Solicitor wanting to become ex solicitor

[StuckSolicitor]

Help!

I’ve name changed as this is seriously outting in the small world that is law. I’ve changed some small details.

I am a solicitor in a really niche property law area. I have practised as both a contentious and non-contentious solicitor for 25 years. And on my goodness but I can’t keep going. I started out wanting to help families which failed at the first hurdle because I ended up getting a training contract at a corporate law firm and so got nowhere near anything other than large scale, high value clients and their matters.

I took 4 years out when I had my 3 children - not on maternity leave, I just quit and didn’t have a paid job for that time. And I went back when my youngest was 18 months.

I hate how the job has changed. Time recording is now the absolute be all and end all. Targets, business development (for which we seemingly receive no credit), supervision, marketing, know how, CPD, compliance and regulatory issues, being a team player, keeping up with the latest buzz words from the partnership and on and on and on it goes. All in making sure the PEP is as high as it can be.

The question is what on earth can I do instead? I’m based in a very rural part of England and cannot move for various family reasons so the job options seem limited. I would like to be able to do something that had more soul to it and meant I was doing something good. At the moment I simply seem to be making rich people richer and that sits very uncomfortably with me.

Are there any solicitors out there who have successfully become ex solicitors? I need to earn a minimum of £40,000 per annum as my husband’s teaching job is not very secure and we still have a large mortgage (although our house is small and nothing special - 2008 banking crash walloped us).

Any ideas or experiences?

I work with an ex solicitor. We work for a charity in corporate fundraising , salaries vary so you just have to keep your eye out. Definitely an impactful job ! Where I work is super flexible, WFH , good pension, AL etc.

My salary is 55k, and room to progress. Please feel free to message me if you want a chat.

@Bellabar does that sort of job mean you’d have to be good at sales? I don’t know very much about fundraising at all…..

CPS are recruiting. It’s civil service terms and conditions. You help victims of crime. There’s huge potential to develop. You will be trained, if you need it. There’s no sales, time recording is simple.

Lecturing at BPP University. If you teach the SQE it's fully remote or you can teach at one of their many branches all over the country. You don't need any teaching qualifications as they are looking for ex-practitioners. The salary for a full time lecturer is £50K, but you can earn a lot more than that if you do it freelance.

@Sp1ke3 @XelaM just off to read about those….

@StuckSolicitor it depends. I work in new business, so that is quite a sales job. But not a typical sales job and your focus is on large companies with high income . A lot of it is relationship building. But yes you have to win partnerships.

My colleague works on the account management side , that is not sales at all. That is about managing a relationship with a company who has agreed to support and building on that. You could be managing partners that raise hundreds of thousands and millions for the charity. So it is a very highly rewarding job, and you will see impact first hand. I couldn't ever do anything else.

Alternatively a lot of the larger charities have internal legal teams .

Join government legal or your local council. At least you will get rid of the timerecording.

40k is very low for 25pqe tho. Especially if you have niche skills. Wouldn’t you be better off accepting some heavier travel burdens and trying to get on a board or at least senior level of one of your clients?

Go in-house. I hated private practice, everyone I know did. In-house so much better.

I’m currently doing a 3 day week due to family illness (Dad on his own, has non Hodgkins which is progressing quickly) so hence the £40. Full time is £70k. Which is still low in the world of a top 100 law firm but not in the real world that everyone else lives in I think.

I also have 1 child with SEN which restricts my ability to travel. I’d love to work for the National Trust or Woodland Trust. I have a really weird practice that’s the oddest real property law (you want some legislation from over 400 years ago applying? That’s me you come to) and some environmental stuff too along with a side helping of knowing loads about all sorts of really odd tenancy law. So really niche stuff but really restricted in where I can go. Husband has been in bad health too so can’t put too much pressure on him. Family life has been a bit of a shitshow for the last few years!

I’ve been looking at in-house jobs and wondering about those. Mainly they need commercial or corporate lawyers it seems.

