Nick Cerezo – Career journey
Nick Cerezo is an Associate in our Spinal Injury Team and joined Bolt Burdon Kemp in May 2025.
- What was your qualification journey to becoming a lawyer
I completed the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) following my undergraduate degree as I wasn’t able to secure a vacation scheme/training contract beforehand (despite an abundance of applications). During the summer after I completed the GDL, I took part in a vacation scheme for a national law firm that has expertise in PI and clinical negligence work. Unfortunately, I wasn’t offered a training contract off the back of it but following some fantastic advice from the graduate recruitment team, I reached out to one of the partners I met during the scheme and was offered a job in her team as a paralegal. The following year, I applied again for a training contract and was fortunately successful. I then took five months off work to go travelling before coming back to London to do the accelerated LPC before starting my training contract. Luckily, because of my paralegal experience, I was able to qualify after 18 months.
- What attracted you to personal injury / clinical negligence work?
Honestly, pure chance. I had originally thought I wanted to be a commercial litigator, so I had mainly been applying for big corporate firms. However, a friend of mine at law school told me he had applied for the law firm referred to above, and it was quite a quick application form, so I may as well give it a go. Funnily enough, that was the one that I got!
- What attracted you to working at BBK?
I was really attracted to the flexible culture at BBK. I’m a big believer that people work their best when they are trusted to figure out what that means for them rather than being constrained to an arbitrary schedule of working hours and patterns. Whilst the client’s needs will always come first, it is not in a client’s interests for their solicitor to be miserable!
- What is the most satisfying part of your role?
Nothing will ever beat the feeling of achieving a great settlement for a client who you have been working with on their case for years. It is the culmination of so much hard work and effort from the lawyers and from the client. Whilst the primary concern is ensuring your client has what they need to make their lives as comfortable as possible for the future, you are also helping to finally begin to move on from what was likely the worst thing that has happened to them in their lives.
- Can you share a case or moment that had a profound impact on you professionally?
It’s too hard to pick just one! Honestly, so many of my clients have been truly inspirational human beings. It really goes to show you how much can be achieved with hard work and the right attitude.
- What advice would you give to someone considering the same career route as you?
Just believe in yourself, keep it up and don’t be afraid to give things you hadn’t considered before a chance, you never know what you might enjoy once you give it a go!
- If you could change one thing about how serious injury cases are handled in the legal system, what would it be?
I would have the UK become a signatory to the Lugano Convention so that English claimants can regain their (more or less) automatic right to sue EU and Norway domiciled insurance companies in the English courts, which was lost following Brexit.
