This week, I am excited to invite Sarah Jackson, Commercial Litigation and Insolvency Partner at IBB Law, into the studio to discuss whether the Law is a good career to juggle with parenting.

Our conversation also leads to some fascinating discussions of:

· What does insolvency actually mean / involve?;

· The challenges of building a career and starting a family;

· Covid's impact on working culture in law, particularly as a parent;

· The issues with the unconscious bias of AI from who has programmed it;

· The importance of getting good life experience working in different industries, particularly customer facing, on building the resilience you need as a lawyer.

Stay tuned for a hilarious story about a time that Sarah took a tumble down some stairs to fall at the feet of the Senior Partner at her firm.

This week, I am excited to invite Richard Khaldi, Chambers Director of Maitland Chambers, into the studio to discuss career journeys, moving in and out of the law. Richard’s career path has been full of twists and turns, including working in government as a regulator 5 years into being a qualified lawyer, then moving to management consultancy, before coming full circle back to legal management.

In this episode, we also discuss:

• Benefits of a business degree to working in law;
• How being a lawyer helped the transition to working in government;
• Nature vs nurture - Where does the training and the personality combine to go into lawyers' risk averse attitude?;
• The challenge of managing and delivering the best service when you don't always need to be there in person;
• Impact of AI on efficiency rather than instigating wholehearted change.

And stay tuned to hear about Richard's involvement in a high profile case involving Chris Evans and going up against a team 3/4 times the size of his.

This week I am very excited to welcome Sharmila Mehta, UK immigration lawyer and Partner at Keystone Law, into the studio to discuss how ‘Partner’ can mean different things at different law firms. A self-proclaimed ‘lawyer through and through’, Sharmila helped me obtain my British passport several decades ago and has worked in several different large UK law firms throughout her career.

In this episode, Sharmila outlines her fascinating journey into law having moved to the UK from Kenya at the age of 5, growing a curious and fearless attitude towards how the world and the UK in particular works, and working at several different UK firms before becoming a Partner at Keystone law today.

This journey introduces a variety of other interesting points on law and life in the UK, including:

· Living in the UK as a dual citizen and the challenges of moving to the UK at a young age;

· Growing up as young woman in school in the UK in the 1960s and 1970s and being taught to be assertive, inquisitive and speak up.

· Taking calculated risks during a career as a lawyer and a mother;

· What partner means these days vs what it used to mean and whether making partner is becoming a business of running a law firm and not necessarily being a lawyer’?

· Realising that as a lawyer you’re not just part of the wider brand of the firms you work for, you have your own brand that you build throughout your career.

And stay tuned to hear about the driving force behind Sharmila’s work as an immigration lawyer – how to make the UK better, through the energy, innovation and desire to succeed that migrants have always and continue to bring to this country.