Dd (13)wants to be a lawyer. I have no idea how to advise her

[Bridgetjoneski]

We know no lawyers, we are working class & don't mix in those circles. But I want to help her find out as much as possible. She is extremely smart & gets excellent grades.
I'm just afraid it's a career with nepotism attached & as a working class girl won't fit in comfortably with the mc or private school kids.

That’s inverted snobbery, plenty of lawyers come from working class back grounds, I would focus on adjusting your chip on your shoulder.

I am a solicitor. A firm I worked with was sent a letter from a young girl who wanted to come after school to help with filing / reception etc. Unusually for the firm they took her on and eventually made her a paralegal in the conveyancing department when she was at university. I have left that firm but I have seen on their site that she is now on a training contract.

So based on that single case (!) I'd recommend she sends letters around to local firms when she is old enough to get a job and maybe see if she can do that sort of thing and in school holidays. She may love it or she may find that being a lawyer is not for her (I did, despite qualifying!!)

Like all professions there can be a strong ‘old boys’ network and this is still quite prevalent in the bar. However the only thing she really needs to understand what to do is now to gain admission to a good uni to study law.

At this stage you could contact the Law Society and ask about mentors or any work experience summer programmes they might have. Your DD is still too young for these but it will let you know what’s out there.

I would also encourage her to volunteer and join any debating teams as these will all stand to her in the future.

Work out what aspect of the business she wants to get involved in. I suspect that at 13, her understanding of the job is quite limited.

Is she aware of the career structure and the salaries?

She’s still very young but really she should be aiming to get good GCSEs and A levels and then apply to university. She doesn’t have to study Law at university as approximately 50% of graduates do what’s known as a law conversion course. She’ll only have to think about applying to law firms in her second year of university at the earliest ( and then it’s usually for the very large firms in the City of London).
So for now, get the best grades possible and aim for a good university

The government website has some good resources https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk/job-profiles/solicitor

your aim will need to be getting on the correct uni course. Start researching funding and get your daughter to have a chat with her school about what she is going to need to do.

as far as being working class goes some of the best lawyers are also working class. You need all kinds of lawyers so that clients can be related to.

you need to shift your mindset about how your daughters background doesn’t make her good enough.

The vast majority of law students don't go on to practise law.

Good grades, good uni, good law degree opens doors in many, many careers.

In the mean time, work experience, as much as she can fit in will be a godsend when applying for training contracts (if she goes that route).

"you need to shift your mindset about how your daughters background doesn’t make her good enough."

That's not what the OP said at all. She said her daughter is extremely smart and an academic high flyer. Her concern is whether her daughter will fit in, which is a perfectly legitimate question.

As far as I know you don't necessarily have to do a law degree. There's a law conversion degree or something. DS is doing a law a-level, may do geography degree but could do the law conversion if he wants to do environmental law. (That's all I really know).

We have 2 lawyers in the family 1st one did a science degree then law conversion and became a barrister.

The 2nd one did Law degree (and hated it) and is now a solicitor.

The consensus from them is do the degree in what you are good at and then do the law conversion.

There are so many areas of law to practice in eg: shipping, patents, financial, medical, employment it is a hugely varied profession.

Have a look at the social mobility foundation. They provide support and mentoring for aspiring doctors/lawyers/accountants where their background means they don't know anyone who can advise.
They only support if school meets deprivation criteria and child meets academic criteria (I think) and I think is for A level students but might be worth a look to see if they have any advice.

yep I did a law conversion after (ahem- some decades after) my degree which was in History and Modern Languages.

There's also an Apprenticeship route if any companies are adopting it- larger ones who pay the levy may be?

www.instituteforapprenticeships.org/apprenticeship-standards/?keywords=law

The only thing she needs to do at the moment is focus on having exceptional exam results at GCSE and A Level. She needs to be aiming for all 7/8/9s at GCSE and all A/A* at A level.

this. Further down the line she can choose if she wants to do a law degree but as others have said it might be better to do what she really enjoys and then do law conversion.

Hi OP, if she's bright and good at the job that will be the main thing. Different firms have different cultures so it's important to find one that your DD thinks is right for her, as well as how she might fit in somewhere - it goes both ways. (And ultimately if the first firm doesn't turn out to be right there are plenty of other opportunities for good people.)

There is a load of information on the internet and a school / uni careers service should be able to help in time. To get started she could take a look at sites like Legal Cheek, RollonFriday and Lawyer2B - you can get an indication of what firms are like from those. Law firm directories are Chambers and Partners and Legal 500 - and of course firms have their own websites and SM which your DD can take a look at.

PP is right, with the training contract route you don't have to do a law degree (I think probably only 50% of people do, I didn't!). You can do another degree then a one year conversion course at law school. Large firms will pay course fees and subsistence for the postgraduate courses.

One other thing to consider is Solicitor Apprenticeships, which can be done instead of a degree and training contract [and can save people building up large student debt]. In some cases I think it's actually quicker to become a qualified lawyer through an apprenticeship as so many trainees have spent a year or more as paralegals along the way.

