Speaking on a recent episode of The Protégé Podcast, she reflected on how she got experience in law firms while studying and the benefits of doing so.

Ms Moon grew up in Bega, NSW, and is the first in her family to study and be admitted to practise law. She now works primarily in personal injury.

“I started with Acorn Lawyers 18 months ago, and it’s been a really good change for me. Acorn Lawyers is a full-service law firm. They have offices primarily in Wollongong and Warrawong, but also in Nara and Sydney. They’re one of the oldest full-service law firms in the Wollongong area. And so, I work primarily in the personal injury team, but I also work a little bit in civil litigation generally,” she said.

“I’ve been an associate since June 2022. They actually promoted me just a few months after I started with Acorn, which was such a nice surprise. It was lovely. Over the next couple of years, I’ll be working my way towards a senior associate role and also just trying to branch out a little bit more into that civil litigation area to sort of give me a bit of a broader practice area.”

Until Ms Moon started studying at university, however, she “literally” didn’t know a single lawyer but was “lucky enough” to meet a sole practitioner while working at a café.

“I’d been home working during the uni break at a café and one of our regular clients that was coming in actually and he was a sole practitioner and was interested in what I’d been doing and studying at university and offered me some work experience. And that was fantastic for me. I got to get a little bit of exposure to the things that you see day to day when you’re working but that are really out of context when you don’t have any experience. That’s things like preparing a brief to counsel or knowing what legal software looks like. And that was my first little stepping stone into understanding a little bit about what a lawyer does day to day,” she explained.

“This sole practitioner, who’s such a lovely man, and his wife used to look after the bookkeeping there and also was his receptionist, and her sister’s, auntie or something like that, knew somebody working at Slater & Gordon in Wollongong and she was able to actually put me in contact with somebody who could find the work experience for me at Slater & Gordon. And that was my first sort of proper exposure to a big working law firm. So, I did a little bit of work experience with Slater & Gordon, and that was fantastic. And that actually led on to my first paid role down the track a few years later. But I think that work experience is really crucial for law students coming through who don’t have any connection to the legal profession.”

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During the course of her degree, Ms Moon put her hand up for any work experience she could get – and emphasised the importance of doing so early on in one’s career.

“During my second year of uni, when I was doing this work experience with Slater & Gordon, the University of Wollongong actually requires you to do four weeks of work experience during your second or third year of study. So, you need to tick that box before you’re able to graduate,” she added.

“So rather than just doing that work experience that was compulsory, I threw myself into getting every bit of practical experience that I could and doing these extra four-week blocks during uni break so that I could get a bit more background experience so that when I was ready to go and apply for a paid role, I already had a little bit of experience behind me and could get my foot into the door.”

To achieve this, Ms Moon said she would go to law offices with a printed résumé before eventually getting her first paid role in the later years of her degree.

“I’d gone by the office with my printed résumé, left it at the front desk with a cover letter. And I think I got a call back about two days later. I can still so vividly remember my mum happened to be up in Wollongong that weekend and we were at a shopping centre, and I got a phone call on the Saturday. And they’d offered me a two-day-a-week paid position, and Mum and I were just squealing. We were so excited that it was just like I had finally gotten in there and got that foot through the door for a paid role,” she recalled.

“So, I’m very old school in that manner, but I think the biggest tip that I would have is to start getting experience early on. I’ve got friends and other colleagues that I’ve worked with that had a really tough time trying to get into that paid position, particularly once you get to fifth year or PLT stage of their career. Because, obviously, employers, when they’re taking on and they’re paying a lawyer’s salary, once you’ve been admitted, they want somebody with a bit more experience behind them. So, I think the earlier you start that, the easier it’s going to be down the track.”

The transcript of this podcast episode was slightly edited for publishing purposes. To listen to the full conversation with Samantha Moon, click below: