If you were me, would you go into law? (Or any career recommendations welcome)

[AlrighDaveHowsItGoingAlrigh]

I’m looking to change career. I work in arts admin and do some piano teaching and freelance bits in the arts too. I’m 27 so technically still time to retrain. I don’t know what though. Law has always appealed but I only got a 2.1 and I know it’s so competitive. I’ve done some piano teaching in schools so know I couldn’t be a teacher full time. I feel I want more of a career or at least one main job not just bits and pieces. Has anyone retrained? Or any words of advice?

@Africa2go and @JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon it would be good if you provided some statistics so OP could see the figures rather than generic comments that many lawyers earn lower incomes (which presumably anyone smart enough to get through gcses could work out for themselves). A quick google suggests there are approximately 146,000 solicitors in England and Wales. 40% of them working in London. 22% of all solicitors are in in-house roles (so providing legal advice to companies or organisations they work for). Around 7,000 are at top city firms (magic or silver circle). So in-house plus city firms account for 26.6% of all solicitors. I haven’t been able to find statistics for number of solicitors at US law firms. There are numerous salary surveys online from legal recruiters which show the different pay in regions and by size of law firm. Law can be extremely well paid and when aiming for a career I would personally be aiming for the top. Surely no one enters a career thinking they won’t succeed? If so, choose something else you think you can do well. The difference between the lawyers I know and those working in finance is that the lawyers all find the work very interesting. I would advise trying to get some work experience to see if you think you are suited to it.

Are you interested in law? I used to be a solicior. I loved my law degree, I lectered at Uni for a year whilst waiting to do my Legal Practice Course and loved it - even enjoyed the LPC the actual practice of law as a trainee and then as a qualified solicitor, no hated it - square peg in round hole. Academically and intellectually up to it but felt my personality and my outgoing nature was being suppressed and that I just did not fit in. I worked in-house after qualifying and it was no better really. Got to wear casual clothes but still the soulless grind, the long hours which really take down your average hourly rate as there is no over-time, the unreasonable expectations of being given things at the last minute and expected to cancel any plans of your own, the emails 24/7, the fact that whilst on leave, no one did your work and you came back to a massive pile which took overtime to clear - it was relentless - maybe if I had loved it then I might have felt more positive but felt imprisoned and trapped and it was a joyous day when I took redundancy and paid off my mortgage and changed careers.
Sorry if I sound negative, I am just trying to give a realistic appraisal from my personal experience.

@DrFosterGloucester Just trying to be realistic with salary expectations for the OP and dispell the myth that all lawyers earn a fortune. The Law Society recommended salary for a trainee is £20k (£22k outside of London) and thousands of high street / regional firms pay that or close to that. According to the University of Law, the average NQ salary in 2019 was £40k. If a pp says that London firms are offering close to 6 figures for juniors, it doesn't take much analysis to show that there is a large proportion of NQs earning less than £40k. Don't get me wrong, £40k is a decent salary but its not in the range that is often banded about for lawyers.

Part of this flattening of salaries is due to the massive saturation of the industry as @JesusMaryAndJosephAndTheWeeDon says. According to the Law Society website, in 2019-2020 about 25,000 students started law degrees. For the same period, there were 6,300 new traineeships registered and about 6900 solicitors were admitted to the roll. I appreciate there is some time lag between starting a law degree and qualifying but its illustrative of the problem. 25,000 students competing for 6300 training contracts, so roughly only 1 in 4 will get a training contract. If you imagine that the 18,000 graduates who were unsuccessful finding a training contract apply the following year, along with 25,000 new graduates, for the same number of training contracts as thats relatively fixed, then your chances drop to about 1 in 7.

Its all very well "aiming for the top" - am sure most law students do exactly the same, but it is so unbelievably competitive that evitably very good candidates won't make it to the top.

I’m quite introverted

Then I’d say law probably isn’t for you anyway. Obviously it depends on the field you go into but in both my field (employment) and DHs filed (corporate) being introverted would be a real disadvantage if you can’t easily turn on the confident ultra friendly persona. You need to be able to present, develop business, hold your own in an argument etc

It is competitive but that's no reason not to go into it - everything is competitive these days. Do your finances allow for you to afford to do the conversion?

No, competitiveness is not a reason not to go into it (albeit I don't think many career choices are quite as competitive as entry-level law at the moment), nor is the financial reality, just trying to be realistic about the proposed career change for the OP.

Christ no.

For the vast majority the pay is shit, the hours are shit, the working environment is shit.

You’d be spending the best part of 25k to take a near 10k salary drop from teacher to first year training contract and that’s if you can even get one and even if you get one you still need to stick it out long enough to earn decent money.

Of the 250 people in my LLB cohort I can name less than 10 who are still practicing a decade after qualifying - everyone else has got out.

Yes some people earning 6 figure salaries, but bloody hell they earn them.

Have a look at insurance careers particularly commercial insurance - they are high paying jobs and university grads can get into schemes to fast track and they usually subsidence an insurance degree for career progression. Lots have travel included.

Thanks everyone. I’m happy for blunt advice before I spend thousands tbh!

These threads come up often on mumsnet, and generally you get a couple of replies from happy lawyers, and a hundred replies from miserable lawyers, and former lawyers who would never consider going back.

Unless it’s a genuine passion, I really wouldn’t recommend it to anybody.

There’s lots of online career quizzes to help you decide what to do :)

If you like law, consider a degree/Masters in knowledge or information management (technically a degree in librarianship). Most librarians don’t work in libraries now, they work in the private sector. I work in knowledge for a mid-tier law firm and it’s a huge growth sector. You get a lot of involvement in the law - I do legal research, and teach lawyers how to research too - but for a lot less training and a lot less hours!

You can also look into doing legal executive exams as well.

Some interesting ideas I’d never have thought of thank you.

Many people go into law with no desire to be a commercial lawyer at a city firm. This will automatically cut off the top salaries.

The area of law you wish to practice in makes a huge difference. If you want to do family law, property, private client, criminal law, personal injury or clinical negligence salaries are also lower.

When I qualified I had a good friend who was a secondary school teacher. She consistently earned more than me, year on year. I also worked with a lady who had retrained having been a nurse before. She was contemplating returning to nursing due to the pay.