The Shetlanders: the long distance lawyer

Many city-based office workers would give their eye teeth for a working environment offering scenic window views and screen breaks that involve taking a leisurely lunchtime stroll through the countryside.

That is precisely what lawyer Jennifer Sim is able to enjoy after taking advantage of the radical changes to working culture fast-tracked by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Growing up in Shetland during the 1990s, there was an unspoken assumption that pursuing a high-flying career in many professions would mean settling elsewhere.

But rapid technological change and an opportunity presented by the first 2020 lockdown have allowed Jennifer to leave the commuting lifestyle behind – while carrying on doing the job she loves.

Jennifer grew up in Shetland and moved away in 2012 to study law at Edinburgh University. She assumed while doing her training – focused strongly on EU law as well as studying German – that her career aspirations would land her somewhere like London or Brussels after she qualified.

“If you’d told me when I was starting university that I would one day return to Shetland to live and work as a lawyer for Scotland’s largest law firm, I don’t think I would have believed you,” she says.

After completing her training, including a year at university in Munich, she took up a post in Edinburgh with Brodies LLP. “At that time I didn’t anticipate ever being able to move home without making a career change”, she says, having assumed the corporate law route was “mainly confined” to major cities.

When her workplace shut down at the start of the pandemic in March 2020, in common with many other city dwellers Jennifer faced the prospect of being locked down in a flat with no garden.

Instead she packed her work kit in the car and headed north to Shetland for what she initially thought would be a couple of weeks. “I thought, it’s a nice opportunity to go home and see family and friends.”

More than two and a half years later she is still here, the move having become permanent as she continues her Brodies role remotely while reaping the many benefits of life in her native island.

Covid-19 has “only accelerated change that was already happening, and people are realising that there are other options when it comes to where we work”, Jennifer says.

“The work I do is very international so it doesn’t really have any impact whether I’m in the city,” she explains.

Jennifer continues to support Brodies’ global clients on corporate deals from her office in the eco-friendly new home she and her husband Ray McGinlay have built in Tingwall, just a few miles outside Lerwick.

The process of relocating was helped by a supportive employer whose management are “pretty happy for people to be working remotely”.

“We have a lot of clients up here, so it’s quite helpful,” she explains, highlighting a recent study concluding that the Northern Isles is one of the UK’s leading entrepreneurial areas.

Jennifer cites large-scale projects including renewable energy and the Shetland Space Centre among the factors that see the islands “generating its fair share of excitement” in the legal industry.

Brodies has its main office hubs in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Inverness and London, and already had lawyers working remotely based in Skye and Orkney. But Jennifer is the first to do so from Shetland.

Relationships between colleagues at Brodies, she says, are “all built on trust” and “treating people like grown-ups”.

“If you trust someone enough to be your employee, you trust them not to mess around. The results will speak for themselves. There’s always going to be a minority of people who take advantage, but I think generally people work harder from home.”

Jennifer acknowledges there are downsides to working remotely, and particularly for new team members it will be a “very different experience” to her own initial time with Brodies, but she feels the “pros definitely outweigh the cons”.

The new way of working includes scheduling a video call every day “as if you were entering the office”. Those frequent catch-ups, meetings and conversations mean she feels “even more connected to my team and clients than ever before”.

Technology enables clients to sign documents electronically with a single click of their mobile phone – sparing them a time-consuming trip to the law firm’s office.

As an employee, too, Jennifer saves the time, expense and stress of a lengthy bus journey to and from work every day.

It gives her the chance to catch up on sleep or start the working day earlier, and ensures she has time for a gym session or a long walk outdoors during the limited hours of daylight in winter.

“We don’t live near to any of the kind of picture postcard Instagram places in Shetland, but even here we have walks that just give a sense of calm and are so peaceful.

“When employers allow that flexibility, it actually pays off for them because your wellbeing is being prioritised.”

While owners of sprawling office estates or inner-city branches of Costa and Pret a manger may object, Jennifer feels more people relocating would benefit the overall balance of the national economy – for instance, allowing her to give weekday custom to an independent, locally-owned café like The Peerie Shop or The Dowry.

“It’s good for rural places. It distributes the wealth a bit more,” she says.

City-based lawyers would be mistaken to take a dismissive attitude towards working in a remote location, describing her experience of growing up in Shetland as “far from limiting or insular”.

Attending the Anderson High School in Lerwick not only gave her a first footing in the German language but also offered many opportunities for foreign school exchanges. The community also, she points out, has a long history of trading internationally and welcoming people from overseas.

Building their own house is something Jennifer and Ray, who married in April and are now expecting their first child, would “never have been able to do if I was working in Edinburgh”, she says.

Jennifer describes Shetland as a “dynamic, thriving place to live”, adding; “I’m glad to have been able to come full circle and work in the community I grew up in.”