{"id":550,"date":"2026-06-11T09:57:48","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T08:57:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/?p=550"},"modified":"2026-06-11T09:57:48","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T08:57:48","slug":"hall-brown-trainee-elected-to-represent-sheffield-junior-lawyers","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/hall-brown-trainee-elected-to-represent-sheffield-junior-lawyers\/","title":{"rendered":"HALL BROWN TRAINEE ELECTED TO REPRESENT SHEFFIELD JUNIOR LAWYERS"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">A trainee at Hall Brown Family Law has been elected as President of the body representing junior lawyers in Sheffield.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Megan Woodcock was chosen to serve a 12-month term by committee members of the city\u2019s Junior Lawyers\u2019 Division (JLD).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sheffield born and bred, she joined Hall Brown in 2023 as a Paralegal and took up a training contract with the firm in September last year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ms Woodcock described how she aimed to improve collaboration between other similar organisations across the north during her JLD tenure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cBeing a young lawyer myself, it is a privilege to be asked to lead initiatives to help my peers not only establish careers of their own but to thrive in them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cIn addition to our professional development work, we try to make young lawyers comfortable in networking with each other as well as individuals in different professions \u2013 something which can provide long-term benefits.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI came into law without any family connections to the industry and, together with my JLD colleagues, am very much aware of the importance of making it a more accessible profession, regardless of background.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cI am also aware that whereas some JLDs in the South East have joined forces on a regional basis to further capitalise on the advantages which they represent for young lawyers, there is no collaboration of that sort in the North.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">\u201cThat is something which I want to address in order to enable the more inexperienced members of the legal profession to prosper by being more connected and learning from each other\u2019s experiences.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ms Woodcock\u2019s election as Sheffield JLD President comes two years after she became one of 11 members of the body\u2019s ruling committee, with specific responsibility for representing practices which have eight trainees or fewer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The city\u2019s JLD is part of a national network which was created by the Law Society in 2008 in partnership with the Trainee Solicitors\u2019 Group and the Young Solicitors\u2019 Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a result, local groups in some areas, such as Sheffield, Leeds and Liverpool opted to rebrand as JLDs, whilst those in other places, like Manchester, chose to retain their historic names.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Irrespective of location or title, the network is designed to \u201csupport, connect and empower junior lawyers\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Ms Woodcock explained that the Sheffield structure draws members from as far afield as Chesterfield and Derby, and also boasts impressive links with bodies representing the junior intake of other professions, such as financial services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Her selection is another fillip for Hall Brown, which set up premises in Sheffield in April 2020.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It has since become the only family law practice in the South Yorkshire region to be ranked in the top tier in two of the country\u2019s leading legal rankings, Legal 500 and Chambers and Partners.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Partner and head of the Sheffield office, Alison Fernandes, was included in both directories as a Leading Partner, while consultants Martin Loxley and Zoe Round featured in Legal 500\u2019s Hall of Fame. Zoe was also named as one of Chambers and Partners\u2019 Senior Statespeople.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Earlier this year, Hall Brown also completed yet another clean sweep in the most prestigious domestic and international tables, adding top billing in Doyle\u2019s Guide to prominent shows in Legal 500, Chambers and Partners, eprivateclient and the Times\u2019 own rankings.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">In May, the firm was named one of the UK\u2019s Best Places to Work for the third year in a row, recognised as one of the 10 very best medium-sized companies in the annual listing compiled by the Sunday Times.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A trainee at Hall Brown Family Law has been elected as President of the body representing junior lawyers in Sheffield. Megan Woodcock was chosen to serve a 12-month term by committee members of the city\u2019s Junior Lawyers\u2019 Division (JLD). Sheffield born and bred, she joined Hall Brown in 2023 as a Paralegal and took up &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/2026\/06\/11\/hall-brown-trainee-elected-to-represent-sheffield-junior-lawyers\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;HALL BROWN TRAINEE ELECTED TO REPRESENT SHEFFIELD JUNIOR LAWYERS&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":551,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-550","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-latestnews"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=550"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":552,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/550\/revisions\/552"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/551"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=550"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=550"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.sheffieldlawsociety.co.uk\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=550"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}