Retrain as Solicitor age 44

[ilovetomatoes]

I’ve had a long career in banking. Thinking about retraining as a solicitor now focusing on family law or as a complete outlier sports law (I’m mad about sport).

any advice? I would have a few lean years financially but could manage.

Blimey, I’m surprised! Could you look at an internal secondment? Good luck and keep at it. Glad you are in the mix for those roles and I hope it comes good.

I agree with this. You don't even need to be a qualified lawyer. There are senior roles in law firms in risk and compliance that are filled by non-lawyers because the demand for experienced people with the technical skills to keep up with the ever changing legislation and manage a team and operational function is great.

It is better to be a lawyer because you will be working with lawyers in the firm and lawyers tend to respect lawyers more. It also helps to have some practice experience because the lawyerly training is quite rigorous and you need to understand what lawyers do to speak to them at the same level. But it is not essential. You can pick it up on the job if you are alert and switched on.

If you can ask to be seconded to the Financial Crime team at your bank, that would be a good taster. Then start in compliance with a law firm that works for banks and does a lot of finance. Your experience would be good background to sell yourself (as would be a stint in anti-money laundering and sanctions, if you can get it).

I’m in said profession. Bearing in mind your salary now - honestly don’t do it. It’s such a stressful job.

I’m a solicitor myself (20+ years PQE), and have also known people who’ve come to it late. One particular note of caution: don’t assume there is a job waiting for you. There’s a great deal of competition and plenty of people don’t ever manage to get a job that leads to qualification after law college. The bigger law firms are full of paralegals with excellent exam results who are struggling to progress. That said, your age/previous experience could still be an advantage - but it’s not something I would assume.
I think sports law is a particularly difficult proposition. It’s hugely competitive and there are not many opportunities. I know two people who tried to get into this and did not manage it: one was a solicitor with about three years PQE at a Magic Circle firm who decided to quit and change direction (he ended up as in-house lawyer for an online betting firm); the other had been working at a financial house in the City and quit age 40 to go to law college, he did not qualify as a solicitor and now has some kind of paralegal job at a finance house).
So this is just to say, be realistic and have a Plan B.

No. Needed a TC to qualify and never got offered one after 50 applications.

I was already in banking compliance so stayed in that area.

I think you’re unfortunately being unrealistic. It’s incredibly competitive and you’ll be up against thousands of graduates with straight As/A stars at A Level and firsts from university.

By the time you qualify (assuming you manage to find a training contract quickly and in your geographical area - be aware that most people have to relocate to where the training role is) you’ll be in your 50s. That is a time when (assuming you’re female) you are fairly likely to start noticing the effects of menopause which truly are not compatible with a career in law where you need to be firing on all cylinders at all times. You’ll be putting in very long days and working incredibly hard in a very stressful job. If you are needed to stay until 2am you just have to. It’s just the job. You’ll still be expected in at 8am the next day. You won’t be earning anywhere near your current “comfortable six figure salary”. It will then (if you’re good enough) typically take you ten years or so in the regions before you can look at partner roles. A salaried partner in a regional firm is still quite possibly on less than six figures.

Are you aware that many law firms make equity partners step down at 60? It’s part of the partnership agreement.

it’s not realistic to expect a financially lucrative legal career at your age. You might be lucky but you are more likely to regret it.

I’m a senior partner in a boutique law firm. DH is top equity in a large national. Im approaching 50 and DH is five years older. If DH makes it through to retirement without having a heart attack I’ll be surprised. I’m really starting to need to pull back a bit and take my foot off the peddle. I can’t imagine starting out at this age. Unless you’re single with no commitments I don’t think it would actually be possible to do it well.

Sports law?! You’re having a laugh. Very few jobs. Family law is one of the lowest paid areas.

What @Ciri said. DH and I both solicitors in different fields with wide-ranging experience. It will just be such a long row to hoe from where you are now to qualification. But then it’s not like friends who have qualified as doctors later in life and slotted into the nhs - you’ll then have to find a sports law job (which would realistically require a one year post grad diploma from somewhere like Kings) and is incredibly competitive. The sports lawyers I know are top corporate lawyers who have taken post grad quals or got lucky with football teams after doing general corporate work for them.

Family law you’d be about 15 -20 years away from making anywhere near what you’re earning now, if you’re very lucky.

