Placements 2022/23

JENNIFER HIRST – LIBERTY GLOBAL

Liberty Global is an international telecommunications company with operations in 12 countries. The company's primary focus is the provision of media services such as television, internet, and telephone to customers through the acquisition of Virgin Media O2. The company is strongly focused on the shared values of equality, diversity, and inclusion, which is reflected in the culture of the company at all levels. The company’s core values are promoted in each area of the business and all employees are encouraged to strive to be ‘Agile’, ‘Limitless’, ‘Straight up’ and ‘United’.

The company’s Legal Operations department forms part of the Shared Services Centre in Bradford, providing legal services and support on claims that a brought against Virgin Media O2 as well as other matters such as real estate, wayleave, uninsured loss recovery, regulatory compliance, and commercial contracts.

During my 12-month placement at Liberty Global, I worked as a paralegal intern within the Legal Operations department, specifically, the Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) team. I was responsible managing a high-volume caseload of claims brought against the company via the Communication’s Ombudsman, which was the final stage of the complaints process before litigation.

Initially I had somewhat of a slow start to the role. For the first two months I was shadowing and completing administrative tasks for the team. I found this a little tedious at the time because I was eager to gain more hands-on experience of managing cases. As a mature student, I already had a lot of work experience and felt my skills could be put to better use than admin work. Eventually when my knowledge and confidence grew, I was able to take on more responsibility and I was allocated my own caseload. I was able to quickly get to grips with the claims process and began to deal with cases at all stages of the claims journey, eventually increasing my exposure to more complex legal issues.

My responsibilities included reviewing claim forms and evidence, identifying the key facts of the case, researching, and analysing the legal issues and making decisions that are properly thought out, considering all the knowledge and information available. Although I was representing VM O2 and was responsible for making commercial decisions in the interest of the company, it was also important to balance the needs of the consumers against the stakeholders’ objectives. This required me to remain customer focused and try to reach the fairest outcome for the customers, which also protects the company’s reputation and customer retention.

In order to do so, this often required communicating with the customers directly, listening to the issues they had experienced, demonstrating empathy, and attempting to reach an outcome amicably. This could be a practical solution such as arranging an engineer visit, amending packages etc, or a financial remedy such as correcting any overpayments or providing financial compensation for the poor customer journey. Communication skills, active listening and empathy were essential in this role as quite often the customer had had such a frustrating experience trying to resolve their issues, that all they wanted was to feel heard and listened to and to receive a sincere apology for their customer journey.

Where it was not possible to reach an early resolution directly with the customer, the case would proceed to the investigation stage, in which I would be required to draft a defence, known as a ‘case file’, which would be reviewed by an independent adjudicator for the Communications Ombudsman. This involved following a standardised defence template, amending it to outline the facts of the case and referring to specific sections of the company’s terms and conditions to either absolve the company of liability or to mitigate the company’s losses. This required an in depth understanding of the company’s terms and conditions, an understanding of different packages and contracts available to customers, an understanding of company procedures and complaints process, as well as OFCOM rules and regulations and relevant legislation such as the Communications Act 2003 and the    Consumer Rights Act 2015.

Effective planning and time management skills were essential for managing the intense workload, which at times was overwhelming. The role required me to be highly organised in order to deal with my caseload to a high standard and in a timely manner. In some cases, this required working collaboratively with colleagues within the team, delegating tasks if necessary and occasional overtime to ensure strict deadlines were met.

It was essential to be able to use the online case management system effectively to enable me to manage and prioritise tasks by order of importance. It was also essential to keep clear file notes and logs of everything that has been done on each case. This allows for transparency and allows the team to pick up the case in a colleague’s absence if needed. Regular audits were completed on cases and feedback was given often on the file handler’s decision making and general housekeeping on the file.

Throughout my time on my placement, I feel that my main achievements were having the opportunity to put what I had learned in my first two years of study into practice, such as conducting legal research, analysing the facts of the case, reaching balanced decisions based on the evidence available. I was also able to gain a greater understanding variety of complex legal issues, including telecommunications law, contract law, and consumer protection law.

I feel the placement had a significant impact on my personal objectives and future career planning. It enabled me to gain an insight into an in-house legal department, as opposed to a law firm, the role, and responsibilities of a paralegal, and I found it highly beneficial to work alongside other legal professionals so that I was able to learn more about their individual career paths they had taken and different routes to qualification. As a result of the experience I gained and the contacts I made, I am confident that the placement will give me a competitive edge when I apply for jobs or training contracts upon completion of my studies.