In her own words: Natasha Francis-Thompson
In every issue, we hear from a CILEX member about how they started out and their career journey. Natasha Francis-Thompson tells her story
Natasha Francis-Thompson spent much of her childhood on the stage. She began acting at three, was a classically trained dancer at 12 and toured Europe as well as presenting children’s TV.
After she finished stage school at 18, she took the decision to give up acting and pursue a legal career, starting out as a legal secretary and studying with CILEX whilst bring up her young son. Fast forward 25 years and she’s now heading a team of specialist case handlers at Admiral Law, responsible for over 3,000 child personal injury claims.
“I’d been acting for years but as I approached my 20s it became clear to me that I needed to make a choice – move from Bristol to London and make a serious go of it or get a stable job with decent pay. I had studied law at A-Level and it had always interested me, so I took a job at Clarke Willmott working as a trainee legal secretary.
I enjoyed the work and was all set to apply to university to study law when I fell pregnant with my son. That route into a legal career was no longer going to be practical for me, so when my manager explained the CILEX route to qualification, I jumped at the chance to combine studying with work.
It was incredibly hard. I went back to the firm when my son was only five months old and shortly afterwards started studying in the evenings alongside my full-time job. I was determined to qualify and, coming from a traditional West Indian family, many of whom had professional qualifications, education was incredibly important – I wanted them to be proud of me.
An emotional journey
As far as I was concerned, failure was not an option. It took a lot of strength to keep going and it was a stressful time, but I had support from my family as well as colleagues and partners where I worked who helped me get there. When I found out I had qualified after six and a half years of studying, it was an emotional moment and I remember to this day opening that envelope with the news that I’d passed.
During my studies, I moved from Clarke Willmott to Lyons Davidson and later Co-op Legal Services as a paralegal and then a trainee legal executive. I had planned to go into conveyancing but ended up in personal injury after my manager suggested it might be a better fit for me.
She was right – I loved it and, after I specialised, I never considered anything else. I joined DAS Law and worked mainly on child psychiatric claims involving large losses and multi-track litigation until five years ago when I was offered a job at Admiral Law as a team manager leading a team of fast-track case handlers.
I’d always taken on extra responsibility for mentoring and coaching interns and trainees – I enjoyed helping people on their way into the profession and found the experience helped me build my own skills and knowledge. That paid off when the Admiral team saw that I had the people skills needed to motivate and develop a team.
Standing out
Being Black and female in this industry means I’ve had a lot to fight against. I wasn’t always treated well at work and was more often than not the only Black person in the room, but I was not going to let that dictate what I did with my career.
“Being Black and female in this industry means I’ve had a lot to fight against”
At Admiral, I argued for bringing together all child personal injury cases to be run by one, specialist team, working on each case from inception through to litigation. This was a different way of working for the business which generally has separate teams working on different stages of a claim.
I knew we could do this in a cost-effective and efficient way that would see clients receive a high level of service. Admiral gave me the chance to make it work and my team of case handlers now look after over 3,000 files across the business, growing from three to eight people since the beginning of this year.
Opening doors
I can’t fault the CILEX route into law. It enabled me to learn and earn, and gave me the soft skills I often find lacking in the book-smart solicitors and barristers I have managed. It’s not an easy path – you need a lot of hard work and determination – but it opens doors and I recommend it to aspiring lawyers I work with.
Someone took a chance on me at 19 and set me on this path. I want to do the same for others, particularly those from backgrounds under-represented in the legal profession. It’s important to me to support and inspire them, giving them the confidence to achieve their potential without compromising who they are and their values.
I’m not sure what the future holds but I’m always looking to progress and explore new opportunities. I’ve seen CILEX’s programmes for members interested in a career in the judiciary and would consider applying to become a judge – that would be an amazing achievement.