Grace Ness | Senior Associate | Clayton Utz
Before we get started a little bit about me. I am a Senior Associate at Clayton Utz in our Commercial Litigation team focussed on class actions and product liability. I have been at Clayton Utz for 10 years since starting as a graduate in 2014. During my 10 years at the firm, I have had 2 periods of parental leave where I welcomed my 2 mini-mes, Teddy and Sidney into the world in 2020 and 2022.
Can you share a pivotal moment or experience from your early days in the legal field that shaped your career path?
About 4 years into my career, I experienced what, on reflection, I consider to be a period of burnout. This experience really made me think about the way I work and how I can work best for myself and my team to ensure the sustainability of my career. I am now incredibly conscious of the much loved adage "work-life balance". I don't consider that you can actually achieve 'balance' on a daily or weekly basis - it is not a weekly achievement or goal. Balance is a lifelong cycle that I try to consider on a monthly or yearly basis. I like to think of it more work life integration or work life harmony. There are some weeks where I have to lean into work and others why my home life has to take priority (and gosh have I experienced many of those during the journey).
Lots of people think once they experience burn out within an industry or workplace the only way to move forwards is to extract yourself from that situation. However, with the support of my work and family team I have been able to move through that experience and implement changes within the way I work without making drastic changes. I really agree that "sometimes a small change could make all the difference".
What does a typical work day at [Sponsor] look like?
I encourage all people to consider when they are at their best from a work perspective. I am definitely a morning person and really like to attack the day straight away. After a period of working the standard 9-5 (or more like 8-6), I realised that I would much prefer to start earlier in the day, then take a break in the late afternoon and then log back on later if need be.
I now work full time remotely for the Melbourne office from the Barossa Valley in South Australia. My normal day starts quite early (life with 2 small children) but I take that time to kick start my day with exercise. After experiencing my period of burn out exercise become such a source of maintaining mental health and resilience for me. Even though it can be very hard to motivate myself and put those runners on (particularly in the dark cold winter), I always find it makes such a difference. I then try to sit down at the desk by about 7.30 to get started with my day. My days vary hugely, sometimes I am in lots of meetings discussing a discovery process with a client and internal stakeholders and other days I am knee deep in a research memo or pleadings drafting. Even though I can work on the same matter for multiple years, we are always at a different stage and working on something slightly different.
I log off about 4pm to collect my kids from kindergarten/childcare and then am straight into the juggle of after school activities, dinner and playing in the new addition to our house, a sand pit. I love this part of my day as there is no time to ruminate on the workday as they require so much attention. This helps me re-prioritise what is important to be completed that night or gives my brain a rest to actually allow things to sit for a minute.
Since I started my remote working arrangement, I have been surprised at how having the space to away from the desk can really give my brain time to ponder. One of the clients I work for terms this "Grace's percolating time".
What makes you feel confident at [Sponsor]?
The support I have from my team, the partner I work for and the juniors. We have an incredibly supportive and motivational team. The partner I work for creates a culture of positive and constructive feedback. As a team, we always try to encourage each other and are not afraid to say you did an amazing job or that we are proud of each other. This makes giving constructive feedback much easier and more likely to be trusted and understood. I believe that I am encouraged to lean into my strengths while being accepted for my weaknesses (which we all have). It is important that we all come to know that we don’t know everything and that is ok. As a team I think we do an excellent job of covering the field and bringing our own strengths to the fore.
Based on what you know now, if you could give your younger self some advice, what would this be?
I have definitely been an overthinker and a worrier and wish I had strategies to combat that earlier in my career. The one that really hits home for me is: "Worrying is just rehearsing something you never want to eventuate". I try to lean into that every time my brain tries to race off in some random direction and bring myself back to the present.
