To ask your advice about re-training in law with a young family?

[jinglebellmel]

Okay so first of all, sorry, I realise this isn't really an aibu or particularly interesting but hoping it'll get seen by more people here.

I'm 33 with 2 preschool children, currently on mat leave from a fairly unfulfilling but flexible/family friendly admin job, and am feeling a little as though life has passed me by! This isn't what I'd imagined myself doing, I'm reasonably bright but for one reason or another just don't feel I've made the right decisions or fulfilled my potential career wise. Law is something I'd always wanted to do when I was younger and I'm wondering if I should just bite the bullet and try to retrain.

I'm hoping that some of you might be able to give advice. From what I can see the pathway would be a graduate diploma in law (which I could complete via distance learning while my baby is so small), a lpc or bar qualification and then 2 year training contract.

So assuming I'm correct with the above my questions are,
Would doing the graduate diploma via distance learning be seen as less valid than attending university? Is there any financial help available or is this all self funded? How hard is it to find a training contract? Are all training contracts full time hours? Are they paid? How difficult is it to find a job once newly qualified? What is the starting salary? Is there much option for part time/flexible working in this profession?

I know that's a lot of questions sorry! Would really appreciate any insight at all.

Do you know some lawyers you can talk too in RL? I would start there, chat to them about life-work balance. Get an honest appraisal of your qualifications. Law does not give a family-friendly balance generally (I am one!). I do enjoy my job and I'm paid well, but there is rarely a week night I don't work and most sundays are a working day... I often ask people who want to be lawyers if they like reading and when they say yes, say no, really like reading, and read quickly. I read boxes and boxes and boxes of paper...

And assess your alternatives critically. What is your desired salary trajectory and what hours do you want to be working, and what skills do you have. How good is your maths? Financial services often pays well and is often more family friendly. Could you be a finance director? Could you do management accountancy training? Or an MBA? Are you good at HR? Committed and skilled HR directors can get to board level quickly. Could you do civil service fast track? Etc.

I work at a big city law firm, and always have, so my experience is a bit narrow but I don't think smaller firms are that different.

It's incredibly tough. All the trainees I have ever known don't have children or other caring commitments, and so are available to work late into the night or weekends if needed. In my experience all the female lawyers in senior roles who have children are only able to do so because their husband /partner is the parent primarily responsible for childcare.

Right I did it (qualified as a solicitor in 2014 at the age of 35) so I get a lot of people asking me this question.

First point - it's not true that a career in big corporate law is totally incompatible with family life but it is incompatible with not having strong and flexible childcare. There are other options, not as well paid but shorter hours and (more importantly probably) greater predictability. This invariably means less money and realistically, unless you want to kill yourself, magic circle/major US firms are out if you have children (or want any form of life). I'd rule out the bar for the same reason (plus it's even harder to get tenancy than it is to get a training contract).

Second, as others have said, why law? It's one of the harder professions to get into in that a massive number of people do the courses and don't end up as a lawyer. Do try and get some work experience to get an idea of what the job actually involves.

Third, no one cares how you do your GDL so distance learning part-time is fine. It is a slog (and fairly dull),. When I did my GDL I didn't have kids but I started my LPC with two under two and it nearly broke my husband and me. Worth it now but it was hard - he resented me for having so much time getting a break from the kids with my head in the books and I resented him for having so much time with the kids and not having to study! I did this on top of a 60+ hour a week job though. I'd say if you can't manage on top of a standard 9-5 job you won't be able to cope with the workload when it comes though.

Fourth, can you afford to start and see how it goes? I would not do the LPC without a training contract in place (even if not paid for) but you could start on the GDL and see what you think of it.

Finally, if your grades aren't that good, you're going to need a way of standing out. Do you have any particular sector knowledge that would be useful to specialising in a specific area? You need to get as much work experience as possible. Someone I know managed to get a training contract that started with her interning and then working part-time (maybe secretarial) for a local firm. I got my training contract when I was working in admin at my current firm. In my experience it's a very common route in, particularly with career changers.

