To want to move from publishing to law at 26? Am I too old?

[KnitFastDieWarm]

A bit of background - I always liked the idea of law when I was doing my undergrad degree and I got into postgrad law school, but in the end I decided to forgo my place due to a) cost b) scare stories about how few training contracts are available and c) feeling at 21 that I really needed to try a few different things in order to e sure of what I wanted to do. Cue several years of experience in the workplace, during which I fell into publishing. I now work at a finance firm on their online content. Publishing lets me exercise my enjoyment of pedantry/words/nerdily poring over documents with a pen in hand checking for logical inconsistencies, but I don't find it very intellectually challenging, iys poorly paid (at all but the most senior management levels, which don't involve much of the day to day stuff that i enjoy anyway) and there's not much scope for moving up the ladder. I really enjoy my current job, it's reasonably paid, and it's given me some much-needed exposure to the world of finance and business, which I find more interesting and accessible than I anticipated.

But I'd still like to work in law. All the aspects of my current job that I enjoy are ones that I think make me suited to law - I enjoy working alone (am friendly, but enjoy detail/research), am very good with words, am accurate, and have a very good humanities undergraduate degree so can analyse complex ideas pretty well.

I'm not interested in the graduate diploma/training contract mill - I've seen too many of my university cohort led down the garden path that way. Plus, it's a bit of a cult of personality and that doesn't really interest me. I'm not interested in high-level corporate practise - I am happy to potter about in a regional office drawing up wills. I enjoy work that many people might find dull - I have a pedantic streak :)

My plan, therefore, is to stay in my current job for the time ending, and enroll on a CILex course part-time at my local college. I've discovered that I can get a student loan for this (they're called 24+ enhanced learnibg loans and they've just been brought in), so I wouldn't pay anything back until 2016 and I was earning over a set amount.

My questions are
A) has anyone done the cilex route and begun while not working in the legal field? I understand that I need a certain number of qualifying years of work but surely I could make a start while in my current role?
B) am I too old? Will they wonder why, as a graduate, I don't want to go via the traditional route? Is cost a good enough reason?:-p

Phew sorry for the essay! And please excuse any errors, typing on my phone (says she who works with words for a living ;-p)

Any thoughts/encouragement/discouragement appreciated!

I am a FILEX and qualified before they were chartered so don't know how it differs now. I am also a solicitor which I did after my legal execs exams and law degree. I am also a sucker for punishment reading that last bit again . I was working in a law office for all of that time and so can't help with qualification periods etc, besides I did mine 20 years ago so it has no doubt changed. I wouldn't say you were too old at all, I completed mine when I was 22 and was by far the youngest person on the course!

By the sounds of it you would make a very good lawyer and have really thought it through, so I'd go for it!

KnitFast

Leaving aside the financial and professional issues- 26 is nowt but a baby!

Go for it if you want to.

No, unless you are dead set on a job with the big London firms in which case yes, maybe.

A friend of mine worked as a teller in a bank til 26 then went to Uni to study law then did her 2 years to become a solicitor and she is doing fine (although I wouldn't describe what she does as 'pottering' - hours are quite long, I think).

I am a Solicitor and went down the GDL/ LPC route, self-funded.

I started my training contract when I was 32 (which required lots of perseverance to get!) and qualified when I was 34. I trained at a mid-sized firm. It's not easy to get a TC, but it's certainly not impossible. I had a 2(1) but from an ex-Poly. I think the "cult of personailty" thing really only applies to magic and silver circle firms. There are still lots of decent firms that offer really good training and are able to look at applicants' experience rather than just at their Uni and A Level grades.

So no, you're not too old. I wasn't even the oldest trainee in my intake. Clients often prefer someone older with a bit of experience of life and it sounds as though your skills are highly transferrable.

I can't comment on the CILex route, sorry.

I can't be any help with the qualification but I've not long started a psych degree with the OU and I'm 25. I don't think it will matter that you want to change career now, if its something you want then go for it.

I did the GDL/BVC route at 25 and started pupillage at 29, although I only had a "job" rather than a career to give up to do it. I was towards the younger end of my cohort, although the majority were 21/22.

All I know about the ILEX route is that it takes longer to get to the same place, but if you're looking to work in a "normal" rather than really prestigious firm ultimately, then I'm sure they'll understand that you have a life to pay for while you're studying, and two years off work isn't feasible for a lot of people.

