This is part 1 of a 3 part guest blog by Nicky Richmond. Nicky combines being a joint managing partner for law firm Brecher with being a restaurant critic, and is a property and property finance lawyer with over 25 years’ experience. She is ‘The Food Judge’ and writes a regular column for The Lawyer magazine. As a Foodie, I think Nicky’s portfolio career is wonderful and I hope to accompany her soon to a restaurant……………!
The rest of this blog are in Nicky’s own words.
What are the components of your portfolio career e.g. study, paid freelance work, part time job, volunteering etc.?
My day job is as managing partner of a law firm, a role that I have undertaken for seven years. In my free time, I write weekly restaurant reviews for The Lawyer magazine and I have a restaurant review blog called The Food Judge. I also write articles for various publications and my other blog, Not Entirely Legal. I am also a trustee of a children’s charity, Kids Out and have recently become involved in Action Against Hunger which seems a good counterbalance to all that eating out.
How did your portfolio career come about?
I have always been a little bit obsessed about food and eating out; in fact I thought that I was going to be a lawyer for about 10 years then open my own restaurant. Real life got in the way. I started writing in a non-legal sense when I wanted to do some publicity for my firm and because I had only written like a lawyer for the previous 25 years.
I wanted a little bit of practice and to try and find my own writing voice, so I started writing restaurant reviews for myself. The Lawyer magazine tweeted that they were looking for restaurant reviews and it seemed like a gift. After a little bit of stop/start, I ended up being their weekly reviewer. The charity work came about because I have always had a strong interest in giving something back. I never quite found the right charity but then I think I never really looked properly, or hard enough. You have to find something that chimes with you and where you can really empathise.
How has your portfolio career changed over time?
For about 25 years I did very little other than law, partly because I was simply too busy and partly because I didn’t actually make the time to do anything different. When I started doing the restaurant reviews, I had no idea that they would take off in the way that they did, or that I would meet a whole new network of people through doing it. And whilst I always did pro bono work for charities, that was under the banner of a law firm and the charity work that I do now is nothing to do with the law firm although my legal/management expertise is useful.
Part 2 of this 3 part guest blog series coming soon.
Nicky Richmond, Joint Managing Partner, Brecher:
http://www.brecher.co.uk/people/nicky-richmond/
The Food Judge – Never Knowingly Underfed.
http://thefoodjudge.com/
Blog – Not Entirely Legal
http://strictlylegal.me/author/nickyrichmond/
Interested in a portfolio career and liberating more of your talent? Get in touch with Rachel Brushfield, Talent Liberator.
Rachel is doing a talk about Portfolio careers on 12 June 2015 at a Law Society Women Lawyers Division Portfolio Careers event in London.