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.

Genuinely don't want to scare off the op or anyone else in her position, but again, a plea for reality in discussion.

If you want to work in London at the Bar doing anything that doesn't rely on Government funding you will be up against people with Oxbridge firsts, outstanding CVs, and no family committments. This doesn't mean you couldn't make it, but even before you start, the odds are against you.

I am sure Xenia is right and you can be rich and have fun BUT all the lawyers I know who are rich are rich in money but poverty stricken in terms of life/work balance - because their firm/Chambers/clients own them body and soul. They don't get to go to their children's sports days etc, they take work with them on holidays, their weekends start and end on Sunday afternoons.

If you don't go down the hard work/mega bucks route you have to think very, very carefully about the cost implications of it all because the publicly funded areas of law such as crime and family, at the early stages of your career will pay little and late. And you are less likely to get any help with your training.

Sorry, I know this has all been said before but some of it is getting lost in other issues. Of course if you are passionate about something you should try... but working very hard and getting into massive debt is something that strikes you very differently when you are 25 with no kids as opposed to 35 with kids.

Agree with Spero.

Are you looking to make reasonable money, or not?

If you want to make decent money (and/or get financial support during the conversion course/LPC) you will need to go to a high ranked commercial firm. The hours are likely to be very demanding. The work will not be the sort of work it sounds like you want to do (public international, human rights, etc).

Alternatively you could go to a non-commercial firm and do more of the sort of work you want. The hours may (or may not) be better. The pay will suck. And you'll be in debt from your 2 years of conversion course and LPC.

In either job, the work for the first few years, until you are a couple of years qualified, is likely to be very dull. And the conversion course and LPC are really dull.

The best compromise I can think of is being a lawyer in the public sector. But if you're in the NW rather than London, opportunities will be more limited there.

I agree with minipie. Definitely research working for the Gov. I was briefly a government lawyer with the Law Commission - the pay was pretty good and they were very family friendly, as long as you worked the 'core hours' between 10-4 you could chose to start early and finish early or start late and finish late. But there is still the hurdle of the conversion course to get over; I don't know what if any help you would get with that.

I can't comment on the LPC but a friend of mine did the Bar Conversion last year - is it now the GDL? It was the CPE back in my day (when dinosaurs roamed the earth etc) and she was almost eaten alive by it. This is a seriously competent and intelligent woman who has worked all over the world. It is seriously intensive - seven core subjects now as opposed to five? And I am afraid even the difficult task of working and running your home will be poor preparation for it.

I have this thread to thank for introducing me to Roll On Friday. Gosh. It is certainly bracing there.

This is just a snippet, but might be useful daniela-osborne.blogspot.com/2011/07/barristers-choice.html

(Yes conversion is now GDL, same thing)

Avoid low pay ghettos which lots of women end up in, professional spport lawyersk, high street, government. The fun and money is not there. Don't let others suggest so. Also if you find work you love then that's the key to most of it and you can as equally find that in the well paid bits as in the low paid areas. Far too women opt for low paid stuff and that's such a shame. If you earn a lot you get control, power, money and choice and the ability to delegate the worst bits of your house cleaning. Also I have never missed a sports day. It'snot that hard to work around things. I am in the Caribbean with all the children at the moment and yes I was happy to do some work first thing but I've never had to cancel a holiday. It;s not as bad as some people make out.

Also don't assume you want to do particular areas of law until you've tried them. I have seen legions of girls at school who all want to do family law (presumably because they are female and think it's a girl thing ) or crime because it looks fun on TV but in reality if you pick those areas you are paid by people with very little money and won't get power, control, high pay etc. Also it can be very intellectually challenging in lots of areas of law that many women don't think of. Keep your options open. Above all have fun. There are far too many people around from housewives to doctors, lawyers to accountants who are miserable as sin all the time and always fed up. Pick work you'll love to do.

Oh, Xenia you have such a wonderful life...
It's so kind of you to think of us saddo low paid ghetto dwellers when you're out there 'feelin' irie' with your fabulous family.
How do you do it?

I am not sure what planet Xenia is on. There is not a high paying client in the world who will accept you cancelling a conference or not turning up to court because it is your child's sports day or your child is sick. It is often incredibly difficult to 'work around things'. There is a clear correlation between the amount of money you want to earn and the demands that will be made of you.

A friend of mine has children at a particularly expensive North London school where a lot of the mother's are high flyers. Some of them are NEVER seen at school and their children's nannies have been assumed to be the children's mothers as they attend all the events etc.

