Pathways to Law (and Love)

Emma-Louise Charnock is a Finance lawyer at DLA Piper in London. Her husband Nathan Charnock, is a Data and Technology lawyer at A&O Shearman and Co-Chair of the firm’s Social Mobility Network. For a special Valentine’s Day alumni story, our Head of Alumni Engagement, Marie-Rose Delauzun sat down with Emma and Nathan to chat about their memories of the 2009/10 Sutton Trust Pathways to Law programme,  their career journey since, and how it brought them together.

Emma grew up on the Isle of Wight and, alongside her A-levels, participated in the Pathways to Law programme at the University of Southampton. Nearly 300 miles away, having grown up in Chorley, Lancashire, Nathan completed the same programme at the University of Manchester. They met in the summer of 2010 at the Pathways to Law national conference held at the University of Warwick, where students from across the country meet and spend a few days together attending workshops and presentations. 15 years later after qualifying as solicitors, they are married with a one-year-old daughter and both continue to champion social mobility!

ST – How did you each discover the Pathways to Law programme?

Emma: “It was a teacher at my school, a local state comprehensive, that first introduced me to the Pathways to Law programme. I had a vague interest in criminal law (mostly thanks to watching crime dramas and documentaries on TV and the fact both my Dad and Grandad were Prison Officers) but I didn’t know what a career in law would entail or what options were available. The programme sounded like a good place to start.”

Nathan: “My story is very similar. Like Emma, I was lucky to have hard-working parents who encouraged me to seize opportunities. But I grew up in a working class environment and didn’t really have any connections with people in professional careers, or the legal sector. It was Pathways to Law programme, and the teacher that introduced me to it, that gave me that initial ‘leg-up’ and the chance to explore the profession.”

ST – Can you tell us a little more about what you got out of the programme?

Nathan: “A wife, a family and a whole bunch of skills and confidence to pursue a law degree and a career!

The programme provided lots of great opportunities. We visited the civil courts and carried out a mock trial and we visited law firms, barrister’s chambers and the inns of court in London. We also had the opportunity to undertake some work experience – I spent three days at a national law firm, in their personal injury team – and we participated in various essential skills sessions and application workshops to help build our CVs.

For me, it was those the skills workshops that were particularly useful in helping me to develop confidence. As a teenager and particularly early in my career, I’ve always been conscious of my northern accent, always had that imposter syndrome in the back of my mind saying that that I don’t belong in a law firm environment. It was the Pathways programme that gave me a real confidence that there were opportunities there for me in the legal sector and that I could develop the skills and thrive in that environment.”

Emma:  “Yes I agree. For me there were two other important benefits of the programme. First it was the insight into university life. I didn’t know anyone who had been to university so it felt quite daunting at first going over (on the ferry!) to a university campus for the Pathways sessions. But the programme really helped me experience that university environment and get more familiar with it before applying to study for a degree.

Another great benefit was that the programme gives you a network of people, in addition to those who you meet at university, that you can access later down the line. We still have good friends and contacts from the programme 15 years on.”

Nathan: “That’s right. Some of those friends went into law and some into other fantastic careers using the skills they no doubt built on the programme. I think the beauty of the programme is that you can still get something out of it (even if you ultimately decided that law isn’t a career for you).”

ST – That sounds great. We would love to hear more about how you met on the programme, and how life took you from opposite ends of the country to where you are today?

Emma:“We remember meeting briefly on the first day of the conference in Warwick. Nathan’s tall so I spotted him across the room! We were both part of a group of around 10 students from Manchester and Southampton that spent most of the week together, and we just seemed to click, which was great.”

Nathan: “Yeah. Over the course of the four days, we got chatting more and more. And ultimately, the night before we left, we just swapped numbers and then started messaging on the coach back…What I’ve left out is that Emma was the one that came up to me and asked me for my number!”

Emma:  “I did do that, it was very unlike me!”

Nathan: “We met up six weeks later in Bristol for a few days (halfway between where we lived), and we hit it off from there. In that first year, we had a long distance relationship, but we used the excuse of university tours to meet each other every 6 weeks or so whilst we finished our A-Levels.”

Emma: “We then both studied law at the University of Manchester from 2011 and we moved down to London in early 2015 to start our careers. Fast forward to 2022 and we were married after the pandemic! And we even had a couple of Sutton Trust alumni friends in attendance.”

Marriage photo of Emma and Nathan

 

ST – And in 2023, you welcomed your daughter, who is the first (that we know of!) officially socially mobile Pathways to Law offspring! It’s great to see that our programmes really help students develop a range of skills and experience – but a lifelong relationship is a truly unexpected and heartwarming addition!

Nathan: “Thank you. Yes. The Sutton Trust programme is where is all started for us. It helped us both pursue exciting careers in the city but more importantly, it allowed us to find each other and to start a family. For that, we are both very grateful.”

ST – I know you both continue to champion social mobility in your workplaces, can you tell us more about this?

Emma: “Yes of course. At DLA Piper we’re proud to support the Pathways to Law programme, We host students from the programme each year so they can get some work experience and see what it is like to work at a large commercial law firm. I’ve been involved in running several workshops for the students and its really nice to still be connected with the programme and the students so many years later”

Nathan: “For my part, at A&O Shearman, I’ve been involved in much of the firm’s work on social mobility since I joined as a trainee back in 2015 and I now Co-Chair our firm Social Mobility Network. It’s really important for the success of our business that we attract and retain talent from a diverse range of backgrounds. We invest a lot of time and effort running programmes and supporting social mobility initiatives to make this happen.

I think I can speak for us both when I say that we feel fortunate and proud to work for organisations that support programmes like Pathways to Law, but also ‘walk the talk” on a daily basis and create environments in which our people can thrive, regardless of their background.”

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