If you’re a trainee solicitor in London at a mid sized, top 100 firm….

[Ozgirl76]

What is your life like? What kind of home do you live in? What’s your social life and weekends like? Holidays? Saving for the future?
This was me in 2003-4 and I was chatting with my DH about what my life and my other trainees lives were like and I wondered how it compared from then to now.

No ulterior motive, I’m just interested!

would trainee solicitors be on MN?

interesting question though - that was my life 1996 onwards! I don’t miss the house share!

What was yours like?

My DD is a trainee solicitor in a mid sized firm and they are v nice to her and mindful of work life balance . Her brother is a resident doctor and the contrast in pay and conditions is shameful

Why wouldn't they be?

You're better off asking on Roll On Friday OP.

I wasn’t a trainee solicitor in 2003-4 but DH was and we got together in his last year of training (2005.) I remember life being great fun- we lived in a flat in the East End and bought a flat in Shoreditch in 2006. Loads of going out with friends, meals out, plenty of spare cash. Amazing holidays in villas with friends, skiing, safari, buying tickets and going to Marrakech on a whim.

My goddaughter is started her training contract at a Silver Circle firm this year. Coincidentally, she’s living in the same development we lived in, shared with a friend whose mum owns the flat. It’s absolutely lovely and quite a bit more gentrified now.. She is loving living in London, seems happy and busy, has joined a large London choir, cycles to work. She’s walking the tour de Mont Blanc with a friend in the Summer. She intends to wait until she’s qualified and then look into buying somewhere, although I doubt it will be in very central London, even with a generous parental (maybe also god-parental) donation.

My other two observations are that they dress waaay more casually. She wears Lucy and Yak dungarees to the office some days- I remember DH’s collar stiffeners and cufflinks. And she had her flatmate don’t drink at all and I think that’s quite common (let alone indulging in a spot of Charlie, which many of our peers did- the doctors being
the worst offenders, though now it’s all school fees, cheese making courses and triathlons for them too 🙄 .)

I was 22-24 years old when I was a trainee and I don’t think I’d have gravitated to MN over alternative sites.
I suppose there’s bound to be a few that do.

It's just like This Life but with less smoking and we have smart phones.