Solicitor who had stroke at 26 easing back into the law

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A junior solicitor who had a stroke aged just 26 has spoken of her determination to ease herself back into the profession she loves.

Emma Trevett thought she was suffering a headache in August 2020 but hospital scans showed she had developed blood clots on the brain and was in the middle of a stroke.

Buoyed by the overwhelming support of colleagues, she tried to return to work as soon as possible, but last year took the difficult decision to stop practising to concentrate on her recovery.

She returned in July as an administrator with public law and human rights firm Rook Irwin Sweeney and – three years on from her life being turned upside down – is optimistic about her future career.

‘I have just turned 30 and I’ve got lots of time to get back into it,’ she said. ‘I am just going to take my time, it doesn’t really matter how long it takes but I want to practise again and in particular help disabled people in a similar situation to me.’

Cheshire-based Trevett worked in firms for several years as a volunteer and then paralegal with a focus on public law and qualified as a solicitor in 2020 through the equivalent means route. But within weeks of qualifying and joining national firm Lawstop she developed a headache that would not go away.

Dismissing the pain at first and treating it with painkillers for two days, she woke in the middle of the night being sick and feeling much more severe pain in her head. Her vision was blurred and she was particularly sensitive to light.

Taken to hospital by her mother, she initially expected to be discharged the same night. But a CT scan revealed a potential stroke and she was taken in an ambulance to a specialist unit. Ironically, it was the same unit where her grandfather had been treated after he suffered a stroke less than a year before: on the wall Trevett saw a poem she had written after he died.

Emma Trevett 2

Emma Trevett: 'Stopping work was a scary decision to make but I had to concentrate on getting better'

‘It was only after a few days that it kicked in what had happened to me,’ she said. ‘The type of stroke I had is very rare and there were few of the usual signs. I was in hospital for about a week and a half, but I would come in 20 more times in the next year due to so many complications. In February 2021 I started losing my vision. Pressure had built up in my brain and affected the back of my eyes. I was in for about a month that time.’

Trevett said she was blown away by the response of Lawstop colleagues, people she previously worked with at Irwin Mitchell and those in her legal aid and junior lawyer networks.

‘My house was like a flower shop there were so many bouquets sent,’ she recalled. ‘Lawstop was amazing when I had the stroke. I had only been there for a month but they made sure I was looked after. I have had to work from home ever since and I tried to go back to what I was doing, but I had to put my health first. Stopping work was a scary decision to make but I had to concentrate on getting better.

‘After a while I felt able to come back in some capacity. Rook Irwin Sweeney have been amazing and couldn’t be more supportive. I still have so many appointments but I can take time out when I need and take regular breaks. It has been so good to get back into it.’

Trevett had been fit and active before the stroke, running three times a week. She had given up alcohol several years before. She now has chronic daily headaches, cognitive impairment including memory issues and requires physiotherapy and occupational therapy.

‘At the moment I can’t even cross roads as I look both ways and then my brain forgets what I have seen. But we will get there. It will take a while to get there but my brain is the most important tool for me as a lawyer and it needs time to heal.’