I have to say that career changing into law isn't a realistic option for the vast majority of people I speak to about it. Out of my GDL and LPC courses I can only think of about 7 people who are now practising (although that does include the secretary to a one-man band law firm who now is MD of the same, massively expanded firm). Of those, 5 were already working for a law firm in some way and qualified with that firm. Fulltime courses are a bit different but the success rates are still appalling for people who don't have a training contract before they start.

Have you thought of turning your admin skills to working as a Legal sec or legal pa? Might give you the exposure you need to make a decisionon law whilst you use your existing skills. There is nothing wrong with working in admin I do and you shpuld be proud of that role. To put it into context further my oh is a lawyer and I personally do not think the role is an easy one to do with young children; lots of late nights anf not child friendly . A lot of our family time is used with him prepering for cases.

The recent Mumsnet thread/survey found law to be significantly less family friendly than other higher earning careers didn't it?

No surprise there. I'm a lawyer currently wondering what I can retrain in which is more family friendly. I would think very carefully and maybe look at that survey thread. I probably should too!

Good luck.

Oh and what no one ever tells you at law school is how much business development is now part of being a solicitor. That (and not the hours) is the thing that will probably push me in house at some point, although the idea of a holiday without my lap top is also a nice dream. :)

Thanks everyone, lots of really helpful posts, I appreciate you taking the time to respond.

Summerbreezer, no offence taken, I think you might actually have a very valid point in what you've said. I'm not particularly money motivated but I do want to feel as though I've achieved, I feel angry at myself that I didn't have more ambition and focus when I was younger and worried that I'll never get a chance to use my intellect now. I definitely need to think more about my motivations I guess.

I used to work as a paralegal and considered a law degree as I didn't have a first degree to do a conversion course with. I loved the job but the firm I worked for wasn't family friendly and the hours were insane!

What really put me off was so many of my colleagues had very good qualifications yet couldn't get a training contract. If you can get an admin / PA / legal secretary / paralegal job I would consider the CILEX route personally.

Best of luck with whatever you decide

A lot depends on the firm you're with though. I find a lot of people in all professions moan about hard it is. Having gone into law as a second (or in fact about fourth!) career, it's really not that shit. The hours are long but there's quite a bit of flexibility within that (most of my colleagues with kids have enough flex to manage their working hours around children / work from home a lot etc), you get to use your brain and generally there are decent employment opportunities. Teaching, for example, pays far less (although maybe not that much less once you adjust for the holidays), has similar hours (excluding MC/US firms) and is far less flexible - you can't leave your class for a couple of hours to run to see your child's assembly. Plus you have to teach a class full of children and , for me anyway, it would be much higher stress! That said, it's far less competitive to get into than law which is one of the reasons the pay is lower.

Hi Jinglebelmel. We sound very similar so I thought I would wade in! No law experience but I looked into this this year too, for very similar reasons...

I am still interested but I (eventually) concluded I would want to work first as a legal secretary and then perhaps do cilex if I decided it was for me.

I currently work at a council and have seen legal assistant jobs advertised at admin level. Many of the solicitors on the team there seem to have done cilex. Maybe you could look for a similar role to see if you liked it? It would be family friendly and you could see if you liked it.

Personally, I could not do the traditional route. Due to money, a 2:2 (despite outstanding A'levels!). Like you I didn't apply myself enough when I was younger and have paid the price Plus I am not sure it would be for me.

I am however jealous of your Eng. Lit degree. It is what I should have done!! In your position I might consider a part-time masters instead, for the enjoyment of learning. I would love to do this but would need an English degree first!!!

Anyway, after a lot of faffing and googling I ended up signing up for a distance learning creative writing course instead. I still keep an eye out for a legal assistant job but this is something for me in the meantime. While my kids are young I don't think I would want heaps of study to do anyway.

