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.

Let me ask the questions an interviewer is not allowed to ask.

How old are you?

How old are your DC if any and if not are you planning any?

What will be childcare arrangements? if they depend on DH what is his working pattern like.

Understand how it is: life at the junior bar (and I am a solicitor myself) is liable to mean a clerk telling you at 4 p.m. that somebody else is part-heard in a case which has gone long, you have to be at Blankville at 9.30 tomorrow and in the meantime you must master a substantial brief. And you won't get paid much and you will have to wait for what you get.

And there are no excuses: child-care problems, sick baby, school prize-giving, short of close family bereavement nobody gives a damn and that will include your clients, your instructing solicitor, and the judge, and it will make no difference if any of them are female and many of them will be. The only concession I have ever seen a judge give was to allow a heavily pg barrister a loo-break halfway through each session - and that was a male judge!

I asked about your age because late-call counsel have problems of their own - not gender-related. Some solicitors think they are dilettantes. And of course they have fewer years in which to make it; you can't argue with the calendar.

So there you go. Not an easy choice.

To solve the problem an entirely different way OP, have you thought of applying to become a magistrate?

I remember a nervous client asking counsel at the con about what would happen if he was ill. "We're not allowed to be ill" was the response.

I remember another time in court just chatting with counsel on another case and her child was in hospital having a CAT scan for suspected brain injury but she had to send the nanny because she was on the last day of a 5 day hearing .

Could you make those sacrifices for a career as uncertain as the Bar?

You'd be mad and I say that as a barrister who was called in 1999.

Back in 1999 1 in 4 of us doing the BVC went on to secure pupillage. I did a 12mth pupillage at a decent London set and was 1 of the 2 pupils out of 10 to get a tenency. I imagine the stats now are much much worse. I also imagine the £7800 fees I paid back then pale in to comparison with what it costs now.

10+ years ago it was a competitive area, now unless you have a first, set up a radio station, volunteered with disadvantaged children, play grade 6 sax (with your feet) and have saved several prisoners from death row you will have very little chance.

Criminal and Family work is disappearing and it is no joke to say you would earn more per hour on the till at tescos than you do when you start out. Fee's across the profession are being squeezed and the profession will cease to exist as it does now within my career.

Think about what it is that really attracts you to the profession: if money, flexibility, autonomy feature anywhere don't do it. If challenge, excitement, interest feature, realsie that will not be a part of your career for many many years. If you like train stations, enjoy criticism and don't mind being paid several years after you billed then go for it.

If you like train stations, enjoy criticism and don't mind being paid several years after you billed then go for it.

So very true, unfortunately.

Oh and I was induced early with my DC1. I started bleeding on the way to work. As the syntocin drip was administered I was on th phone to chambers, as contractions started I was visited by my junior clerk who collected the papers, as contractions ramped up I was briefing another member of chambers between contractions.

At the time this seemed both sane and normal. To me an everyone else involved.

Above all, it's not like the bloody telly!

QueenOfDenial - your horror story reminds me of an occasion in about 2000 when a five-day trial was due to start on Monday morning. On the Saturday evening my leader (QC, for those lucky enough to earn their living in a healthier way) rang my junior (barrister who is not a QC) to say that his wife, who had been unwell, had suddenly died, and would he please seek an adjournment on Monday?

In spite of the sympathetic support of the other side the junior had to beg and plead not to be told to get on with it and do it himself - by a judge who was perfectly well aware that a junior's preparation does not include preparing for the advocacy and that one day to do so was preposterous.

The judge was female.

OP - you have been warned. Good luck either way.

I also want to say please don't think that your 2.1 from Oxbridge means GDL+ will be an easy ride. I've seen very bright people struggle. I have an Oxbridge 1st. Academically it wasn't a challenge. It was still extremely tough. I start my LPC part-time in September and now I have kids. It's going to be unbelievably tough.

Your Oxbridge 2.1 might actually count against you in the NW. My first certainly did a few times. Also be aware that people want new graduates who are maleable - it's much harder to get taken on if you don't fit the 21-year old new grad mould.

I'm not saying don't do it (my step mum qualified as a solicitor in her late 40s and I'm retraining now and I don't believe in thinkng 'what if'). What I'm saying is be fully prepared that the odds are completely against you and you may well end up losing a lot of money. Money's only money and youonly live once but don't get into debt.

andrewofgg I think most members of the legal profession could fill books with those type of stories

Memorably I also had to admit to being pregnant when fixing a trial in a five hander (so a busy Ct). It had been anticpated that the trial would happen in November. For various reasons it was to be delayed until February. Not wanting to anounce the reason in fornt of a good number of colleagues (and friends) who were present I repeatedly stated that I was unavailable during that period and would have to return the brief (thus creating further dealys)

The female Judge harassed and harangued me for a good twenty minutes until I was forced to give her the reason.

If it's the advocacy that interests you then I would still say don't completely turn your back on the solicitor option instead. These days you can get into the higher courts as a solicitor advocate, and there are a lot more solicitors on their feet across the spread of lower courts doing the bread and butter work than there are barristers with work of any kind. And at least as a solicitor you have a fixed wage and the faint prospect of family-friendly working conditions (as long as you don't touch the magic circle or M&A style law).

