Our World | The Power of Three: Opportunity, Learning and Reflection

Meet Mary-ann Nsowah , Megan Lim and Finlay Baines who recently completed a two-week work placement with our Group Legal Team.?

Megan is entering her final years’ study for a law degree, while Finlay has just finished his final examinations in May, and Mary Ann completed her degree in 2023. ?They share their stories about their work experience with the Our World team and show how RS is helping to build skills and inspire the next generation.?

“Spending two weeks with RS has given us fantastic opportunities and exposure to a corporate working environment”, Finlay Baines says. “It’s many aspiring lawyers’ dream to be a partner in a big law firm or work inhouse for a large corporate organisation, but there is less information about in-house roles available to law students. ?This work experience opportunity has provided us with great exposure because we get to work? alongside Andy James, General Counsel and the RS inhouse Legal team, while completing a diverse spread of projects, across a range of legal disciplines. I was pleasantly surprised about the genuine effort that the team made to make sure we faced stimulating work, accelerating our professional development. ?

“But beyond this, what I have really valued, was the exposure to so many other corporate disciplines; I have bumped into members of the Information Security, compliance, and corporate development teams, spending hours absorbing their wisdom. Having honest and critical discussions with such a wide range of elite professionals has been invaluable for my career alignment and clarity”. he said.?

“RS is really helping to lead the way”, Mary Ann Nsowah adds, “providing work experience opportunities for young people. It’s a tough market out there and work experience, let alone jobs in the legal profession, in London, are very competitive.?I?was a scholarship student at a leading Russel Group University – and since graduating – it has proven difficult to navigate the job market and ultimately secure full-time legal placements.? We’ve had the opportunity of meeting and networking with colleagues across RS, as well as with one of the large legal firms RS uses. Having this exposure and outreach over the past two weeks has given me confidence and been really beneficial; this will also help strengthen?my CV and hopefully broaden my scope with more career opportunities”, she said.

Andy James , says: “This is the seventh year running our Legal team have offered work experience opportunities to young, emerging lawyers, and this year thanks to efforts of Legal Director, Laura Leanca we took a deliberate step to reach a much more diverse pool of candidates.? While these placements are a crucial component of a young person’s career development, offering them practical experience and exposure to various industries, also helps us as an organisation to learn and meet with fresh talent.? It’s a win-win situation for everyone involved,” he said.

“Spending two weeks with RS has given us fantastic opportunities and exposure to a corporate working environment”

Megan Lim is an international student from Malaysia who is in her last year of legal studies at Bristol university. “We learn a lot of theory at university, so through this work experience I’ve come to see a lot of this theory put into action. While the past two weeks have been great – it’s been very short!? It would be really helpful if the two weeks could be extended to a month, or maybe even six weeks?? We were paid by RS while doing our work experience which was great, but all of us felt had we been given the opportunity of staying longer – (even without any pay) – we would have jumped at the chance!”

Last word comes from Mary Ann: “While at university I also studied sociology and was really interested in gender and ethnicity and the law; at the start of our week work experience we were shown a diversity and inclusion video, followed by a discussion as to how RS is looking to move forward.? There seems to be a healthy culture and environment in the business, and I hope through the RS example, lots of other young people get to have similar work experiences too”, she said.