8.30am I arrive at the office, turn on my computer and walk over to the other members of my team to say good morning. We have a chat about what everyone got up to last night. It's always relaxed in the mornings and I pop in to say hi to my supervising partner, Richard. As it's Friday I take him my completed trainee diary. It's been an exciting week and he asks how I'm doing and what I'm enjoying. I tell him that I have appeared in court twice and helped the senior partner by taking witness statements for a big commercial dispute. Richard asks whether my workload is too much and I tell him it's fine.

9.00am I get back to my computer to check my emails and diary for the day. I see that I have a course on at lunchtime as part of the Hugh James training academy on cognitive interviewing skills, and a mediation later. I make a mental note to plan my day around this. My first task of the day is to prepare for a client meeting at 10.30am. It is a new client referred to Hugh James through Connect2Law, a mutual referral scheme between South Wales firms, regarding a potential professional negligence claim. I review the papers sent in by the client to prepare a brief summary and chronology of events for background before the initial interview.

10.30am The client has arrived. Mared (a senior associate in the team) and I go to meet him. The interview is led by Mared, whilst I take notes. Once the client provides his version of events, both Mared and I probe further by asking questions that arise from the documents I have seen. Slowly, the full story emerges and we develop an action plan. Under Mared's supervision, I advise him what I will be doing next - obtaining and reviewing further documents and advising him on his prospects of success.

12.00pm I get back to my desk and prepare a note of the meeting. Then off to the boardroom for the course. It's very interactive. We are taught about memory recollection techniques and interpretation of body language. I come away with a useful witness interview planning technique and materials for future reference.

2.00pm Back at my desk I see a reminder that I am looking after a work placement scheme student, Beth, this afternoon. I go to meet her in the family department where she spent the morning and bring her back to my team to introduce her.

3.30pm I have a small claims mediation in the Cardiff Civil Justice Centre and I would like to find some case law to support my arguments. I have already found some but decide a more recent case would help. I therefore show Beth the Hugh James library intranet pages, where she can access all the research tools she needs. In the meantime, I prepare for the mediation.

3.30pm Beth and I arrive at the court and meet the mediator and solicitor for the other side. Beth takes notes for me so that I can revert back to our client with what happened. After an hour we finally reach an agreement which far exceeds my client's expectations.

5.00pm Back in the office, Beth writes up a note for me on the mediation, whilst I draft a letter advising the client of the outcome. I check my calendar for Monday morning and diarise the tasks I need to complete on my new file. Then an email pops up on my screen from one of the trainees on our social committee saying it's Friday drinks time in our local bar! We manage to get our first glass of wine with the rest of the trainees by 5.30pm. It's been a long and exciting week and the usual Friday drinks are the perfect way to end it.