Are my skills transferable?

[postmalone]

I basically need some careers advice, so posting for traffic.

I work in personal injury law. You'll all have seen the stuff in the news recently around the whiplash reforms and earlier this week the change in the discount rate. In essence the arse has fallen out of this area of law. I will almost certainly be made redundant in the next 18 months- 2 years if not sooner (no big payout sadly). Loads of other people will be in the same boat work wise, so I feel I need to get ahead of the game.

My only requirement really is I need to earn as a minimum about 50k and work within about a 30 mile radius of London.

I'm legally qualified but I've only ever worked in injury, so have no experience of other areas of law, and am (Imo) unlikely to get a fee earning role in a different specialism.

I don't currently fee earn, I'm in a kind of informal professional support role where I draft and deliver training, prepare updates on legal developments, I also analyse performance, identify areas where people are underperforming and put together training to address this...

I'd quite like to do something similar in a different area of law, or in a non law environment, but is that realistic?

Alternatively, are there other career options I could consider?

Are you a lawyer? If not, what qualifications do you have?

What about company secretary work? You would have to get your ICSA certification but you have a bit of time available to do that. Or can you refresh your contract law and go in-house? Our in-house counsel have a very good work-life balance and good remuneration.

Plenty of financial services or insurance firms hire people with legal backgrounds. Or else you could join the civil service and help negotiate Brexit?

Unless you are using specific professional qualifications 50k is very optimistic. Yes your skills - negotiation, interpersonal, communication, people management etc - would be transferrable but you would have to adjust your expectations of reward. Why not speak to a few recruitment agencies to get a feel for it.

I have to earn 50k to cover living expenses etc. At a push I could manage on 45k.

I am a qualified solicitor, and have nearly 20 years pqe, but all in injury.

I am not sure I could go into a fee earning role in any other area of law, I last did contract as a trainee solicitor, a very long time ago.

Do you have training qualification?

Try something in personal health insurance. You'll have plenty of experience I assume of injuries and compensation for those. PHI very similar, (you'd come across more health issues obviously), but City based and salary achievable.

Or can you go rogue and work for an insurer?

I don't have any formal qualification in training but I've been preparing and delivering training regularly for 4-5 years.

Health insurance is an interesting one, I'd not considered that, definitely worth looking into. Motor insurers (who i am currently up against) are going to be culling staff too in view of the reforms so I'd be no better off there.

But health, or governance/ co sec stuff seem possibles.

Hi OP, I'm a solicitor also and left private practice 10 years ago when the bottom fell out of the conveyancing market. I have many of the same skills as you do and became a legal adviser to a government agency. It's brilliant perhaps you can look into public sector or work for a local council or government legal services.

DPA and FOI is an ever-growing "industry" also and your skills could be of use there.

If you have been working as a PSL then I assume the skills to research and keep abreast of the current law would transfer to other areas of the law.

Have you contacted any insurance companies? Many of them have solicitors working in house to look over claims ande decide whether to reject/accept etc. A friend used to do this in house at AXA north of London - definitely within a 30 mile radius.

Another friend went to work for the NHS dealing with clinical negligence issues as they arose but then they would be "put out" to firms if they actually became litigious.

You may be better off going slightly further out (by train) to major regional centres such as Reading, Oxford to the West or Cambridge to the North of London to command better salaries. (Eg newly qualified in Cambridge is about £42K)

Civil service in house lawyers earn 50k plus in the London area, generally based in Westminster

Company secretary
Procurement
Banking

I am tied geographically for the next few years, and need to stay within an hours commute of home.

I'll look again at civil service type roles, I do seem to remember in the past a lot were locum/ temp contract rather than permanent (last time I was job hunting about 5 years ago agencies were often pushing those roles) and I need something permanent ideally. But this may now have changed.

Have you considered the likes of PLC or Lexis? They pay quite well and offer a good work-life balance. Lexis definitely have personal injury lawyers, not sure about PLC but your skills might be transferable to other areas.

Also have a look at jobs on LinkedIn and other platforms, there may be more jobs in that area around than you think.

I just talked to a contract lawyer we recently hired (investment bank) - she has 10 years exp in nwnf claims for a tiny firm. She said she got this job really easily.