Fwiw despite often feeling unfulfilled I actually quite like my admin job and it definitely has plus points with little kids. I sometimes wonder if I will ever leave it!

Just my twopence worth

I'm a solicitor, I love most aspects of my job, and am very lucky in that respect. I'm in a very well paid area, and am senior enough (and work for a good firm) to enjoy flexibility for school plays, work from home etc.

But I wouldn't recommend it as an option to retrain- the financial outlay (over £20k for GDL/LPC) does not merit the chances of getting a job that would pay enough to allow you to pay it back. Competition for training contracts is fierce, the GDL/LPC providers churn out way too many students for the number of places available.

At the end of the day, it is just sitting at a desk working on documents- there are probably similar jobs that are just as enjoyable/challenging but that don't require the massive outlay that law does.

Of course, some firms will pay your course fees - but these are incredibly competitive and without first class academics your chances are probably slim. That's a shame, as being good at passing exams is not necessarily a marker of a good lawyer, but firms have to have a filter of some kind to narrow down numbers.

There are a lot of us lawyers on MN. Notcontent, I am not saying it is easy for anyone male or female, but I am one and I know others too who worked/work with small children in City law with a spouse who is also in a full time job. However I do agree that some have house hubsands or husbands with a "pin" money type job, but not all by any means. I don't want people to think no women in law firms in the City have a husband in a similarly paid job.

On the post, it sounds like you are not motivated by money particularly (I always have been not least because of lots of children to feed....) but want some intellectual challenge and may be status.

Some people just have no idea what they want to do when young (I was very unusual - I was cycling to the library at 14 to look at career books, picked law at 14 etc etc, graduated in law at 20. Most people aren't like that. My daughters only chose law in the last year of their degree. My older son has no idea what to do - degree in ancient history; he has been a landlord and is now driving an Ocado van perhaps to posters on mumsnet,....... still not sure what he might want to do. In some ways it was easier when the baker's son became a baker.

I've been doing my family tree (something my parents also did in their 50s so it must be to do with this time of life) and so many of those people followed their parents - the draper whose daughter ran a drapery shop; the mariner whose son went to sea. Perhaps people have always been unoriginal and just copied their parents. (My father was and my brother is a psychiatrist)

Oldie - my father being a lawyer is why I didn't go into law straight from uni - he completely put me off. Probably a good thing as I probably wouldn't appreciate the good things about a legal career if I didn't have anything to compare it to.

I obtained my LLB & LPC in the early 00's and decided to use my qualifications to forge a different career, as competition for training contracts was fierce and I couldn't secure one despite my grades and legal work experience.

I have no regrets because I've managed to work in public sector (as an insolvency investigator) and private sector (initially with an insolvency practitioner and then with a financial institution). Am currently working as a risk auditor and I thoroughly enjoy.

I think you should go for it and if you don't get a training contract there are many other roles where these qualifications will be valued.

I am a career changer (qualified in mid 30s) with small children. I adored private practice before I had kids - thought it was the perfect job, didn't mind the hours. Now I'm considering whether to move to the public sector or leave law altogether.
My team is relatively family friendly for a city firm but I just want to be with the children more while their little arms are still reaching for me sob. I also I think there's been a lot of unconscious bias towards me as a maternity returner which has affected my enjoyment of the job, so the scales are tipped the wrong way both in terms of family and job.

Not RTFT but I am a lawyer (at the Bar) and whilst I love my job with every fibre of my being I will be in court in 11 days time and I had a baby yesterday morning... An extreme example perhaps but a career in the law is not family friendly, in my own experience at least, and 80+ hour weeks are my normal. I adore what I do, every day is interesting and it's my "calling" as it were but it's a hard shift. I couldn't do it without my phenomenonally supportive and hands on DH.

A law degree makes you very employable in all sorts of roles so I wouldn't rule that out at all. Probably not helpful! Good luck with your decision.

