As part of our 'meet the team' series, we talk to paralegal, Ellie Gooding about being part of a growing firm, supporting colleagues and her love of nature.
Ellie joined Mewburn Ellis as a secretary 20 years ago, when she was just 21 years old. She has seen the firm grow significantly over the years, with big changes as it has continued to modernise.
“Technology has led to massive changes in the way we work,” she explains. “When I first started my career we had only just begun to use email to contact our clients and had walls of paper stacked up on our desks.”
When the firm introduced a new career path for the administrative team back in 2020, Ellie had the opportunity to become a paralegal. “Over the years I had gradually gained more and more experience,” she says. “The chance to move to an official paralegal role and change the job that I had been doing for so long, meant I would be able to put all that expertise to good use, so I applied.”
Ellie is now a paralegal in the firm’s Bristol office. She has a CIPA certificate in patent administration and works with biotechnology companies in the US and Europe.
She didn’t always know what she wanted to do with her career. She found the academic side of school challenging, especially studying for exams. When the time came to leave, she considered working in childcare, but eventually decided to go into secretarial work, starting her career at a firm of criminal defence solicitors where she worked for two years.
“After that I took a gap year to travel around Australia and Thailand, which soon turned into two. I had a lot of fun and when I came back I worked behind the bar at my local village pub,” explains Ellie. “Eventually I decided it was time to get a job with more regular hours and applied for a secretarial role at Mewburn Ellis.
“I enjoy organising myself and find this kind of work very calming. I love my colleagues and have developed strong friendships over the years as many of us have been here a long time. The people I work with make me really want to come into work in the morning.”
A good mentor
As the firm has grown, she has welcomed a lot of new colleagues to the team. “I’m a mentor for one of our paralegals who started working here a couple of years ago,” says Ellie. “I supported her as she came into her new role and she became a good friend. She’s now able to help me as well, and we often discuss what we are working on and share advice.”
She considers herself to be thoughtful and considerate, thinking a lot about how others might be feeling. That is perhaps why she is seen as a good mentor to those who are new to the paralegal role.
“It’s very much in my nature to help and support people and make sure they have no anxieties and worries about what they are doing,” says Ellie. “I hope that my colleagues would see me as being approachable and supportive and would know that if they needed anyone to lend an ear, I would be there to listen to them about what was troubling them, without judgement.”
She finds her day-to-day work is satisfying and enjoys delivering for clients and building good working relationships. “Recently I got the opportunity to meet one of my key clients face to face for the first time,” she says. “It was quite an important moment for me after emailing for so many years. On a personal level, I really valued the chance to meet the individual behind those emails and develop that relationship. I was pleased with the ease of our conversations and how well the meeting went. It has really helped our continued working relationship.”
Like many of her colleagues, Ellie finds the hardest part of the job is managing the workload and prioritising. “We work in a busy environment and need to do things quickly and accurately so it can be challenging,” she says.
Peace and quiet
When she’s not at work, managing patent portfolios or handling client correspondence, she can be found walking her dog. “I love to be in nature and really appreciate the peace and quiet,” says Ellie. “I live just outside Weston-super-Mare, so I’m not far from the sea and have woods nearby. I often walk up to the Mendips and admire the view.”
She has a 10-year-old son who loves golf so Ellie also spends a lot of time wondering round golf courses. “Golf courses can be very peaceful too, and the nature you get to see can be lovely,” she says. “We once got within about 15ft of a buzzard that was playing in the sand of a bunker, which was a wonderful surprise.”
