There are countless benefits to be had by getting out of your comfort zone and engaging with different people from all over the world, so taking a leap like undertaking postgraduate studies at an overseas university can be enormously valuable, says litigator and medical law expert Julia Penn.
“I’d be lying if I said I remember everything word for word from my LLM, but it opened up my mind in terms of approaching and solving problems, listening to other people, hearing their viewpoints, and really considering them properly,” commented Penn, a partner in the Cape Town office of Fairbridges Wertheim Becker Attorneys, the oldest law firm in Africa.
“I think I gained all of that from the ethical discussions and debates we had in online student forums. Now I’m using that skill set in a hospital with, say, a representative from a regulatory body and a nurse, where we’re debating whether they should or shouldn’t have done this or that.”
Penn says she was questioning continuing with her legal career before she signed up to study an LLM in Medical Law and Ethics online through the University of Edinburgh back in 2011.
“I was getting amazing experience as a young attorney, but I wasn’t loving it,” recalled Penn. “But there was a partner doing medical law-type work at the time, and I was very interested in that. My mother is a nurse, my dad a doctor, and one of my siblings was a GP, so I come from a background of a lot of dinnertime conversations over medical issues and healthcare.”
Six weeks into a year off spent travelling, Penn was lying in a hammock in Guatemala when she realised law was something she could do and be happy with as a career, but it was medical law and healthcare ethics that she was really passionate about. From that moment, she began researching globally what her options were for an LLM in the right kind of subject matter.
After “a huge amount of research”, and finding various good options on different continents, Penn chose the LLM in Medical Law and Ethics through Edinburgh, and began studying by correspondence, part-time for two years, while working as an associate at Fairbridges.
“I wanted something internationally recognised that people would value. Edinburgh ticked all the boxes for me – the course offered was top-notch, with top-notch tutors and amazing people. And the ability for it to be courses by correspondence was great because I didn’t just want to write papers, I wanted interaction and involvement with people. It was incredibly interactive.”
Penn admits she had to be very disciplined, making social sacrifices to complete the work, but it was worth it. Fairbridges also helped her cope with the load by allowing her to work four days a week, modifying her budget and salary accordingly.
Penn says her classmates were “a fascinating group”, many doctors and others who had come to an LLM later in life. “Engaging with people during the course was brilliant,” she said. “It probably gave me a level of maturity I didn’t have before. It opened up my thinking and, looking back, it has continued to fuel that fire of interest for me, a reminder of why I’m doing this.”
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