To consider retraining as a barrister?

[princessglitter]

I am a teacher in middle management with a fairly secure, reasonably satisfying career. I have always dreamed of a career in the law. Originally I considered becoming a solicitor, doing a conversion course and going down the LPC route.

However, at the last minute, I lost my nerve and pulled out of my college course. The idea of that amount of debt was horrifying to me.

I trained as a teacher, but has always felt unfulfilled if I'm honest. As I've got older, the idea of retraining as a barrister has become more appealing, but I am acutely aware that so many fall by the wayside. I have secured a mini-pupillage this summer, which I am extremely excited about. I am also going to apply for vacation schemes at solicitors' firms to enable me to make an informed decision.

I do have a strong academic background and an Oxbridge 2.1 - but I know that that alone will not be enough.

Am I unreasonable to take a risk (with my husband's support) and consider a career in the law? Possibly as a barrister, but I intend to research this thoroughly with some real experience in both areas and different specialisms.

I thought I was the only one who had worked out the strange similarity between Xenia and Lydia (though it doesn't take much working out). You can also admire her for singlehandedly (ho ho) producing a vast number of books.

I have read the first couple of pages and the last couple of pages and clearly the beginning of the thread bears little relation to where it now is!

To answer the OP, with regret I must add my voice to the nay-sayers. It is a very, very unstable profession that you are thinking about entering, particuarly if it is the very court-heavy branches that you are thinking of going into - criminal, family etc. If you are thinking about criminal law I would state things a bit more strongly - don't do it. Under no circumstances do it. Not now. There have been yet another batch of firm-killing cuts announced recently and the bar are seriously wondering how they are going to survive this.

To answer a comment from the end of the thread, I am a criminal solicitor and HCA and I can't possibly imagine how anyone could think the work is not intellectually stimulating or interesting. It never stops being interesting. Well-paid? No. Secure? No. Interesting? Every single day. Even the run-of-the-mill work can throw up massive legal problems. You never know when an apparently straightforward hearing will suddenly grind to a halt with everyone looking at each other and saying "Oh" because someone has just noticed some odd little oversight in the law, or dug up some brand-new bit of case law. I would never, ever advise anyone to enter my profession at this particular time, but it wouldn't be because it is dull!

It's horses for courses though. I have many civil lawyer friends and I genuinely don't understand how they don't eat their own heads with boredom. I couldn't find any sort of interest in what they do - they probably wonder how I do what I do. Ultimately I think you take out of a job what you put into it. If you are a dull person you will find the most interesting job dull. If you engage with the work and with the people workign around you, you will find interest in even fairly mundane things.

And I just wanted to echo Spero's comment about the closing of the bar to all but those wealthy enough to self-fund. There has been progress in recent years towards more accessible legal profession. I don't see that continuing unfortunately.

The large financial awards for pupils being mentioned on this thread are pretty scarce. The reality for most people heading into the profession is that they need a financial float or they simply won't make it.

YY to the "financial float".

I think in my 2nd 6 my travel costs were approaching £4k as a London based barrister doing a lot of work in the home counties (Canterbury, Reading, Kingston etc) and some much further afield (leicester, Exeter) this certainly wasn't unusual.

Of course I received (most) of that back eventually but it can take a long time and without cash in the bank it would have been impossible.

And things will get worse pretty soon. Soon people will be incurring those £4k of travel costs travelling to do effectively pro bono work.

Most solicitors have no desire to screw over the junior bar, but it is what is going to happen. We are getting paid so little for the work that needs doing that firms are inevitably going to be expecting pupils and very junior tennants to do cheap work on a promise of getting a decent case further down the line. And even if the intention is to pay properly, how many cases don't get legal aid granted so Counsel never gets paid?

kungfupanda - in my office there are experts in the law of costs who get excited about it. One of them gets back from an assessment and is besieged by the others all wanting to know how much was allowed or knocked off for this item or that item on the bill. Which just proves that everything is interesting to somebody somewhere.

What's the opinion on which area of law is the most intellectually rigorous?

I have no experience of commercial law, but I would doubt that it is as demanding as has been suggested on this thread.

I would of course vote for my own area of speciality: public law/ judicial review.

(yes, being deliberately vague about the exact speciality).

My personal view is that commercial litigation is so dull, they have to pay people stupid amounts of money to do it or no-one would be interested.

I used to do Pensions and that is brick shit hard. And dull. Not doing it any more thank goodness.

dull has got to be conveyancing - fancy never escaping the confines of that dull office - Id go bloody crazy

Xenia -- are you also Lydia? and Supermother? I'm not surprised your spelling is a bit off. Also, where do you find the time to do any work?

I suppose it depends upon whether you need the money. If you can afford the training, afford the years of doing driving offences at Salford Mags, then why not have a go? It all depends upon whether you need the income IMO.

Most intellectually rigorous is clearly tax, btw.

Oh and Xenia is a real solicitor. She was outed on MN once before and I heard her speak once.

Agree that tax is very very hard - but interesting IMO. About 30% of my work in pensions was tax and it is the best bit of pensions IMO.

