Spotlight on Leanne Jackson

NameLeanne Jackson
Role / Job TitleIT Trainer
FirmJMW Solicitors
Length of time in industry5 years
What do you like about your role?Every day is different, but always with the goal of helping people at JMW. I enjoy getting to know all members of staff regardless of their role and working closely with them, and with the departments, to ensure everything IT wise is as easy as it can be for them. JMW is currently growing with us having just opened a London office, getting to be a part of the growth and helping new starters feel at home here is great.
What is challenging within your role?Being the only IT Trainer can sometimes feel a little daunting due to the sheer amount of work involved, but ultimately the busier I am the more I enjoy my job and the less time I have to get in trouble! Finding a way of engaging fee earners and getting them to attend training can always be difficult, as can staying abreast with changes within IT but there's a strong team here at JMW and ultimately I'm never truly on my own which is nice.
What advice would you give someone starting out?Plan your day! Every morning I take ten minutes and write myself a to - do list, working through any emails I have in my inbox to ensure I don't miss anything. Having started working in Training from 18, I really had to teach myself how to prioritise and manage my workload, something you don't learn in College. Take each day as it comes and make sure you keep checking your to-do list, ticking things off as you get through them. Anything I have left at the end of the day goes on tomorrows list, some days you won't get through it all and that's okay too!
If you weren't working in legal, what do you think you'd be doing?I think i'd probably be a fee earner. I had every intention to "grow-up" and become a solicitor, but something just didn't click and that's what drove me to look at an Apprenticeship which then led to IT Training.
Tell us about an "average" day, or if every day is different tell us about a recent dayToday is going to be busy (all the best are!) I have training with our Real Estate Residential team on some new changes within our CMS. It's a nice short session, so i'll be doing two thirty minute groups. I then have an hour free to look at building some e-learning content on understanding our Accounts Ledger, this will be great for our new London office, and also for current staff to refresh their memories! I'm then meeting with this weeks new starters to go through some workflow specific training that's a little too scary for their first day. followed by a working lunch to catch up with our Training Manager. After lunch i'm running through Laptop training, and rounding off the day with a final two thirty minute sessions on the changes to our CMS with our Real Estate Residential team.
Share