Qualified as a solicitor, feeling let down

[Coffeetree]

I just qualified as a solicitor and although I love the area I work in I'm really feeling exhausted and let down.

I really am grateful that my firm sponsored me in a training contract and have now given me a raise to their standard newly qualified rate of £27000 pa. Except now they're hustling me into a leadership role with a lot of middle-management bullshit and oh could I do the billing now and the audit prep.. But for no extra money.

I'm 50 and I know I should have the negotiation skills to deal with this and get a raise but the truth is I'm still trying to sort of inhabit the role. I was a paralegal for many many years and although I did well in law school I am still seeing myself as a junior.

Also the worklife balance sucks if you want to deliver quality work for clients. I go to court regularly and I have a good reputation for winning appeals but that's because I prepare more than anyone else.

I guess I have the standing now to push back but that's a new feeling for me. I'm still in "proving myself" mode and trying to get a mindset shift.

Anyone know what I'm talking abou? Any tips?

@Flowers500

it sounds like they've basically given you a full time admin job on top of your full time solicitor job, and are pissed that you're only able to perform one of these perfectly. Dicks.

This is pretty much par for the course in law firms. I'm a partner. I'm expected to bill around 1400 hours of my own time. On top of that I have to do lots of marketing to bring in new work, billing, fee negotiations, team management, interviewing for new staff, dealing with HR over various issues, attending training to stay up to date and dealing with submissions to the legal directories.

I think you should leave. That's a really low wage. My DS is an NQ at a London firm, not one of the top ones and is on over £60k at the age of 24. Even as a trainee he was on a lot more than £27k. Have you thought about joining the civil service? Lots of legal jobs on offer across various departments and you'd be on more ££.

Thanks again.

Those of you working in pp, can you advise whether the following is weird or whether it's par for the course?

1. Zero reception support. Whenever some pops in the office I'm meant to come down and figure out what they need. I've tried to "train" our reception staff to just go ahead and book people in but management said that's not acceptable.
2. No support for jobs like scanning and copying court bundles, routine corresponce, opening files.
3. No one to handle payment. So I have to take cash to bank or help client make an online payment while they're asking for a discount and also asking why I can't get their case finished tomorrow.

As a corollary to the above, the outcome to the struggling team member issue is that her files need to be audited more often and I can only allocate [specific very simple sort of case] to her because that's what she feels comfortable doing. So the complex cases go to me and other team members. She is at the same pay rate. So is that bananas or is that just the sort of thing that happens in pp?

That reads like you are the office mug.

That is not normal for recption.

You will be burnt out and not fit to move anywhere else.

Focus on moving asap.

Im going to hazard a guess that no other solicitor on this site does this sort of stuff.

I work in a large firm so we have support staff for scanning etc (separate to secretarial support) and a very large accounts department. I request a bill, review it and get it approved by a partner and email it back to accounts and then have nothing else to do with it generally.

Maybe your job is normal for a smaller firm but it sounds like you're doing a PA job as well.

What area of law do you work in? You need to leave.

OP there is a balance to be struck here I think

Im 2 years PQE and have just been made associate, with a slight pay rise but for those two years I grafted my ass off despite often feeling bitter about doing lots more than the other NQs at the firm who were less experienced (and in certain practice areas paid 10% more than me….)

I got on with it and it’s paid off now. It was a hard 2 years though. Really really hard.

I never demanded a pay rise- raised it subtly during reviews and appraisals etc but only this year after all that hard graft did I really push it, and be quite forceful. It went down okay.

However having read your updates I don’t feel your firm will ever change- you can’t be doing admin bills supervision and case work with the same targets if everyone else. If you have partner backing and know the progression is there, it might be worth holding out to financial year end or appraisal time but if you don’t have that I’d definitely move firms so you’re paid your worth, or have a more realistic role.

If you’re high street you are typically going to find you get less admin support, but if you jump to city or big firm your billing target will jump most likely. A regional firm might be a happy medium for you? Still support but not massive massive Targets and generally a good work life balance.

Where are you based (unless that’s outing!) and what practice area?

Hope that helps

I think if your area of work is 100% legal aid there will be a definite ceiling on what you can earn. Firms seem to want to allocate little actual support to legal aid departments yet still saddle them with a share of the office overheads they never use.

But if you’re working in an area where everyone bills £80k a year you ought to think about moving out of legal aid and specialising in an area of law with private paying clients. Legal aid rates stink, and because of that salaries are very low.

Thanks belly rumble for the perspective. I don't want to say my practice area or region because I've said some unfiltered comments around my colleagues. It's a large national firm and we're a regional branch.

