This is Allens

It's almost 19 years to the day since I received an out-of-the-blue call from Allens asking if I'd like to come in for an interview. There were no lawyers in my family, so I remember excitedly telling my parents I'd just received a potential job offer from the confectionery company! It's a small comfort that, two decades later, the firm still regularly receives emails from people asking about lollies.

At my interview the following morning, the partner eyed me suspiciously before asking whether she'd possibly seen me on stage just last weekend doing a naked one-handed cartwheel. I nodded slowly, nervous that my law revue antics might already have crushed my chances of landing a paralegal role. Happily though, she broke into a huge grin, ushered me inside and insisted I tell more about my 'creative' exploits. We became, and remain, great friends.

A lot's happened since that first interview. The firm's changed its name twice (I still have an 'Allen Allen & Hemsley' beanie somewhere); I did my stints as a paralegal and lawyer; and, after several years of practice with the banking and intellectual property teams, left for an in‑house role with the UK TV production company ITV. There were to be some strange days ahead.

Someone once remarked that the only way my CV would ever truly make sense was if I became a lawyer for a TV show whilst also playing a lawyer on that show… and writing it. I suppose for a while I came close.

For a number of years I wrote and hosted a show on the ABC, then shifted full-time into media in all its many guises: advertising, creative consultancy, speech writing, script doctoring and other TV work. Often these projects were subject to ludicrous timetables, especially the daily shows which would see us research, write, rehearse, costume, shoot, edit and screen an entirely new episode from scratch in under eight hours. 'Ephemeral expertise' I called it, and to this day I credit my time at Allens as the single-best preparation for that kind of work. 

And now I'm back (an 'Allens boomerang'), putting into practice not just my legal experience but also the decade of media work that followed. It's a niche role, certainly, but one that neatly blends both disciplines – each constantly informing and improving upon the other.