As part of our 'meet the team' series, we talk to paralegal Laura Pediani about client service, building relationships, and trips to the beach.
Laura is one of Mewburn Ellis’ paralegals, based in the Manchester office. She moved back to the Northwest a couple of years ago, after seven years working in the firm’s London office. “I grew up in Blackpool and moved to London in 2010,” she explains. “I lived there for 11 years and loved the vibrancy of the city, the music scene, and the modern approach to life, but with the pandemic it felt like the time was right to move back. Luckily I was able to stay at the firm and just relocate offices.”
Laura initially joined Mewburn in 2014 as a secretary, after four years working in fashion merchandising at head office locations in London. “I have a strong interest in fashion, particularly mid-century vintage styles, however in that role I was finding the administrative and organisational elements of it were the parts I really liked. I built good relationships with the store managers and enjoyed sorting things out for the merchandising team,” she explains. “It was tough to give up the 50% discount and clothing allowance,” she jokes, “but it was the right move and I’ve been able to really come into my own here”.
A steppingstone
The paralegal route appealed to Laura as the steppingstone from her secretarial role and she now has more of an opportunity to build stronger relationships with clients.
“It was a natural progression for me as I was already doing some paralegal-type work within my team. I enjoy being able to advise clients when they come to me with queries,” she says. “I’d say I’m a natural helper and it’s great to get positive feedback from clients and attorneys I work with. Building those relationships both in and outside of the company and learning to anticipate client or attorney needs is something I really love.”
Day-to-day Laura coordinates and manages bespoke workflow processes and handles the formality requirements of filing and prosecuting patents and designs. She works for a variety of businesses, from large engineering and pharmaceutical companies to patent law firms and even universities and UK start-ups. On this point she notes “different clients have different requirements, and you have to understand what those might be without them necessarily telling you. The hardest part is juggling multiple requirements and making sure they all receive good service without any balls dropping”.
Getting involved
In addition to her paralegal role, Laura enjoys getting involved in other opportunities at Mewburn. She spent a year on the Sustainability Committee noting “when the Sustainability Committee was formed, I jumped at the chance to join, I thought this was a great way of tapping into my core values around environmental issues and sharing that interest with others. Not many people know I have a Master’s degree in environmental management and I almost went down the environmental career path”.
However, experiencing an increased workload after taking on a new client and a desire to focus on mentoring within her team, Laura decided to take a step back from the Committee. “If I could do everything I would” she says. Last year Laura mentored a new starter within the paralegal team and has put herself forward to mentor again this year. “There have been some fantastic internal training sessions and resources focusing on soft skills. They’ve helped me to learn more about myself and hopefully improve my communication style. It all goes back to building those relationships”.
Aerial hoop and birdwatching
Outside of work, Laura has recently discovered aerial hoop classes which she says are “painful and exhausting but definitely the most rewarding thing I’ve done. It’s a full body workout, but you have to make it look graceful too”.
She also likes to be outdoors, with walks on the beach and birdwatching high on the list, “I like to head to the beach as I only live a short drive away, it’s especially fun after work during the warm summer evenings. In the winter I go on the weekend, there’s lots of waterfowl and wading birds to see, including the curlew which is in decline. In the summer the ringed plovers nest on the beach, last year I saw a ringed plover chick running across the sand and that made me smile”.
