Mark Dunne - Day in the life

I start early on a Thursday when I am in the office rather than working from home. I take the bus to Dublin and check any e-mails received overnight on my iPad and make a to-do list for the day.

I arrive in the office and make myself a bowl of porridge before starting into my tasks for the day. I am working on a high value construction dispute at the moment and we are required to deliver our client’s witness statements tomorrow.  I drafted witness statements for our client to review and the client has returned the witness statements with some comments inserted. I consider these comments and update the draft witness statements to reflect the client’s input.  I send the updated versions of the witness statements to the supervising partner and schedule a call with him to discuss the updated draft witness statements in the afternoon.

I receive a call from a client with a new instruction in respect of a complaint made by a policyholder which could potentially be referred to the Financial Services and Pensions Ombudsman.  I make a note of the details of the complaint and advise the client that I will run a conflict search to confirm that we are available to act on their behalf and will confirm this with them by email.

I instruct our support team to carry out a conflict search in respect of the new instruction and review the conflict search results which confirms that we have no conflict and are free to act.  I email the client confirming that we are free to act on their behalf on the matter and request that the client send through their file so that I can review it and advise on strategy and next steps.

I hit the gym for a spinning class at lunchtime. The gym is around the corner from our office and I pick up a burrito for my lunch on my way back to the office after the class (undoing most of my good work in the gym).

I have a call with the partner to discuss the updated draft witness statements and we agree some final amendments. I update the draft witness statements following our call and issue them to the client requesting the client confirm that they are happy with the additional changes.

I receive a call from a costs accountant I instructed on an insurance coverage dispute that settled a number of weeks ago and the costs accountant advises that he has negotiated a significant discount on the costs claimed by the opposing parties’ solicitor. I email the client to confirm the good news in this regard and request instructions to agree to settle the costs at the reduced amount.