Saying that I am one of the failed mass of people who did a law degree and the LPC (in 2006/7) and then couldn't find a training contract. I wanted to work in the public sector and the positions just aren't there - there were several thousand applicants for a handful of training positions with the CPS, for example. If I'd have wanted to go into a high street practice then there were plenty of "internships" where you could work for lunch money for a few months "with the prospective of a training contract for the right person" - or they might decide to just say goodbye to you and then bring in someone else to do the work for free for another few months. It's certainly not a trainee's market.

I'm now a civil-servant-by-accident and happy enough with that in the current economic climate. I don't want to join in on the dream-crushing, but do just come up with several worst-case senario contingency plans before you make your decision.

I've no intention of fitting my study days around being a teacher - that would be impossible.

I am 31. I have 3 children. Have worked full time as a teacher with responsibility and done up to 10 hours tutoring a week on top of that, so I can juggle work commitments and childcare. Dh works from home.

You are not unreasonable, just totally barking.

Legal aid has gone to the dogs, competitive tendering is going to squeeze both ends of the profession.

I agree with every single comment made by the barristers and solicitors above. No anecdote is an exaggeration. I remember vividly dictating a plea in mitigation I was due to do down the phone to counsel. I was in the day assesment unit with a temp of 39 and no foetal movements. The judge adjourned, but only because I had original supporting documents with me and biking them would have taken up too much court time.

The travel, the negative equity hearings (train+fees+rent+VAT far exceeding the appearance fee), unless you have an understanding nanny or v flexible partner chance of arranging suitable childcare is nil.

That is assuming you jump through the hoops of qualification and finding someone to take you on. Even the women are grotesquely sexist and ageist and will be the first to say you will be too old/unreliable.

I agree entirely about large numbers of qualified bar and solicitors ending up as paralegals as there are no positions.

BVC/LPC grads far outweigh available positions for pupillage/TCs. That said, if you can make it to 5 years call/pqe, as there is no entry level availability, it is the best most satisfying job in the world. Also cruelly addictive.

Am a solicitor advocate of 7 years pqe on maternity leave. Desperate to go back to work now.

Have you thought about the lifestyle of actually being a barrister? My mum did her bar finals and pupillage whilst raising 4 children (her bar final results and my sister's birth were in the same paper on the same day' she was 8 months pg when she sat them). She got a place in chambers (Inner Temple) and practised for a couple of years whilst we had a series of au pairs, before she found that The Bar and 4 kids didn't mix. Dad was a solicitor and worked aborad a lot at short notice. Not so much the court hours - these are relatively school friendly - but reading briefs, preparation etc.

Queen, I am also 1999 Call. I don't suppose you were at ICSL 1998-99? I keep bumping into people who were, without ever having met them there!

Is there anyway that you can combine your background in education with your interest in law? If you can do something that utilises your existing experience you are more likely to be able to start at a higher level and do more interesting work.

Have you considered the childrens panel - unpaid, but desparate for members and a chance to do something related to the law that could make a real difference to people, or OFSTEAD inspection panels?, could you sit on school appeal tribunals?

I agree with all the previous comments about the difficulty of choosing a career in law. Legal aid is being squeezed massively, and many lawyers are having to move into areas which wouldnt be their preference.

you're mad, sorry! I have an Oxb 1st (law), but ditched a well paid pupillage to become a solicitor after I began to understand what it was really like. Working in M&A seemed easy in comparison. I did dozens of mini-pupillages (they are unpaid work experience so not worth patting yourself on back for getting one... sorry). Pretty much everyone I went to bar school with ended up leaving the Bar for CPS, teaching law school, law firms. It's hard, grubby, doesn't pay well, incredibly stressful and unfriendly to family plans. The only two who didn't will take silk soon and are immensely gifted advocates (both men). they have been doing it since university.

Sorry no time to read all the posts but may I ask what area of law you would go into? If you are talking crime at the Bar then forgive me but you would be MAD to.

I work in the field, originally did BVC before converting, now criminal defence solicitor. The criminal bar are suffering SO much, my mate who is very senior has noticed a dramatically decline in work over last few years, as solicitors are doing more Crown Court work. He has a 30k tax bill to pay by end of month and doesn't know how to, and has just sold his top of the range 4x4 and bought a Fiesta instead (ok a cars a car but just not what he intended after so many years of practice).

If you are doing Crime consider becoming a Solicitor, you can get higher rights of audience and do what Barristers do in any event. And although generally speaking training contracts are few and far between there are more in Crime as not many want to do it cos of the unsociable hours and the fact it doesn't fit that well all the time with having a family (though I do manage somehow).

Ps have just read last few posts of Georgimama and Andrewofgg - spot on if I may say so!

euro yes I was

As a solicitor who instructs barristers I've been surprised recently at just how cheap barristers are, even 3 or 4 years QCs. I needed an opinion last week and got a QC for the rate of a junior (not even a senior junior). That wouldn't have been available 5-10 years ago. I am very old and qualified when there was a lot of competition (4 places for articles at the firm I chose with 1000 applicants). I'd hate to be starting out now.

Should add whilst there was a lot of competition in my day it was nowhere near as bad as it is today. If ds wanted to be a solicitor or a barrister I would actively discourage him. Wouldn't have said that when I was starting out.

If you say you have no intention of fitting your study days around teaching, then presumably you will be leaving your teaching job? In that case why the need for part-time? :S

Small world, Queen!

Part time is necessary because I will have a three year old at home with me and won't be able to pay for childcare. Once he starts school I could then train full time.

After all these comments I am seriously thinking about becoming a solicitor. My areas of interest at the moment are crime, family and possibly medical negligence. However I am aware that this might change once I begin my GDL.