I am not saying that is a bad thing, the children seem fine. But you have to go into it with your eyes open. If you think you would find it hard to spend a lot of time away from young children, you have to be realistic about the demands of certain professions.

Of course if you end up running your own firm or business things may be different but I imagine it is a good 20 years of slog to get to that position, by which time anyone starting out in their 30s may then be nearing retirement!

You need to talk to as many people as possible to find out the reality of their daily lives. Xenia does not represent reality for the vast majority of lawyers and I suspect she simply cannot understand this as she has been insulated from reality for so long now.

I suspect there is probably some differences between the commitments required of a solicitor and a barrister. Although clients won't necessarily like it you can cancel a meeting/send a substitute to a meeting if a child is sick etc when you a senior solicitor. From what is said on here, doesn't sound like you can when you are a barrister. Depending on your field and seniority senior lawyers might have more flexibility to organise their working day - where you are not dictated to by court timetables.

Overall though, as a senior solicitor/partner in a law firm you do have to make your clients think they are the most important thing in your life - which is a PITA when you have a 1 year old trying to decimate your handbag while you are on a con call because the nanny is sick, or frantically texting from a service station on the motorway with a screaming toddler in the back of the car while you are on leave/non -working day etc etc. Blackberry/wifi etc really are a mixed blessing for working women - because we can now be out of the office in the evenings, weekends etc - but are expected to be available 24/7. When I was doing a 4 day week clients said they didn't mind because they knew they could always get hold of me and I replied straight away. So much for work/life balance!

Regardless of the question of which areas are more interesting/intellectually challenging (I really think it's horses for courses) - I think there is some truth that women generally undervaluing themselves. I know I've done it when I've discovered that men who are contributing less than me are getting better remunerated in the same field - simply because they have asked for more. The answer, I think, is more transparency in firms about pay rates - as I think Harriet Harman was trying to tackle. Not sure where that ended up.

Spero you are right and so are the high-paying clients who expect to be put first!

I think as you are interested in the North West your chances of getting in (either chambers or a solicitors' firm) will be much better than those in London. I would do as many mini-pupillages and / or vacation placements as you can in Manchester and Liverpool and ask them to talk to you frankly about your chances of getting a pupillage. I have the (much maligned on this thread!) Oxbridge 2:1 and the chambers in the North where I did mini-pupillages were very interested in me.

The law is not the most family friendly area to work in but is doable if your husband is happy to take the lead in terms of the child related stuff. I would also say that as you already have 3 kids at a relatively young age I'm guessing you are probably not going to need more maternity leave which can be one of the very difficult things about being self employed as a barrister.

I am currently a barrister in the Government Legal Service. I enjoy the work a lot and there are a few opportunities in the North West (although probably not for training). It is possible to get child friendly working but the salaries (below the Senior Civil Service anyway) are not massively more than you already get. They do go further in NW than London / SE though. Government cut are also limiting recruitment at the moment.

Obviously you already have a role that many people would be envious of and that fits fairly well into family life. But if the law is an itch you have to scratch then I think getting as much work experience as you can is the key as to whether you want to make the financial and emotional commitment that this career change will involve.

Good luck!

I agree with you Spero (again )

I suspect Xenia may be one of that lucky generation who did their time as trainee and associate in the years before clients started to demand long hours (she has mentioned on another thread that, when she was more junior, she used to get away from the office by 6.30ish...), and by the time long hours started to be demanded, had already been partner for some time and therefore could choose to be more flexible with their work.

For anyone other than the most senior partners, work in a top ranked firm will not fit around family life. Family life fits around work. And that is sometimes the case even for the senior partners.

Earning a lot is great for all the reasons Xenia mentions. But it doesn't come without its own sacrifices in return.

And Xenia there are some people who simply don't find commercial work interesting. I personally find commercial law more interesting than crime or family (which is lucky for me, since it pays more). But people are different.

I can't believe that I am going to agree with Xenia twice on one thread.

I know it's hard to believe but the basic premise of what she says is right. I wouldn't describe lower paid areas of the law as "ghettos" but I would say that doing a type of law which is well paid does often earn you respect, and respect gives you freedom and choice. I am a barrister, I work four days a week and I have very very rarely missed a sports day. This is because my clients want me and work around me. I book days off in advance. I book holidays in advance. And if people are unhappy because I am unavailable, then tough. I'm well respected enough to have them come back another time. Or to have another client come instead.

