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I am a placement student in the Family team at Michelmores, based in the Exeter office. My placement started in August 2025 and, during this time, I have had the opportunity to complete a variety of tasks, from legal research to preparing court documents and even attending hearings. To provide an insight into some of the work I have been involved in, I have set out a recent day of mine below.
8:30 – I travelled to the Exeter office by bus followed by a short walk with Anna, who is also a placement student and is in the Agriculture team.
08:50 – 9:00 – I arrived at the Exeter office and headed up to the second floor where the family team sits. I said good morning to everyone before logging on.
09:00 – 09:15 – I checked my emails, flagging any tasks that need completing. I wrote down my to-do list and considered which tasks needed to be prioritised.
09:15 – 10:00 – I decided to get some quick admin tasks out of the way. I organised a set of bank statements sent by a client, arranging them into date order and combining them into a single PDF. This helped the matter lawyer review the documents more efficiently. I then finalised a consent order for both parties to sign and sent this to them via DocuSign.
10:00 – 10:45 – Earlier that week, I had been liaising with the Business Intake team regarding the documentation required to onboard a new client. After receiving their response, I updated one of the partners on the position and drafted an email to the client requesting the outstanding documents needed to progress the matter, incorporating the guidance from Business Intake. New enquiry work is a key part of my role and can involve taking calls from prospective clients, responding to emails and beginning the file opening process.
10:45 – 11:10 – I then moved on to the court bundle that I had been preparing throughout the week in advance of a final hearing that I was due to attend. The solicitor for this matter asked me to include some additional documents in the bundle. After adding these into Bundledocs, the software we use to prepare court bundles and other case documents, and checking that everything was in the correct order, I sent the updated bundle to the solicitor for review.
11:15 – 11:30 – I received feedback on the first version of the counsel papers that I had been preparing and made the relevant amendments. These included small changes, such as removing certain pages and adding additional documents where required.
11:30 – 11:45 – A signed prenuptial agreement had been delivered to the office that morning, which I was asked to review to ensure that it was complete. Once I had checked that all of the required signatures were present and everything appeared to be in order, I updated the matter lawyer.
11:45 – 12:00 – I had been asked to join a client meeting by one of the associates in the team. Before the meeting, I prepared my notes template in Word and spoke with the lawyer about the topics they were planning to discuss.
12:00 – 13:00 – I joined the call and took notes throughout the discussion. I found it interesting to see how the lawyer advised the client on the different options available to them, explaining the potential risks and benefits of each approach.
13:00 – 14:00 – I met some friends for lunch and we spent some time catching up.
14:00 – 14:20 – I returned to my emails and responded to a few requests from colleagues. This included locating documents on the court portal, answering queries and providing updates to solicitors in the team to help progress matters.
14:20 – 15:00 – I made some final edits to the bundle to ensure it was ready to be filed. Once completed, I sent this back to the solicitor for a final check before submitting.
15:00 – 15:45 – I checked over the meeting notes from earlier in the day and tidied up any errors made while typing quickly. I have often found note-taking challenging in fast-paced discussions but the more notes I have taken throughout my placement, both in court hearings and client meetings, the better I have become at getting everything down. I have also improved the way I structure my notes so that they are clearer and easier for the team to read.
15:45 – 16:30– The solicitor replied to confirm that the bundle was ready to be uploaded to the portal and sent to the other side. I also needed to upload the case summary (ES1) and the schedule of assets (ES2) that I had helped to prepare. Being involved in this matter gave me an excellent opportunity to follow the case closely and develop a deeper understanding of the issues and potential outcomes. I uploaded the documents to the portal and sent the email to the other side.
16:30 – 17:00 – I was then asked to prepare a draft letter of advice to a client that had received their Final Divorce Order. As I had not prepared this type of letter before, I reviewed some previous examples to familiarise myself with the standard wording. Once the solicitor confirmed she was happy for this to go, I sent the letter to the client with a copy of the Final Divorce Order.
17:00 – With my work for the day completed, I logged off and headed home for a chilled evening!