at Leigh Duncan wish her every success for the future.

For anyone considering a career in law, her story is a good reminder that you needn’t wait until university to find out whether the profession is for you. Natasha was 16 when she asked Leigh Duncan for an opportunity. It turned out to be well worth asking.