Xenia is fairly untypical I am sure (do you really own your own island?) but I don't think I am.

that's great - but surely similarly applicable to well respected lawyers in low-paid areas? Doesn't the kind of respect that gives you the freedom to go to sports day operate in all areas of law? Doesn't this come from being good at your job - better than others in your field - not from having chosen a highly-paid field? I may be wrong - maybe clients who pay more are, normally, more respectful (but others argue they're more demanding...)

Xenia talks more about respect from outside the working environment - respect from and equality with your partner, plus a broader contribution to gender equality. Therein I think she does have an interesting point. I would argue that some people do manage equality and respect in their relationship even if there is inequality in pay - but it's hard.

LittleOneMum but surely it took you several years to get to that position of respect?

What happened during those years? Presumably people didn't work around you then?

as an aside, I worked for a week recently in one of the leading regional solicitors' firms - in the top 25 firms in the country. trainees I spoke to said their normal office hours are 8-6. long enough but definitely short of never-seeing-the-kids-in-the-week type hours.

Littleonemum, and what do you do when a hearing over runs and the judge says, right I will have you all back tomorrow? Do you say, er, sorry no, it's sports day, school play, parents evening?

It depends entirely on what area you are in. If you do family, as do I - and I assume this is true of crime also - you are 90% court based and hearings are often unpredictable and almost always urgent.

You simply cannot plan for every eventuality and family commitments have to come second. I agree with Andrewofgg also - clients paying you shed loads of cash have a right to demand a very high level of service. Equally, if I take a brief for an emergency protection order app which may mean being in court until 9.30 pm, I can't start crying and say I don't have childcare or I promised my child I would go to her school play. You have to suck it up in that situation. So think about it long and hard before you get into it.

I actually went into litigation on the grounds that to a certain extent you have more control over your schedule than with transactional work. With the latter you are entirely at the clients' whim and their ridiculous schedules based on when they need a deal done. With litigation once you've got over the initial flurry of new instructions there is a timetable that you can start planning your life around and which is slightly less up in the air. Saying which it still has its unpredictabilities.

When I started my nq job the partner I worked for (equity and male) was desperately trying to get to his kids' christmas performance. I think he may have made the last 5 mins. And that was just down to sheer busyness.

With counsel if they have something else scheduled you know you'll have to wait but that just goes for advice, cons etc as everyone recognises that they have other hearings. If they bailed out for court, whatever the reason, they wouldn't be instructed again.

The problem with clients (now being one as I'm in-house) is that while they may be sympathetic to all your problems if the job isn't done you won't be instructed again as it's not worth the hassle to them. And that is the problem of working in any service industry. If you can't provide the service you won't survive.

To those who asked - yes, I worked hard in the early years pre-kids. But now I say no to lots of work and no one seems to mind. I don't do family or crime, and although my work is quite court based, the hearings tend to be fixed in advance and I arrange for them to be fixed when I am available. If a case over-runs then I suck it up, of course.

I am not saying that the OP (who has long gone?) should come to the Bar. I have posted earlier saying that it is mega tough and I'd only encourage someone very brave nowadays. But I wanted to dispell the myth that it is completely un-family friendly. I think that being a partner in a law firm is a million times worse.

Yes, quite a few lawyers do own islands but they tend not to be women because too many women under value themselves and go into low paid areas. I have never said I have a wonderful life but I do like my work and family. Given what my daughters do I do have a very good picture of how it is now and as you get more senior you can block off days when you're away. Every week I'm in touch with barrister chambers and XYZ cannot do work for me because he's away on holiday etc. If you are junior and trying to get what work you can you cannot control hours but it is genuinely possible. I am not suggesting it's easy and here I am admittedly in a nice place on holiday but I just gave some advice although I don't mind at all -it was almost as fun as swimming in the sea earler with the children. If the work is intrinsically fun then life is good.

As for planning yes it's sometimes hard to be free for things. It has got much easier for me as I get older and I don't have a boss except that if I don't earn we starve which is a pretty powerful incentive. Last week it looked as if I'd have 4 hours after landing from here to get a flight to Africa which is thankfully now the day after and I would rather be here right after my holiday but that's just one of the compromises you make everyone does, male and female, every day - what takes priority - mumsnet, the cooking, the baby or the toddler, your work etc and the priority depeds on the moment. I see it as a massive blessing I've avoided the school run for 20 years and have never had a half term holiday off in that period either. Others will be weeping into their hankies that they aren't there at school every day at 3pm to talk innanely to another rather thick mother whilst the toddler kicks their legs. We're all different but I do think it needs to be said that plenty of women love their work and earn a lot and have families. It is very possible. It is much harder if you pick minimum wage type work or end up earning pin money with a much higher earning spouse.

