Jessica Taylor shares her training and experience working at John M Hayes.
Background
Before joining John M Hayes, I had an in-house costs role with a firm of solicitors specialising in personal injury. My day to day case load dealt with inter partes costs on industrial disease and road traffic accident claims but after just one year, the monotony and routine had begun to tell. It definitely encouraged me to look elsewhere and to explore an option for a more varied caseload which came to me through an opportunity with John M Hayes.
My new role
My new role came with the benefit of a dedicated trainer (John Tooley) who worked with me on a one to one basis until I had learned new skills to add to my existing knowledge and experience including legal aid work. From working on exclusively inter partes files, I now found that my case load also included care, criminal, housing and civil files and that I was working on instructions from numerous different solicitor firms which kept and continues to keep my interest in the job. The variety is great.
Opportunities
Once a year, every regional office meets in Chesterfield (about mid point for the country) for what is, in the simplest terms a catch up. Each regional manager outlines what has happened in their office across the year, introduces new recruits; we talk about growth in the company and any interesting or notable developments at local level. I think this helps the other regional offices grow through shared knowledge of working practice – all of which helps make costing that much easier!
From my own personal experience of attending the conference last year, I enjoyed talks from and meeting, John M Hayes and the CEO of the company, Kate Oliver as well as new learning experiences with integrated costs seminars, meeting all the people who work for company, sharing great food and surroundings at the CASA hotel.
Cost Consultant Role
After about four months at John M Hayes I opted to become a costs consultant for the flexibility this provides in my working life. This flexibility allows me to avoid traffic jams, early morning starts and to have more time at home with my pug!
Overall although my job title still says that I am a costs draftsman everything else about working for John M Hayes is completely different to working in an in-house costs role. The huge variety and flexibility of work keeps me focused and prevents any opportunity for boredom to set in - in fact, I often find myself working late into the evening to complete files by choice – something I would never have said about my previous job.
Jessica Taylor works from our Manchester Office and can be contacted on jessica.taylor@johnmhayes.co.uk or please call 0161 835 4087
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