Thus far, I have one working week of experience at my internship under my belt. This week has been insightful in how my experience in Dublin is affected by my internship and allowed me to figure out a daily routine complete with commute, cooking, and spending some personal time with friends. As an Intern at Daly Khurshid Solicitors, I am lucky to be working in an accepting environment with many kind coworkers ready to assist me in whatever trouble arises as I get my feet wet in my positions and familiarize myself with my daily tasks to help the organization. Already, I have learned so much, and I look forward to continuing to accelerate my growth and education as a member of this firm in the coming weeks.
One of the most vital skills in any workplace is effective time management. As an Intern, I am responsible for completing several tasks each day that I must complete in a timely and satisfactory level. Examples of tasks I dealt with this week could be sitting in on meetings with Gary Daly (one of the firm’s two solicitors), scanning and filing paperwork, creating booklets to organize cases into comprehensible and easily accessible packets, and accompanying my coworkers to court cases. Going to court was an incredible experience. Watching the barristers prepare for court while wearing their infamous legal robes made me feel like I was getting a firsthand experience I would never have had without this program.
While I am at the office, everyone, myself included, is constantly busy. As a small firm, each member of our team works diligently day in and day out to ensure the success of the firm and the satisfaction of our clients. To make sure that I keep up with this rapid pace, I make sure that I am always doing something productive. I prioritize my responsibilities first, so I am available to help out with general office work or attend meetings without worrying about whether my project will be finished in time or not. If I ever do find myself without responsibility, I actively seek out opportunities to help in whatever way I can. I typically reach out to my supervisor or coworkers to find out if there is anything that I can help out with when they are busy, maximizing the office’s overall time management by being constant support whenever it is necessary for me to do so.
Whenever there is time in the office when I cannot help out and everything assigned to me is complete, I spend this time reading case files that my supervisor provides me. These case files give me an inside scoop on confidential legal documents to give me experience handling and interpreting these case-sensitive files. This experience significantly enhances my legal understanding and legal vocabulary. There is a lot of jargon in law, and until you understand and learn the vocabulary, it can be difficult to interpret the meaning of legal cases and how they proceed under the court’s jurisdiction. Spending my free time reading through these cases has been an informative experience and a way to still take advantage of my free time in a way that is beneficial to my future career goals.
Although I always try to use my free time in a way that is helpful to my firm and my legal aspirations, like any job, there are periods of the week when there is not much to do and nothing new to read. Although rare, when this happens I spend a little time working on my blog posts until a new task pops up or my supervisor recommends a new case I should read. Although my internship is my primary priority while on the clock, my academic responsibilities are no less important while abroad in Dublin this summer.
To conclude, I am very thankful to be an intern at this Law firm and equally grateful for the opportunity to learn under my supervisor and coworkers. This firm is ideal for my first professional working experience and something that will not only boost my resume but serve as an experience that I can leverage into law school and my next legal position wherever that may be. Already in my short time here, I have appreciated time management skills more so than I ever have before. Effective time management is crucial to the success of any business or firm and a skill that I will continue to cultivate throughout this internship and the rest of my life moving forward.
