As a second year university student with a keen interest in a future career in marketing, work experience is crucial to adding strings to my professional bow. A week with the incredibly successful marketing department of Clapham & Collinge was an excellent opportunity to do just that.
I was specifically asked to help out during the week of Lunch on the Green, a networking/charity event and the highlight of the Marketing calendar. This event is a great example of the attitudes held at Clapham & Collinge, a top-donating firm of solicitors, towards community outreach and social responsibility.
If you were at Lunch on the Green you may have recognised me from roles such as setting up the PA system, securing the red carpet in place and carrying more sausage rolls than before thought humanly possible.
In the days leading up to the event, I was responsible for packing 250 goody bags with close to 40 individual items (a job from which my cuticles may never recover), setting up multiple marquees and generally mucking in with the effort, all round.
This was just the tip of the iceberg however and it cannot be understated the amount of work that went into producing such a well-orchestrated and successful event in Lunch on the Green, much of which taken on by Louis Hilldrup-Boorman, Marketing Manager at Clapham & Collinge, whose diligent efforts began months before my arrival.
The main event was far from a modest fundraiser and featured a Lamborghini Aventador, giant, gilded hare statues, copious hand delivered hors d'oeuvre, strawberries and cream, live music and wine tasting. Needless to say, Lunch on the Green was thoroughly enjoyed by all attendees and according to the feedback we have received, we can consider it an emphatic success.
Upon reflection, I couldn't be happier with what I learned as part of the marketing team over the week. Marketing, specifically event planning, demands seamless communication with the team, a cool head under pressure and ultimately a commitment to hard work to guide the project fluidly to its satisfying denouement.
Other than this however, I gained valuable insight into Clapham & Collinge as a firm. An outsider's perspective on business, especially with regard to the legal world, yields expectations of a cut-throat and cold environment. My experience at Clapham & Collinge flies in the face of this stereotype.
In just a week here, I was made to feel so welcome by all of the staff I came in contact with. Not out of a false, professional façade of friendliness but by something far more genuine and humbling. Being a smaller firm does grant the possibility for a more personable approach but this is not granted automatically. At Clapham & Collinge there is a culture of respect and friendliness which I can confirm from my time here extends to the largest clients, all the way down to the lowly work experience boy. It is instilled in all members of the firm, all the way up to the top. It is these, intangible and highly valuable attributes possessed by Clapham & Collinge that undoubtedly play a significant role in their unassailable growth and popularity in the past decade.
Clapham & Collinge had nothing to gain from me, and yet I left feeling like I had been given so much.
Written by Gabriel Meurer-Wilde, work experience student at Clapham & Collinge Solicitors.
