Help and advice balanced with a little art

When your working life involves dealing with family relationships and the major life decisions we all have to make, some hiking or a spot of flower arranging could provide the perfect contrast – Harriet Pugh, who has joined our wills, trusts and estates team, knows that’s true.

Harriet, who used to compete in YFC flower arranging competitions and loves to get outside, is used to working towards balance in her work too, especially when dealing with the estate of someone who has died while family relationships are strained.

“It’s important to make sure we carry out the administration of the estate as efficiently as possible”, she said, “but balancing everyone’s expectations at the same time. That is sometimes difficult.”

She has also, along with many other lawyers, faced the challenge of helping people continue to make key decisions about their future and that of their family during lockdown, when face-to-face contact is so limited.

Harriet said: “During the pandemic, it has been a challenge ensuring that clients are able to sign their wills in the presence of two independent witnesses. This has been done in all sorts of ways, including on car bonnets and over garden fences by neighbours.

“But the key reasons why I enjoy my work have not changed – I genuinely feel like I am helping people at a time when they need advice and assistance, I love meeting people (however limited that is at the moment) and no two clients are the same, so my work is very interesting.”