There's no "progression" in terms of associates/partners. There are admin staff, fee earning paralegals, solicitors, and then each regional branch has a solicitor/manager. I'm a supervisor but get no extra money for that.

My caseload is 50/50 legal aid and private.

Think about local government- NQ starting salaries 35-45k . Huge demand in certain sectors primarily adult and children social care where golden hellos etc payable in addition. Good pension benefits etc

Who pops down to reception if you are on leave or out of office?

If you have only just qualified you are a junior. Life as a junior lawyer is brutal. To be honest as a senior one it's not much better but at least you are recompensed. £27k is very low indeed (I was paid that as an nq over 20 years ago) so guess you are high street / criminal. I'm not sure what you were expecting, there is not that much money in that area, you can't stagnate otherwise they might as well employ a cheaper paralegal. Law historically was up or out (which is why women are under represented in partnerships even though the majority of trainees are women).

If you are 50 you haven't got years and years to sit as a junior. Take the experience and move on. The audit / billing bit is standard in my experience and is driven by the sra requirements. Nothing you have said has struck me as off in the requirements of a lawyer. BD is always on top of chargeable hours (even if you are doing 2000 chargeable hours a year).

Did they spend thousands getting you qualified if you were sponsored by them? I think that has to be taken into account to some extent.

I'm a solicitor who is just few years older than you, but have been qualified for 30 years. I've been a partner in 2 law firms, so I have some experience of this.

I haven't read the full thread, so apologies if I echo anything that has already been said.

I can't comment on market rates for newly qualifieds in your area, but £27K does not sound unreasonable. I would certainly first check whether or not it is in the right ballpark; you should be looking for the very top end of the NQS band, or even higher/with quick promotion prospects, given your pre-qual experience.

You then need to look at the role that you are being offered, because, as others have pointed out, it is very far from a typical newly qualified role. They are asking you in effect take on a substantial proportion of the management of the firm. Are you able to work out roughly what percentage of your working week that will take?

If you try to keep on/expand your caseload and do a substantial amount of non-chargeable work, you will quickly burn out and you will also be very badly underpaid. If you agree with them that you can work a reduced caseload, and that billing expectations from you are lower, to accommodate a large proportion of management work, then in effect, you will start your career as a solicitor as an office manager and I'm not sure that I would want that. Do you?

I think you need to decide whether this is what you had envisaged. If you had not, and you don't want that type of role, then you need either to be having a serious talk with the firm to see if they can give you the sort of role as a qualified solicitor that you want, or you need to look elsewhere. You would be a great catch for another firm who is looking for a fee earner who is newly qualified in name only.

I would have no truck with any suggestion that you owe anything to the firm because they paid to train you. It sounds from your OP as though the leadership role that they have proposed was not something they discussed with you at the time that they were supporting you to qualify.

@Olympiadreamer

Did they spend thousands getting you qualified if you were sponsored by them? I think that has to be taken into account to some extent.

They spent about £1700 altogether for the Professional Skills Course. No sponsor pays for the LPC anymore. But honestly when I think of the evenings and Saturdays a I spent doing billing or working on complex cases as a trainee at £23k I don't feel too guilty about that.

Wow its really helpful to get the frank opinion of other sols. It's the kind of thing that's hard to talk about with real-life friends or law-school buddies because I don't want to bad-mouth my firm.

I don't take leave. Hearings are online now so I don't have leave the office for court. I turn off my extension when I'm actually "in court" or with a client but I still get pounced on the moment I come offline.

Wait they didn’t even pay for your LPC?!?

I know city firms are a totally different ballgame, but that’s mad. In my area, a smallish city firm pays GDL, LPC, living allowance and then first year of TC is 1.5 times your salary now. Is there any way you can move to civil service or move practice area? Honestly you’d be better off in a PA role at a good company…

And on the earlier point of it being expected at firms to do lots of roles—yes absolutely, but you can also expect to be paid for it. OP isn’t a partner and isn’t profiting from the firm’s success, she’s being paid peanuts to do a solicitor role, be the PA, manage others, do the billing, do the admin and do the reception.

Some of the things you're talking about are, unfortunately, the reality of working in law. Certainly where I am, you are effectively expected to be doing chargeable work all day. BD and non-chargeable work are meant to be on top of that. I have a daily hourly target and I've been told that I should be aiming above that target every day.

When we are prepping for trial or hearings, you can expect to be working long hours. And I've done mediations that haven't finished until 9pm.

Long hours are perfectly normal and rightly or wrongly, it is expected at whatever your salary is.