Hmmm, the BSB recently disbarred a head of chambers for taking on her son, when other better qualified candidates applied for the same pupillage.

The BSB cited protecting the public interest.

To my mind the BSB are nothing but pen pushers looking for a problem where none ex ist.

Chrissie what is your point? That you think nepotism is perfectly acceptable?

Sorry I realised people are asking the Lydia question down below.
ROF is awful - makes mumsnet looks like a suburban mummies' coffee morning. All acid tongues and chips on shoulders. Never liked it.

OP, I hate to say don't do it, as you sound very passionate about it, but my advice would be "don't do it"!! I trained as a solicitor, and got a decent training contract, but then started to question why I was selling my soul. I watched my (female) bosses working 14 hour days, and literally not seeing their children awake from Monday to Friday, for what - a big car and a detached house? I jumped ship after 5 years, travelled the world, had babies and am now a teacher. I look at my ex-colleagues now, some of whom are still good friends, and they still talk about how their entire waking lives are governed by 6 minute intervals, the amount of time that is billed as a unit, even having a cup of tea at work is "lost chargeable time". It fills me with horror. Is there any way you could do any voluntary work to fulfill that urge of yours to work in the law?

OK here goes. My DH is one of these. He made it because in his late 20s he met me and I had earned a lot of money and we had enough to buy a large house and for me to be a SAHM when the children were born and small. He had a first from an RG university and is stonkingly clever. He is from working class roots and had little financial backing except from me. For the first 10 years or so until he was 40ish (and he is in an area of law which is very specialised and very intellectually rigorous) with costs of chambers and the hours involved there is no way we could have survived with a reasonable standard of living (in London) if we hadn't had a good foundation and if I hadn't been at home - during those years it would have been out of the question for me to work too. The worst moment was when I went into labour at 27 weeks and he was in court and had to be met by his clerk at the end with a note to get to the hospital fast - he could not have left court and explaining this to the hospital at that time was almost beyond me. We are now 50(ish) and it is now paying off (in spades) but it has taken monumental intellectual and physical commitment on his part and monumental domestic strength and commitment on mine to reach this level of success. Can only speak for a specific niche area of the field.

I would counter a great deal of caution before starting this course - the solicitor route may well be better although I'm not an expert.

Interesting responses and thank you all for your honesty. I think some voluntary work is a good idea and it does seem that an Oxbridge First is pretty much standard for the Bar.

I still think an Oxbridge 2.1 might be 'good enough' for a career as a solicitor, particularly if combined with lots of relevant work experience. There were only 6 firsts in my very small college and many of my peers have managed to achieve great successes with their 2.1s. I don't know whether grade inflation has affected degrees in the ten years since I did mine.

I appreciate TCs are like gold dust at the moment. I know there are no guarantees, especially with the economy squeezing out legal aid funding.

I don't necessarily want to work for a very prestigious firm.

NOOOO An Oxbridge 1st is NOT "pretty much standard for the Bar". No No No No No No No!!!!!!!!

Seems like I am a lone voice in saying I think you should go for it but ho hum.

TableVamp has a point...
Even though any sensible person would progress knowing perfectly well that it can be very, very difficult to get a pupillage, it's all very demoralising for some people, etc. (and I had the impression that you were well aware of this when you first posted, princess ), I think it's a shame if you've been persuaded by this thread that there's no possibility of you finding a pupillage.
And I don't think it's necessarily the case that you're 'too old' by your early 30s.
Enough said.

I know a pupil who is 44...

An Oxford or Cambridge First seems fairly standard for the top commercial sets offering £60K as a Pupillage Award.

Being older won't help in any field, I bet. Probably even less help in the provinces because of downshifters wanting to get out of London for kids.

Lots of people earn lots of money and have fun. Pick your area of practice carefully though as some are badly paid. Women tend to make bad choices about areas of work and end up in low pay ghettos.

(Not necessary to out people)

Sorry for outing. My question was intended to be subtle (no names) but obviously it wasn't as people knew exactly what I was getting at. Apologies.

Frankly you would be better off looking at being a solicitor ? there are far more places available than pupillage which is what gives rise to many of the issues, particularly when you?re out of London. For this your Oxbridge 2.1 would be absolutely fine and indeed will be quite attractive to many firms in the North West. You still need to think it through very carefully ? look at the timetables and when you?d need to apply to local firms. Certainly in the city it can be 2+ years in advance, may be less for larger regional firms and less again for smaller firms. If you get a place with a large regional firm they will give you some sponsorship towards the LPC and potentially towards the CPE. Smaller firms generally won?t. You?ll still be out of pocket, opportunity cost of not working if nothing else.

The money though may be an issue. The few top regional firms will start trainees on around £25k and NQs on £35-40k (see ROF inside info section). And bear in mind that in terms of package (pension, not needing childcare in long holidays etc) it won?t compare to the same money in teaching. Small firms may pay substantially less. You will still have the issues about working hours, pressures of the job, lack of flexibility, legal aid cuts (if you go into that), childcare, being bossed by people 10 years younger (many older trainees really struggle with this), long term viability, childcare etc.