To be surprised how posh most lawyers are?

I wasn’t being serious! I know a lot of superb solicitor advocates.

And I respect my sols. They win the cases.

What exactly is it that you do?

With your fake posh accent, 😂

"posh in Antipodean terms"... a tautology???

Anyway, enough Aussie bashing. A good thing about City law is that, once you get working, it's pretty meritocratic. Well connected parents might get you work experience but can't wriggle round needing to perform on very little sleep, 48 weeks a year. In my experience, if someone's lazy or thick they get found out, even if they went to Cambridge and their uncle's got a title.

Wow

I have had a very successful legal career thanks.

I’d be very surprised if connections are now necessary or even particularly helpful in getting a training contract at top law firms (though can’t speak for the bar). My firm would go out of its way not to hire someone with a relative, family friend etc. at the firm. We are not even allowed to give work experience on that basis. Maybe other firms are different but I wouldn’t want someone to read this thread and think they need connections to get into law - this isn’t the case for the vast majority of trainees.

Financial support from parents is helpful in getting through the qualification but most larger firms provide good financial support if you can get through their gruelling application process.

I suspect the barrier is in education, polish, work experience etc. I interview for training contracts myself- we have 2000 applicants
for around 30 places. Almost all are well qualified on paper. It’s really hard to give someone a chance in that context if they don’t have much work experience or lack confidence or don’t have perfect academics.

Not surprising that children of lawyers are more likely to be lawyers . It will be a career option they naturally consider and know a lot about (though I wouldn’t particularly encourage my children into it). Same way that medicine often runs in families.

A lot of the "intel" on this thread is woefully out of date.

What were you speaking in court for? From the witness box you mean?

Barristers are for advocacy. Since solicitors have had rights of audience the country’s gone to hell in a handcart.

Exactly!

@Sparklywhiteteeth do you see what I mean?! I rest my case (ha)

I spent most of my career in a large international firm. In my team of 15 only two went to private school but I’m 50 and worked in a regional office.

i have two voices though. My lawyer voice for high value clients I’ve just met and for court and my Midlands comp voice for clients I know very well.

They enjoy renovating homes in their spare time as an outlet for their creativity.

This is so true! Your post is funny and very true.

But most are unlikely to have been very privileged, other than the fact that we had been able to get into good universities. Law schools can be funded on loans. I mean, back in the sixties most of us would have been considered working class and only allowed in the working class part of pubs. Quite a lot has changed since then thank goodness.

Nope.

More of a London/big city thing than a lawyer thing surely? If you worked in a legal firm where you grew up then i imagine most people would be from a similar background to you

No they aren’t, don’t be so silly you can’t possibly think lawyers put on some cockney accent when speaking to a criminal then switch to speaking posh to a barrister. How ridiculous

No, Bobby is right.

Three because it’s very expensive to have three

I think you make a good point OP.

I am a lawyer who went to Oxford, but came from an ordinary comprehensive school. The college I went to in Oxford was overwhelmingly full of posh boys (and yes, mainly boys as it was 80:20 in my year).

City law firms are full of posh people, as is much of the Bar.

I don’t think it’s that way across the board but perhaps a posher background still opens a lot of doors, especially in more lucrative areas of the profession.

I’m not a lawyer but I know many lawyers socially in London and they are so homogenous it’s unreal.

All expensively educated then off to a Russell Group or Oxbridge for uni. All long for three kids (why always three?!) and a nice house in Dulwich. They enjoy renovating homes in their spare time as an outlet for their creativity.

I’m not even kidding - they’re all so incredibly similar and don’t even know each other. Good on you for breaking into such a closed world (hope that doesn’t sound patronising - it wasn’t intended like that)

@Sparklywhiteteeth I'm not sure that comment is so daft. Barristers don't switch accents from posh to rudeboy depending on who they are talking to, but it is pretty much accepted that lots of barristers are frustrated actors. And a lot of the job is acting.

I am not sure how you know this. I used to work as a lawyer in one of the large law firms, silver circle, and I only knew the backgrounds of some of my colleague friends and only then if it had happened to come up in conversation. Out of the people I knew well, they came from a variety of backgrounds, and from all over the country. Quite a lot of colleagues were left wing having come from very down to earth backgrounds. Most people spoke with RP accents though not all and all had been to good universities and so rubbed shoulders with privileged people and so people may be presenting as privileged but not in fact privileged?

Some of my collegues from economically or socially privileged backgrounds had experienced serious loss or trauma, which isn't the point of the thread, I know, but which I saw as more relevant than whether they were posh.

I honestly think that half the posters here have never stepped foot in a lawfirm. I had lawyer colleagues from every religion, every culture. There were as many women as men.

Unless law firms have radically changed since I left.

Or that you could only be suprised now at the lack of diversity. One of my friends went to a magic circle firm about 12 years ago and as she was one of not two on that cohort who were state school educated they asked her if she’d like to join their social mobility network.

Mine was free as I was born in 1978. The professional qualification I did afterwards was expensive, I grant you.

There was a reality programme a few years ago with doctors in training and they were all posh.

This is the silliest comment, you win the internet,