How about phoning a couple of local firms and having a chat with the office manager or person who deals with recruitment? They can tell you how their firm would look at someone in your position. I called every solicitor in the local phone book, got one offer of work experience and ended up with a job that lasted until my place at law school started.

Good luck, whatever you decide. x

I am not a lawyer, but work with and know a lot of them.

You don't mention what, specifically, you want to do and "law" is a very broad field. My (slightly informed) outsider's perception is that it ranges from conveyancing (very dull) to litigation/divorce (very stressful) to corporate law (insane hours).

My key recommendation is to work out what you want to do and then find a friend or a friend-of-a-friend who does it that you can talk to.

You're not too old at all. In fact your age and experience should make you stand out in a good way! LOL at the training contract garden path comment! Its a hard career, but whether its any harder than publishing, I couldn't say.

Always remember the bottom.line - is it worth it financially? Its a good living, but won't make you rich unless you are a partner, and there are easier ways of earning as much.

I did the GDL/BVC part time over two years (each) while working full time (classes were on a Wednesday evening) while working full time. My social life took a nosedive. I was lucky in that I worked away from home during the week and stayed in a hotel, with bugger all else to do but my law work, but I still had to give up a lot of weekend time as well. And I may as well have lived in a cave for the month before exams each year.

The fees must have come to near £20k, and it is A LOT of work if you do it properly (the market is too saturated to do well with training contracts etc with merely a 'pass' so I would really recommend putting your all in).

To stress again how much work it is (to do part time while working full time anyway), my class had a drop out rate of over 50%.

I can't help with the law stuff, but I left publishing for accountancy when I was 25 for very similar reasons. Everyone who interviewed me for training contracts was interested in my reasons for changing career, but there was no suggestion that I was too old. I say go for it - I've never regretted it!

Certainly not too old. I have taught on LPC classes for many years and have taught many, many students who were older than you. At one stage, I was teaching on part-time weekend courses, so virtually everyone was older and looking to start a new career. I recall teaching one guy who had retired from the navy. He was in his mid to late 50s. He found a training contract with a firm specialising in shipping law. Another guy was a consultant surgeon. He wanted to become a coroner.

Most of these people had full time jobs and some had families too, and I would stress that you should never underestimate how hard it is to study in this way, or how expensive it is. However, the drop out rate in the part-time classes I taught was nowhere near the 50% mentioned above. I do teach for one of the most respected providers though!

I am puzzled by your reasoning for going down the ILEX route rather than the GDL/LPC route though. What on earth do you mean by "being led down the garden path" and a "cult of personality"? Honestly, there is no "typical" personality type. There are some pompous, arrogant people in the law, but most are not. A large proportion, believe it or not, want to be lawyers so that they can do good in the world, and help people who are unable to help themselves!

Not everyone going down the LPC route ends up doing corporate law and, in fact, I would say that most people coming to the law later on in life do not take this route.

Yes, it is tough to find training contracts at the moment, but those with academic ability and determination do find contracts. And times change. Once the economy is back on track, the firms will be hiring again.

By the way, I qualified when I was 30.

Thanks for all your replies, really helpful and lots to think about.

I think what puts me off the GDL route is the fact that it's so, so expensive with no security. At my life stage (about to get married/mortgage/hopefully kids in the next 5-10 years) I simply cannot afford to spend £20,000 on law school. I don't like the idea of being sponsored by a firm because I don't like the idea of being tied into a specific location/job several ears down the road - for example, if I needed to move for my dh's work in the next few years, I could hopefully find a legal assistant role and carry on with cilex via instance learning, but the GDL/lpc/tc route would prevent that. Also, I'm someone who enjoys learning on the job and putting what I learn into practise from day one. I certainly didn't mean any slight against those who've take the GDL route :)

It's very encouraging to hear from people who've retrained - any things you wish you'd known before you took the plunge?

Reading avidly as this is something I'm interested in too.

You are certainly not too old.

However, as an ex-lawyer I would strongly urge you to do some work experience first. Whichever route you take you will need this anyway to have a chance of securing a job. I have worked in several different types of firm, from Magic Circle down to a niche small firm in the regions and I would say that hours generally in a smallish firm/high street firm can be reasonable (e.g. 9am to 6pm) but this depends on your area of specialism and the firm culture.

