“Making an early contribution to the Online Safety Act at Ofcom was my proudest moment”

One of my earliest memories is accompanying my mum, a public law solicitor in Chile, to her office. While mum was busy working, I was playing with the books – not that I could understand them. She often went for lunch with a friend and discussed work. I would hear things about cases and the management of the office, so I was exposed to law from an early age.

I admired my mum’s work ethic. I liked watching her team work together. I could see that she loved her job. I knew it would be an enjoyable career for me, too.

I worked in private practice before moving to the Competition Tribunal in Chile. A law degree from an English-speaking country felt necessary to advance in a legal career. So, off I went to do a masters in law at the University of Cambridge. I never expected to settle in the UK but, while studying, I met my husband. I applied for the Qualified Lawyers Transfer Scheme, which was the route at the time.

Taking my English and Welsh law exams during the 2020 pandemic was tense. It was strange doing practical exercises with a face mask. London was eerily empty. I didn’t get to attend my admissions ceremony at the Law Society Hall in London until a couple of years later.

I wanted to work at Ofcom because the communications industry was – and still is – experiencing rapid transformation. At that time, in 2021, what would later become the Online Safety Act was in its early stages. It was an emerging area, and I wanted to understand it from its beginnings and grab the opportunity with both hands. I wanted to make a contribution, and I knew that my background in competition and regulation law would be useful.

Ofcom’s legal group is made up of two teams – enforcement and legal. They’re quite different. I started on the enforcement team, which works to ensure the regulation and policy we put in place to protect people is effective. Amongst other things, the enforcement team works with the industry to tackle non-compliance that affects consumers and competition.

This work requires an investigative mindset. Often you’re gathering evidence, engaging with stakeholders directly to find out the best approach for a course of action. You drive projects from beginning to end. You can do tonnes of public policy and compliance advocacy for our stakeholders.

I’m now in the legal team, which advises Ofcom teams on all our regulatory remit. We do much more than black letter law, we think strategically about how Ofcom can deliver its policy objectives. We could be helping one team with research, and other teams with a consultation or enforcement action.

At times, you might do a deep dive on a big project for a few days. We cover several sectors – including post, broadcast, online and telecoms – and within those industries there are different types of law we need to apply. In addition to regulation, our work spans everything from data protection and intellectual property, to litigation and competition law.

Moving from the enforcement team to the legal team has been great – it means I’ve already been in the client’s shoes. I know what drives them. We do risk assessments and give strategic advice to help decision-makers make the best choices, from a legal point of view, for citizens and consumers.

I recently went to the Law Society's in-house conference. What stood out most to me was how much the sessions focused on the real role of in-house lawyers – not just legal experts, but trusted advisors, decision-makers, and culture shapers.

While in enforcement, we worked to see how the Online Safety Act would be applicable in practice. Before the act was law, we looked at what evidence we’d need, how we’d engage with stakeholders, and we advised government on how to make it as effective as possible.

Thinking of the impact our work has on people is our first consideration. It gives a sense of purpose to what we do, and you can feel it in the teams. One of my favourite areas of Ofcom is our media literacy work, helping UK adults and children improve their online skills, knowledge and understanding. You can see the effect our work has on people.

When I worked in law firms, I didn’t have the same feeling. In a law firm, you usually get one big business and can’t work with any of their competitors at the same time. At Ofcom, the cases are brought to us and you get to work on cases across the biggest companies in the communications industry. 

I find the work-life-balance here is better too. In my experience, in private practice juniors sometimes lacked visibility into what was ‘urgent’ – perhaps something sat on a partner’s desk for longer than it should have, or the client gave a shorter deadline than needed. That often led to associates working longer hours than they needed to. 

In my current role, collaboration feels more organic. We have a non-hierarchical peer review system, which is a great way to get fresh perspectives on our work. And we have complete visibility into project timelines and workloads so we can be extremely efficient at prioritising what needs to happen now, and what can have a longer deadline. While we do track our time to manage our resources, I can grab a coffee with a colleague about a project or issue without them worrying about who the six-minute chat should be billed to. 

We can choose projects that align with our interests. This flexibility allows you to stay motivated, ensure you have the right amount of work and connect colleagues together when we know it will be helpful to do so.

Making a contribution to the Online Safety Act as the legislation was forming is my proudest moment. In particular, I suggested a technical modification to the Online Safety Bill that would make it more workable in practice. Everything we do is collaborative. But my work makes me feel like I’ve made a difference.