Also not enough women write about the excitement of goind a big deal or winning a case or whatever evne if you're up all night. It's not quite on a par with giving birth but it can be a lot of fun. Don't assume all hard work makes people fed up.

Hi Xenia that's not a bad post but it still shows your limits. Women are not divided into two categories of those who work in competitive fields (clever and to be lauded) and those who SAH (to be looked down upon despised).

You seem very narrow, that to me doesn't suggest the hallmark of success, island or no.

and despised

Xenia it is getting rather tiresome that you keep going on about women undervaluing themselves by doing low paid work or staying at home to raise their children. Whist you are entitled to your opinion that value can only be measured in monetary terms, that is only one view. Admittedly, you could say that it is the predominant view of the capitalist society into which you seem to have bought whole heartedly, but it is still an opinion. Not a fact.

Yes, I could have chosen to go into commercial law, and although to me it is deathly dull, I can see that people do get satisfaction in helping businesses move money from one place to another, in exchange for a large slice of that money coming their way, but for me that has no value. Usually, all that ends up happening is that people who usually have far more money than they actually need, end up with even more money. So what?

I am sure that I am not the only one that does not value money highly enough that it becomes the only thing of value. You place value on having so much money that you can 'own' your own island. So what? In the life-span of human existence, let alone the life-span of the island itself, what significance is there in the fact that for a few dozen years you are able to tell people that they are not allowed to set foot on that small part of the earth. Really, what value is there in that?

I chose to go into the law because I wanted to make a difference to people's lives. To me there is far more value in helping even one person to leave a fairer, safer and happier life than there is in owning even a dozen islands. If I can do something that makes life fairer, safer and happier for tens or even hundreds of of people, then that is an achievement worth valuing.

At the end of Schindler's List, Schindler, having saved hundreds of Jewish people from extermination, breaks down in tears because he finds a gold pin, and realises that if he had found it earlier he could have saved one more person from the death camps.

Not all of us are cut out to be Schindlers, and I certainly don't put myself along side him, but there are many people who value making life better for other people far more highly than owning any number of gold pins. Even making a decision to stay at home and raise your children to be happy, well adjusted and kind to their fellow human beings is doing a small part to make life better for others. I am sure that you will say that you managed to do this as well as owning your island, but unless you hold the island as more important than your achievement in bringing up your children, what is the difference between owning an island or not?

To take this back to the OP. If you want to go into law because you have a desire to make life better for other people, and you have a belief that our justice system can achieve this. And if you are not afraid to put yourself to expense, emotional stress, and a lot of hard work, then go for it. Making life better for other people is worth striving for, even at a risk of a significant cost to yourself. If you want to go into law because you fancy an glamorous career, earning lots of money, or the academic challenge, then do something else.

Xenia to me is someone who is now more a business person than a lawyer, and from that perspective is right to assess the worth of doing a job on how much profit you make from it.

The best words of wisdom I ever heard when entering the profession, and which shocked me at the time, is that young female lawyers were considered "cannon fodder". It wasn't said with any malice, or in any way that directly affected me, but in retrospect it is true in many cases.

It meant that so many young female lawyers are "sacrificed" to do the difficult, awkward boring work which is lower paid on the basis that they are going to work part time or not at all in the future and never get to partner level (and if they do, they will have to work harder for it).

Law is not the career it was in the past, (or even when I did my degree) and it is going to change still further, for men or for women.

I have to say, with my business minded hat on, I don't even like the business model of a law firm as a profit generating machine.

I get the impression the OP is being slightly idealistic and is perhaps swayed by the glamourous image portrayed in the many tv dramas about lawyers. You probably do need a dose of that to go into the legal profession these days. Looking back, I wouldn't have even done a law degree. There are so many easier ways to make more money.

great post thistlede . I am teetering on the edge of a GDL (having spent the first half of my career doing legal and policy work in the human rights sector) and you may have just sealed my decision.

I would like to add - xenia your utter disdain for women who have chosen other routes in life ("talk innanely to another rather thick mother") completely undermines your sometimes interesting arguments. You make yourself look a bit thick, tbh - in the sense of being blinkered and dogmatic.

people would respect you (and, possibly your opinions) more if you opened your eyes a bit more

Hurrah for thistle dew!

We keep asking op what she wants and Xenia keeps replying that anything which doesn't earn you loads of money is therefore 'ghetto'.