Be aware that law is not about studying dusty books and researching fine points of law for the most part. It is about churning the work out and issuing bills. Some of the work can be interesting, and I did enjoy the client contact etc but please don't be under any illusion that law is anything other than a profit-driven business.

In many ways it is easier to work in a massive City firm because you have a constant stream of work and billing isn't such an issue - you record all the time you spend and the clients pay the bills and everyone's happy. You are also more likely to see complex/novel work in that environment. In a smaller firm it can be much more stressful because smaller firm generally means smaller clients/individual clients and they are very much more cost conscious so you may find that you aren't always able to charge for every minute you have spent on a matter. You then have admin and stuff that you can't charge for which adds to your day and eats into the time you can spend on chargeable work. You will be judged not on how brilliantly drafted your Will is or how thorough your research etc (although obviously it helps if you are competent ) but on how many chargeable hours you have recorded that month and how many you can bill for. It's driven by figures and targets.

If I had to return to work in the legal profession I would go back to a City/Magic Circle firm to avoid billing stress - it's the worst part of the job and I am so happy I don't have chargeable hours in my life any more!

Please do get as much real exposure and experience as you can before you make the change.

In terms of the ILEX route I know two ILEX qualified former colleagues (from a regional office of a national firm, working in wills and probate). They are both over 60 and qualified a long time ago. They were both well-respected but I think their employability is down to their significant experience. I don't know how you would find the job market with a 'new' ILEX qual but if you call a few specialist legal recruiters (try Hays for example) then they should be able to give you the heads up on how easy you would find it to get a job in your preferred specialism in your area and what sort of salary/type of firm you'd be looking at.

OP, you're more than 20 years younger than I was when I qualified, so nowhere near too old. Loads of people go into law as a second career, it's not all fresh-faced 22 year old trainees, so nobody will reject you on the grounds of being too old or having other experience.

However, I'd echo what emsyj says about working as a lawyer - I love the area of law I work in, love the client contact, love finding answers to questions that nobody's ever been asked before, but that's only a small part of the daily grind. A lot of it is admin, billing, business development - and I know that talking to colleagues, there are departments where the work is a lot more "samey" day to day, so I count myself lucky to have the variety of work I've got. And although I'd never complain about my pay, I'd agree that if you really want to make money, you need to be looking at partnership in a reasonably sized firm - and from what I've seen, once you become a partner, you spend more and more time being a manager/salesperson/administrator and less and less being a lawyer.

The advice I'd give is maybe work to your strengths - my own experience is that even though I was an old gimmer when I started my training contract, I'd got a lot of experience in a very niche area of work, and so was fairly valuable from the off. It might make sense for you to look at firms who specialise or which have specialist departments in publishing/web law, if that's what you're doing at the moment. If you have skills and knowledge you can offer, then you could get funded for the GDL/LPC and get the training contract (and if you do, then you're only looking at four years full time - qualifying in your early 30's). Though I see you mention that you'd hope to get married and have children in 5-10 years and one thing I would say (echoing some advice given on another thread) is that if you're planning children, it's probably better to qualify first and get a year's experience under your belt before going on maternity leave.

I am not a lawyer but I work with some who practice as well as teach law students. Is this something that would interest you? You could send your CV to the law dept of your local university asking to take some tutorial groups. Lecturers usually hire PhD students & or Law professionals to take the smaller tutorial groups.

Tutoring would satisfy & challenge you intellectually as well as the craving to get the marking pens out.

Law is a springboard for many professions, my SIL trained to be a social worker after doing her LLB. You could work in the charity sector, human rights, NGO's. If you can try to book some time off & arrange to do a 1/2 week paid or unpaid internship during your holidays to experience the different kinds of work & what interests you.

Contact your local university careers service (or the one that you graduated from) & explain your situation and see what ideas they come up with.

You're not too old. You won't be too old in a few years.

Now is a really terrible time to be thinking about starting a career in law. The legal aid changes will make a huge difference to the professions. It is likely that many high street firms will shut. Just because you want to do non publicly funded work doesn't mean you'd be ok, there will be a long queue of already qualified solicitors/legal execs for any remaining jobs.