Sarah King

Sarah knew she wanted to pursue employment law since the start of her career so she joined a niche employment law practice in the Midlands, where she became one of the few female equity partners in the area at just 31 years of age. However, work pressures from her role forced her to have to choose between work and her young family.

“Excello made the move easy in terms of systems and services provided and George and Jo were very approachable, but being a partner, you have a lot of commercial restrictions, so it was a standing start for me, having to build stuff up. It was hard work in the beginning – I wouldn’t change it now.”

Working smarter

Sarah works just as hard as  she used to, but to suit her and she no longer has to sacrifice her time with her family.

“I don’t have to answer to anybody else. For example, if I wanted to take holidays, I don’t have to ask permission, because my clients can still contact me. I can do condensed hours, long hours, I can fit around school and I don’t have to justify my time to anybody. So long as the work gets done, my clients are happy.”

In addition to spending more time with her family, moving to Excello Law has also enabled Sarah to take on other roles outside of work. She is a part time employment judge in the Employment Tribunal and is able to balance this with her everyday legal work. Sarah is also a published author, having written a book covering employment law issues typically found in the commercial world.

“I think you have to be organised. The Excello model attracts people who have been partners or are used to working with autonomy because you don’t have somebody handing you work. You have to be the sort of person who’s willing to roll up their sleeves.”

All-round support

Sarah’s success has also been evidenced by the growth of her practice. She has built a team to support her, and works from a dedicated office, as well as from home when she needs to.

“I have a meeting room and a main office, and an office at home as well. I have worked in the London and Birmingham offices and sometimes I visit them if I’m meeting another colleague in the area.”

At Excello Law, Sarah taps into the business development support available to all lawyers. She updates her own website regularly and engages frequently with PR and marketing to raise her and her practice’s profile, while also working closely with other Excello employment lawyers.

“Our employment team is really collaborative. We have regular meetings and come up with marketing initiatives. We’ve done banners, training events, data cards, we do quite a bit together.”

Sarah is also often in touch with our other lawyers around the country, referring work to the commercial law teams and getting referrals from other lawyers. Her new work-life balance also allows her to make the most of Excello’s networking and events opportunities.

“In normal circumstances, we have regional events and seasonal events and our employment team also meets up to have lunch and spend the whole day catching up. Sometimes we have events with a scheduled speaker, or Excello organise really unusual stuff that I wouldn’t take the time to do myself, such as the tour of the Globe Theatre or the Royal Opera House, as well as archery and clay pigeon shooting. All these give us the ability to network within Excello at the various events. So there’s that collaborative side that we also get to enjoy outside of our day-to-day work. During lockdown we have moved networking online such as coffee mornings, quizzes and a book club.”