Another one saying consider going in house. I haven't looked back.

Try local govt, they are often looking for property lawyers. Or environment agency or similar?

A while back now, but someone I know quite and took on case work for the Financial Ombudsman. It was fully flexible and done entirely remotely. It wasn't relevant to her area of law. Perhaps worth looking into whether such a thing still exists?

Having worked for an in-house legal dept for a major US/UK financial firm (altho's not qualified myself), if you have a practicing certificate they will probably be interested in you. In-house work isn't as popular among lawyers as working for a law firm and to some extent, we took what we could get.

Having said that, I knew one solicitor who chucked the law entirely and re-trained as a pharmasist.

Local Government are desperately short of decent solicitors. Most are locums because it's hard to recruit.
It's probably less prestigious but it's an incredibly useful role.
One ex solicitor friend of mine works in the Civil Service, another in writing up law reports, another worked as a compliance officer for a broker's firm.
I think you will find your general skills very transferrable out of a specialised field.
Charity third sector, etc..

Co Sec/in-house for a property/housing company? I'm a co sec with a law degree. Know a part-time co sec/in-house counsel who was made redundant in 2009 and now works around her children.

Re Civil Service - look also at the Planning Inspectorate. Although being able to travel might be necessary. Inspectors come from a wide variety of backgrounds and legal training would be great.

Legal jobs in local or central government will get you away from time recording and are very low stress in comparison to private practice.

I work in a large local authority and beware there’s no guarantee of escaping the pressures of time recording - if anything it’s worse than private practice as it’s being policed and (constantly) chased by people who purely expect to see you at constantly at 100% of target and have no idea of non-chargeable work, recovery rates, WIP write-off - we’re expected to record 1300 hours a year with no discretion to write off time, reduce bills on files etc. The pressure feels endless.

I left the law when I was 6yrs pqe. One of my main motivations was similar to you - I was fed up of helping rich people (most of whom I didn't like) get richer (I specialised in property development/planning law). I am an academic now - definitely an option but presumably distance learning would be better. I am on a 0.6 contract though and I am on about £34,000 so that might not be viable.

Have you considered the judiciary? They are looking for more women and solicitors.

Those of you who love stationery like I do will appreciate the significance of me opening my beautiful new notebook and starting to write in it to write down all of your ideas.

Crikey but private practice is just awful. It suits a very few I think but for the remainder it’s absolutely hideous.

Wow. Am in local govt and do zero time recording!

I practiced for 6 years and now work for a University coaching apprentice solicitors (making sure they stay on track with their studies, giving advice, helping a bit with pastoral issues, making sure they're getting enough experience in the workplace). It's almost entirely remote, as in I've been in once to collect my laptop since starting nearly a year ago.

I love the job, I feel like I'm helping people and no more targets/time recording etc., just a genuinely excellent work/life balance. FTE is just under £44k.

Bloody hell that’s rude and not even correct!

I’ve worked in house for about 10 years in various senior roles at PLCs and one massive international US company. I and my colleagues are all from well known successful law firms or barristers set, lots are Oxbridge backgrounds and many of us have been Chambers or Legal 500 ranked when in private practice. We’re not the random rejects that no one else would employ and are all highly skilled and good at what we do.

As it would seem is the OP - so she doesn’t actually need suggestions for roles that will take any old person!

@StuckSolicitor in your shoes I would look into a portfolio NED career. You could make the transition gradually as you build up your appointments. Depending on the organisation and the time commitment required, NED roles can pay between £15k and £30k per year for a few days time commitment per month and most people have more than one appointment at a time. Legal skills are on high demand.

I've been you. Left the City because I couldn't bear it.

Government Legal is goodish. Don't expect the starry or top flight work until you have been there for a while. Salaries are going up. I've left for a different work stream now but for the money, hours and sheer intellectual challenge (private practice is not difficult) I'd recommend it.