Kahema M

Profile:

During my formative years at school, my life had been disrupted several times by the loss of a parent and emigrating from Zambia to the UK. I’d gone through six schools in 5 years, I’d moved around so much that I had been more focused on starting to enjoy school than thinking about what to do with my future.

My GCSE’s weren’t stellar,  A levels are when I started to think more about what I was going to do with my future. I decided to study Law with International Relations at the University of Surrey due to my interest in political and legal affairs. I took the time to research more about a legal career and was initially dissuaded to enter the profession. This was exacerbated by the fact that I never saw many people that looked like me or from non-Russell group universities. Involvement in many extra-curricular activities built up my confidence and belief that I too was capable of attaining a training contract at a large international firm so that I could fulfil my desire to work on African projects.

Despite graduating without a training contract or vacation scheme, I continued to apply rigorously while working part-time retail roles. I was successfully accepted on Clyde & Co’s Vacation scheme where I completed two weeks in International Arbitration. I will be commencing my training contract in August 2020 after completing the LPC Msc at the University of Law.

As a Black British African, diversity is incredibly important to me, if you don’t have exposure to the right guidance or role models, by the time you find out about applying for schemes and placements, you can be years behind already. It’s important that I must assist students who might feel dissuaded from entering the profession.

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