People Processes Interviews: Alison Colley

Who are we interviewing: Alison Colley – Solicitor and Founder of Real Employment Law Advice and host of the podcast ‘The Employment Law and HR Podcast’ How did she get here? I qualified as a Solicitor (known as lawyer in the US) in the UK in 2006 and worked for traditional lawyers’ firms, where I specialised in employment law and providing legal advice to employers and employees. After becoming disillusioned with the traditional career path, stuffy slow pace of change and presenteeism required in the profession I found the ‘4 hour work week’ by Tim Ferris whilst wondering around bored on my lunchbreak and from this I was led into the world of entrepreneurship, passive income and taking control of my destiny. For several months after reading the 4 hour work week I came up with a vast number of hairbrained schemes completely unrelated to the legal profession, not having the confidence to consider that I could start my own legal firm. Eventually, realising I was not quite ready to give up on my profession and passion for helping to solve problems I set about starting my own legal practice. In November 2013 I started Real Employment Law Advice as a Sole Practitioner completely from scratch with no client base and no investment or capital. I started the firm with the objective of providing a new service to my local community and with the vision of starting something different to the traditional Solicitors brand. My objective was (and remains) to provide legal services in a new way, disrupting the market by utilizing technology to deliver service and provide information on a variety of platforms throughout the UK. I now have a team of 4 staff, including two other Solicitors and we work with clients throughout the UK on everything from contracts to HR best practice through to representation in the Employment Tribunal and Courts. Podcasting Few Solicitors in the UK are podcasting, and I was a relatively early adopter (August 2014), and have maintained consistency throughout this time. The podcast now regularly gets between 7,000- 8,00 downloads per month from all over the world and I focus on the law, HR and best practice for employers, managers and HR professionals. As a result of the success of the podcast I was interviewed by the Guardian for an article on their website about podcasting for business. Contact Info Check her out at http://alisoncolley.co.uk/ or connect to her company: https://www.linkedin.com/company/real-employment-law-advice/