Sorry if this comes across as harsh but I’d be thinking about how you can leverage your existing industry, expertise and qualifications. Could you do a niche part time LLM in a legal area that interests you? You won’t come out able to qualify as a solicitor but I know people who have gone down this route and now work in legal adjacent roles in house.

Don’t do it for all reasons given above.

if you want an intellectual challenge do some part time study. If you want to advise people work out a way to do that another way (eg become a career coach or volunteer at the CAB or mentor an underprivileged kid or volunteer as a school governor)

or perhaps work towards becoming a data protection officer which you can combine with your current job.

Another jaded lawyer here and I retrained into it at the age of 40. I also do family law. The pay is horrible. I earn less (10 years on!) than the average wage as I am in a rural area working for a small firm and we rely on legal aid, and I earn a third of what i was paid before in my previous role. I am never off duty it seems - alot of our clients have their children removed under emergency police powers so i get calls all times of the day and night. Working in divorce for private clients is soul destroying- everyone is angry and cross and expect you to pull miracles out of nowhere in terms of settlements.

I loved the academic side. I'd recommend if you want to do a GDL etc then go for it, but use it to enhance an exisiting role. That is what I hope to move to.

I'd also say from my cohort of LPC graduates (part timers, all were in their 30s and early 40s) about 10% got training contracts. Half of those got offered permanent roles afterwards. The small numbers who ended up being qualified lawyers with legal jobs are looking for a way out now they are approaching or in their 50's.

I have to say I did enjoy it despite the extraordinary hard work it was and the added stress on top of a stressful job. It's also given me capability and confidence in my current role but hell, that 20k stopped me from buying a house and I can't say it was worth it.

Hi, @ilovetomatoes I work in Community Care (mental health and mental capacity law).

I'm a similar age and thinking about the CILEX programme - does anyone have any experience of this? I don't have a degree and could do this while I carried on in my current job.

Watching with interest as I'm a similar age but a qualified solicitor overseas and I've been thinking of doing the SQE (old QLTS).

I'm not really aiming for magic circle firms or anything like that because I'm not delusional and I know that after passing the SQE I wouldn't necessarily need a training contract. However, like I said, following with interest as law has always been my passion but my life took a different direction from it, sadly. But I still dream.

Lots of firms take on qualified lawyers from most countries. I've known Australian and Canadian qualified solicitors be offered roles in city firms.

@kirinm Thanks for your reply but Australia and Canada follow Common Law whereas I qualified in a country outside the Commonwealth (and Europe) that follows Roman Law, hence the need for the SQE, or at least that's what I've been told (and I haven't had time to research in more depth I have to confess).

It really is my true vocation and virtually the only thing in which I've excelled at in my life. I've always been great at researching law and applying that to the case at hand and have a knack for writing. But on I dream, maybe one day 🙂

@SweetSakura @OuiLaLa @blueshoes Thank you all for the advice. I shall pass it on to DD.

Waste of time, AI will mean that five years from now your chosen field will be redundant. Same with programmers, just another job lost to technology.

Law isn’t as exposed to risk from AI at the senior level. Anyone can read a precedent or a law report but it takes more than reading ability to present clients with the right strategies for their particular scenario.

at the junior level then yes there is more of a risk and some very process driven fields such as domestic conveyancing and some family work are likely to be affected.

I agree. The risk from AI is overrated.

Lawyers at their heart are problem solvers. They find answers to situations where there is no set answer by going back to the legislation, first principles and common sense.

How can a large language model provide an answer in that situation? It is far too nuanced and requires extrapolated reasoning and sensitivity to human nature to advise.

The process driven parts of law maybe but that is often done by paralegals and executives anyway.

Precisely, although it is likely to mean fewer junior lawyers required

OP would you consider doing mediation instead?

If you did qualified as a chartered director you'd be in demand as a NED and there is law involved, you could do arbitration and/or mediation, and maybe a diploma in family law to go with it?

Lots of roles or private practice open to you then

I'm a lawyer and do local authority child protection work which is stressful but really interesting. Best of all you dont have that endless pressure to make costs and account for every 6 minutes of your working day. Go for it. You're not too old for it at all. There is a shortage of lawyers in this area

We had a demo of an AI program to spot risks in Leasehold Conveyancing. They can’t get the nuances of language, so I’m not worried.

Not yet….

It might be worth consider social welfare law - i.e. public law, community care and education. It's still hard work and it's definitely not well paid as it's mostly on legal aid, but it's incredibly rewarding when you get the right result for someone vulnerable who is being shafted by the authorities.