Matthew Montanaro is a Senior Associate (Technical Specialist) and Solicitor in our Family Care team. We caught up with him to get an insight into his role and his time at Brethertons.
1. What are the key priorities in your role?
Achieving my KRA’s (Key Result Areas) is important as they define how I can achieve success. Being able to help others within the team, provide excellent service to our clients and exceeding Finance and Risk targets is crucial to me.
2. What aspects of your role do you most enjoy?
Serving our clients to the highest standards is important to me. As a team, we deal with complex cases which create interesting legal and technical challenges. Being part of that team and assisting others within it is very rewarding.
3. What aspects of your role challenge you?
Time management is very important as there are lots of competing interests I need to manage everyday. The fact I am often in Court makes that more challenging but, remote access and my iPhone assist greatly.
4. What aspects of your work do you find most interesting?
I am a litigator and no day is ever the same. Some days the plan I had in mind is in pieces by 9:30am, others are more routine; but never the same. I work for children who have real problems in their lives so it is very rewarding when we can make things better for them.
5. What support do you have in the firm and in your team?
We are a pure litigation team, very little of our work is not in Court. We have to have access to quick secretarial support with legal assistants holding fort whilst we are in Court and paralegals to help us manage our cases.
6. How have you developed in your role since you started in it?
‘With great power comes great responsibility’ probably sums it up - although great power might be overstating it! I now have a closer working relationship with our DOL (Director of Legal services) and HOPA (Head of Practice Area) and our focus is extended far beyond my own casework to the whole team.
7. Where do you see your career/skills/knowledge developing at Brethertons?
There is now a very clear path for progression through the firm which has made things very transparent. It is possible to look at the KRA requirements for the next level up and say “what do I need to do next” to achieve promotion. After that it’s about hard work and application to achieve those KRA’s.
8. What do you enjoy most about the firm and our structure?
The new structure rewards those who achieve and encourages excellence. It allows for growth and development of individuals to benefit them and the firm. The clear development path, and the ability to either be a technical specialist or management and development specialist means that it is no longer necessary to have to be a manager to progress.
9. If someone is considering applying for a Senior Associate (Technical Specialist) role at Brethertons, is there anything you would like to share with them?
I would always suggest starting out by going through the KRA’s for the role and working out where any gaps are. The application is not complicated but challenging because it relies a lot on examples of things you may have forgotten you had done. Spending some time making notes against the KRA’s with examples to demonstrate them helps enormously.
If you are interested in hearing about Senior Associate (TS) opportunities at Brethertons, please have a look at our vacancies page or get in touch with David Langstone.
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