Have you ever wondered what it’s like to be a Compliance Manager in a law firm? On Episode 24 of The UNCOVER Pod, I had the pleasure of sitting down with Eloise Butterworth, the Compliance Manager at Lester Aldridge, and talking about her experiences in the role. Read on to find out how she juggles a changeable workload and navigates the interpersonal relationships that make her work possible. 

What does a typical day look like in your role as a Compliance Manager?

What I like about it is that there isn’t a typical day. I cover a breadth of different topics and parts of the business, working in risk and compliance. That means that no two days are the same. You could have a plan for your day, but in my experience, it normally goes out the window by about 10:15 because it’s quite a reactive role. There are proactive elements of the job, obviously, like the big tasks and the projects within your firm, but a large proportion of it is reacting to the needs of the business that are unfolding on the ground. That definitely keeps me on my toes.

What’s your approach to balancing proactive and reactive tasks?

It can be difficult. A lot of people who work in risk and compliance are naturally pretty organised, and we like to be in control. We do have to let that go a little bit though, because because there are so many aspects of the job that you just can’t plan for. As with all jobs in a law firm, time management and the ability to prioritise are super important, and so is never panicking. No one comes to compliance for them to panic. That’s their job. Our job is to formulate and execute a plan quickly and efficiently.

What are the most common challenges you face on a day-to-day basis?

It’s the sheer volume of regulation that the legal sector is now subjected to. In practice, what that does is put a huge amount of pressure on fee earners, who are already under huge amounts of pressure from other areas of the business like client expectations, court delays, land registry delays, and everything else. I have to manage that and be able to engage with my colleagues in a way that helps them understand why I need to do all of these things and what the expectations are while still having that commercial awareness,

Have you ever encountered resistance to new measures that you implemented, and how did you address it?

It is natural in this type of role to experience some degree of pushback, especially when you’re implementing changes, because the majority of the time those changes require people to do something else besides what they’re already doing. I’m rarely able to say, ‘Guys, we don’t need to do that anymore’. So it is inevitable that I get some pushback, but I think the key is framing the reason for the changes when you’re communicating them, not as an afterthought, but when you’re setting the scene. You have to take your colleagues on a journey with you. Explain, ‘This is what we have been doing. This is what the development is. This is what it means for us as a firm, and this is what it means for you in your day-to-day practice.’ Foreseeing what those issues might be and addressing them before they’re raised is a really important skill to develop in this role. 

What is the most rewarding aspect of your role?

What I didn’t appreciate when I moved from a fee-earning role into a risk and compliance role was the extent to which I would still be helping people on a day-to-day basis. I’m just not helping clients – my clients are essentially my colleagues. It’s rewarding because the nature of my work is such that people come to me when they’re stressed or anxious about something, and I have the ability to allay those concerns, come up with a plan or help them move that matter forward. At the end of the day, they’ll go home and sleep better at night because they’re not stressing about that issue anymore. I love that aspect of the job. 

I also enjoy delivering training, because I can engage with everybody and have those conversations about what the risk and compliance team are trying to do. We’re invested in what the fee-earning teams are trying to do, which helps make the compliance function a more inclusive part of the business.

To find out more about Eloise and her role, tune into Episode 24 of The UNCOVER Pod here.