There are work experience schemes too, depending on the route your DD takes (eg degree students often come on vacation schemes for a couple of weeks, get some work experience and do their training contract assessments/interviews - many do several schemes to get a feel for different types of firms). The HR/Careers team at large firms should be happy to have a chat with her if anything's not clear. Some firms do outreach schemes with local schools so if you're in an area where there are larger firms (basically anywhere a decent size city) it's worth checking what local firms / local offices of national firms do.

Btw I went to my local comp and trained and qualified at a MC firm - yes some people were quite posh but they were meritocratic and hired based on academic ability and potential so overall backgrounds were pretty mixed

I'm a lawyer. I'm from a working class background - only one in my extended family to go to university. We don't know any doctors, lawyers, accountants etc. and most family members worked in a trade.

I did okay in GCSEs (good, but not exceptional), and then went on to do A-Levels. I just did this at my local comp school which had a sixth form attached - I didn't even know there was snobbery about schools in those days!

I then went to relatively good uni and studied a Law degree (not quite Russell Group level, but a decent uni nevertheless). It was back in the financial crash years, so training contracts disappeared except for magic circle firms so I didn't get a training contract straight out of uni. I paid myself to go and get the Legal Practice Course (~£12k in those days - 1 year course needed as part of solicitor academics) using a grad loan. From there I went and got paralegal work as there were no training contracts on offer, so I figured I'd get some experience whilst I waited for the training market to pick up again. This actually worked out well for me, and I ended up working in commercial contracts and IP law working in-house at a technology company and training through them a few years later via a training contract. I'm now 8+years qualified and working in tech industry in-house and I love it (and it pays well in my field in-house which is obviously a bonus)!

I guess the point is that there are so many different types of law and ways to practice it. Often students fall into the trap of thinking being a lawyer = magic circle private practice. Regional firms, smaller firms and in-house companies offer interesting and decent work too. It really is about your interests, your lifestyle, the environments you want to work in.

Most of the students and colleagues I've worked with over the years are bright and hard-working people - at least half are from traditionally working class backgrounds. Not all lawyers have these exceptionally high academics people talk about being a must-have requirement, but what they do have is amazing critical thinking skills, commercial awareness, agility and accuracy in their work.

At her age its all about getting best grades she can at gcse and A level.

There has been good advice about work experience etc from @halesie above

She may also want to look at Aspiring Solicitors which is a social mobility group and follow them on social media skills she gets a flavour of what they offer as she gets older.

Although now disgraced 😩a good book ro read is Ugly by Constance Bristow.

But the profession recruits differently these days and it's not a case of who you know these days especially at top firms. Indeed that's more likely to happen at smaller places.

I'd get her to look at university websites to check which A levels they're interested in, so that might help her chose her GCSEs. At some point she'll have to do work experience for school, so she could try and do this with the school and in school holidays - might only be basic work, but she'll get a feel.

A different thing, but we're very much working class. DD got it into her mind around your DD's age, she wanted to go to a private school for sixth form - we felt it was totally off our radar, so told her if she wanted to go, she had to research - she did just that, arranged interviews - we just had to get her to interviews, exams and fill in paperwork for bursary. She got in on a scholarship, so it can be done if you're really focused your dreams.

Thanks for all the replies, going to read through them now👍

The public sector has a lot of in house lawyers, which whilst not as well paid as some legal careers, offers a better work/life balance.

My workplace, an economic regulator, offers legal apprenticeships.

I think it's highly likely that nepotism etc exists in the higher levels and at the main Barristers Chambers in London but I think that your average High Street lawyers dealing with conveyancing, family law etc are just as likely to be high achieving comp schoolers as they are to be private schoolers.

You've had some great advice up thread. I would also buy her the GCSE and A level law books so that she can read them even if her school don't offer it as a GCSE and maybe look into whether your local Magistrates court ever do an Open Day so she can see it, I think shell be too young to observe any cases yet but thats an option as she gets older. As is a trip to Parliament to watch laws being made.

I'm a lawyer from a working class background and my advice would be to simply continue working hard, getting the best possible grades at GCSE and A Level and then study something she enjoys at university at the best possible university she can attend. A lot of London firms still mainly recruit from oxbridge and Russel group universities. I went to the local ex poly because i couldn't afford to move away for university and never even got a training contract interview at a London firm despite getting a 1st in my degree and good A levels.

My route in was to paralegal at a large national firm before being offered a training contract. It meant I didn't qualify until I was 30 but that was the price I had to pay coming from a working class background. I also made sure I got wider commercial experience working as a contracts assistant at an international company for 12 months where i was liasing with international customers. Legal experience is valuable but law firms really value any type of work experience, especially if it is obtained at a FTSE100 company. It demonstrates that you understand how a business works and can think commercially. The ability to work with clients ultimately determines the success of a lawyer because it is all about bringing in the money.

If she gets excellent grades there is a good chance a larger law firm will sponsor her to do her conversion course and LPC. Thankfully mine did because I couldn't have paid the £12,000 for the LPC otherwise.

It's still a very elitist industry but is slowly getting better.