Mercia had the privilege to gain experience since her second academic year. “I would do vacation work during public holidays and at the same time work with lawyers who were available on weekends. I worked with different firms which specialised in a lot of things, so I can safely say that I have experience in a number of law specialities. However, I decided to specialise in labour and commercial law because the target market for the consultancy is business” said Mercia.
In 2020, Mercia started serving pupillage (a training towards being an advocate) which was unfortunately disturbed by the outbreak of COVID-19. The pandemic prevented her from going to class or to court for her training during lockdown, and ultimately she was not able to continue with the program. Sitting at home disappointed and heartbroken, she took all the liberty to herself to think long and hard about her law degree. “I couldn’t just sit at home and do nothing after dedicating 4 years studying for LLB. I then started doing my own research and found out that I could actually do consultancy work. That is when I just took it head-on. I knew that there was nothing else I could do, because the only thing that I know and truly passionate about is law. I had to find a way to make the idea work for me” she proudly said.
Mercia Legal Consultants was registered on the 30th of August 2020 and started operating on the same day. From then and now, the consultancy has risen to its prominence given that it has been nearly 2 years since its inception. The consultancy itself mainly focuses on ensuring that businesses do not have to go through litigation (court process) which is expensive, time consuming and public. The perks coming with the job extends to social media as they also do a number of cold-calls to companies, paid advertising in local magazine, and radio whenever given a chance. When asked about the day-to-day relationship between the consultancy and its clients she added “ We have different fees for different services. It all depends on the complexity of the work that the client needs. We are always willing to negotiate with the clients. I would also like to say that the outcome again depends on the amount of work I put in. So if I work hard on the marketing side of things, then I get a satisfying number of clients and vice versa. The ones we have right now on month-to-month basis are easy to deal with. However we do get difficult ones (clients) from time to time. We have a lot of challenges with the consultancy, from clients who think they can get services free of charge, to needing resources that the consultancy does not yet afford. Moreover, the biggest challenge has to be being undermined because I am a young, black female person. There has been times when I would walk into a boardroom and I am not listened to based on how I look, or what I am if I can put it in that manner. Some people even have the audacity to tell me that they won’t listen to me because of how I appear to be, whereas others I can just see by how they look at me.”
In 5 years time, the LLB degree holder plans to have an office of her own with different departments and permanent employees. The idea is to continue showing people that there are alternatives that are less adversarial and more conducive than going to court. And achieving that would be the success of Mercia Legal Consultants.