As we move into more "digital working" we are also being expected to do a lot more of our admin than we used to which is a total pain.

We are also expected to supervise the work of trainees if they assist on cases etc which is perfectly reasonable I think.

The office management side of things you're doing are not normal fee earning tasks though. And I have to say a £5k payrise on qualification seems really small.

Sorry if I came across as harsh op, it really is tough in law at the minute though

A PP mentioned working in local government, usually NQs wouldn’t do that but I feel someone with your level of experience definitely could. I’m not saying it’ll be any easier and you’ll still be paid less than in private practice probably but it is a different atmosphere and you won’t have the billing targets (in most places anyway!)

Localgovernmentlawyer is a great website and they often advertise jobs for local authorities. More likely to have Flexi time and working from home if that’s your thing too

Whilst you’re given all this extra stuff to do, keep a really good note and add to your CV for if you move elsewhere, be that another law firm or in house. I had a special email folder where I would save all the BD/ extra tasks I did and it made my application for associate sooooo much easier as it was all just there to lift in

Some posters have mentioned the expectation that newly qualified solicitors should expect to work long hours. It sounds as though you have already been doing that, so I am not convinced that you should be by working yourself into the ground to show your worth.

Remember as well that there is a huge difference between a newly qualified in a magic circle firm in the City, and a newly qualified in the provinces. Starting salaries in London can be as high as £100,000 and the expected excessive hours should produce a rapid salary progression.

The other thing to mention is that you may find that your existing firm takes you less seriously because you are "homegrown talent" as opposed to someone they hired directly. I have recruited solicitors (all female as it happens - not sure if that is a coincidence) who felt they had to move as it was impossible to get their existing firms to treat them on an equal footing with solicitors who did not have a history of working for the firm in a more junior role. However valuable the management input might be, firms often fail to give this adequate recognition when considering remuneration.

I'm not trying to encourage you to move if you are otherwise happy, but it sounds as though you may need to see if you can redraw the lines.

I agree with @Fozzleyplum

I also think there is a risk that if you accept all of these additional tasks, they'll take advantage of you and assume you'll do whatever they ask.

When I joined my current firm, I was told by my supervising Partner to make it clear that I was not happy to become the "assistant" as I'd forever be seen as one if I accepted it from the start. I did raise it as I'd already been an assistant to a partner at my previous firm and was stuck in that position there (so had to leave).

@Fozzleyplum

Some posters have mentioned the expectation that newly qualified solicitors should expect to work long hours. It sounds as though you have already been doing that, so I am not convinced that you should be by working yourself into the ground to show your worth.

Remember as well that there is a huge difference between a newly qualified in a magic circle firm in the City, and a newly qualified in the provinces. Starting salaries in London can be as high as £100,000 and the expected excessive hours should produce a rapid salary progression.

The other thing to mention is that you may find that your existing firm takes you less seriously because you are "homegrown talent" as opposed to someone they hired directly. I have recruited solicitors (all female as it happens - not sure if that is a coincidence) who felt they had to move as it was impossible to get their existing firms to treat them on an equal footing with solicitors who did not have a history of working for the firm in a more junior role. However valuable the management input might be, firms often fail to give this adequate recognition when considering remuneration.

I'm not trying to encourage you to move if you are otherwise happy, but it sounds as though you may need to see if you can redraw the lines.

Ever more now--starting NQ salaries at some US firms in London are now at £145,000. Which yes is also irrelevant to most of the legal sector and the country!

I agree that this firm is however not seeing you as someone they actually want to invest in and progress, they seem to be trying to squeeze out what they can without supporting you to progress your career. A lot of companies work like this, turning over staff when people twig their hard work is not going to be rewarded. The pay rise you can get from a lateral move is shocking, and it's refreshing when you find that someone else takes your skills and commitment seriously.

The £100k plus NQ aren't realistic. However the OP says she is NA in a regional office of a national firm where it would be more normal for such firms to pay £40-45k for NQ.

And I am sorry OP too that they have duped you into thinking that firms don't sponsor the LPC any longer. They most certainly do.

Anyway the advice seems to be universal. They stuffed you over sponsorship and stuffing you over salary and the work you are doing.

Move on to a firm that treats you as a NQ but with decent life/work experience behind you and not as the junior paralegal you once were.

You guys are lovely. As it happens I came down with the flu and uncharacteristically took the damn day off. So I did a job search from my sofa.

I've got an interview with a nice firm tomorrow and I put in an application for a civil service job that pays the astronomical salary of 45k.

Sad to think of my cosy office with my plants and my nice mentees but I'll just end up full of resentment if I stay.