Ruby - I don't think the GDL adds to employability particularly. Law degree yes but GDL on its own is going to have limited extra value.

I agree bar with kids is hard because you're self employed. You could be a litigation solicitor in a largish team and not have the same issues. That said, I know plenty of partners who were taking phone calls whilst in labour.

Former partner in an international firm here. I got out last year when I had my D.C. I basically agree with this PP:

I would never go back to law and would never advise anyone to get into it. Most of the lawyers I know are looking to leave the profession. Gloom and doom, but that's the truth - sorry.

I am still in law but now sole in-house counsel earning significantly less than my DH (NHS doctor). As a partner in charge of trainee recruitment I rejected scores of candidates with more stellar academics than my own, which are not shabby by any means! (First in law from RG, distinction in LPC, 6 work placements in city firms....)

It's massively competitive OP. Not enough training contracts (but plenty of less than scrupulous LPC/GDL provider who will happily take your money). Plus if you want family friendly/part time, the money and prospects are generally piss poor.

Contrary to popular view, most other professions are better paid and more flexible.

Sorry, I'm in Scotland where we have to do an LLB regardless of whether we have a previous degree. We don't have the GDL here - should have said!

Hi

I've been a trainee and then an associate at a magic circle firm and then moved on to be a senior associate at a smaller city firm.

I love my job but I don't think I could do the junior part now with small children - to make it on the city you'll be expected to work insane hours, with little notice, and to give up your weekends. I've seen first hand that people with children aren't given any leeway on this - if they refuse the hours etc they are managed out, simple as that.

I also work with junior barristers who have small children and I know that the women struggle. It's self employment, which means no money if you don't take cases. All of my cases go to barristers at the absolute last minute and they usually work through the night to prepare.

I would suggest that you look closely at your reasons for this. Doesn't sound to me like law is what you want - you really want status, money and a sense of achievement. There are many other ways to get these things without putting yourself and two small children through this...

Hello op I can totally relate.

I got a good degree from a red brick and promptly made a terrible marriage. No further details required but in that time I lost several years and became a single parent.

So I decided to retrain. I remarried and then with a small baby joined an accountancy form as a junior and trained. Passed with distinction.

Then my child became ill and I couldn't sustain work and care. Husband was ten years ahead of me career wise and we needed to pay rent and eat.

So I dropped out of work.

Aged 35 I managed to start work again but I have never fulfilled any of my early promise; younger people are better qualified and I feel a sense of despair at 44 that I have not had the life I wanted.

So I totally get you but I would also say law may not be the option.

So part of the Noueuf and other people's issues can be sexism - that for some reason in 2017 men's careers are still being put before women's in a relationship. We need to stop that happening. Next time a husband says may work come first we say no way mister. mine is just as important and don't marry men who have that attitude I suppose.

I instruct junior male barristers with small children but usually with lots of notice (commercial cases) and we often work around childcare issues actually and for the women too although obviously they need to be free on the day booked. However that does not mean it is dead easy for anyone to juggle work and home in these fairly high paid jobs which are very much full on.

I like being The Noeuf 😂

Tbh I would usually agree - in this case my career was earning peanuts on a training salary and his was paying the rent, living costs and everything alse really. Had we just had usual kid problems it would be fine - he could take the odd day off - my child was very unwell and we had one day a week at one stage either at home or at appointments.

My friend has just done the LLM and GDL together her first degree was Biovet (2.1) from a Russell group.
She's just been offered a training contract she's 28 and has two children and she's a single mum.

I know this doesn't really help you as I haven't got a clue when it comes to law but it is possible.

Dont want to throw cold water on your plans but its vvvvvvvvvvv hard to get a training contract and if you do its either not paid or vvv poor paid. Job security is none existent. I speech from experience. Dh said if he has his time again he never do it. All his colleagues are looking to get out of law. However if its something you want to do go for it but do work experience first. Get a training contact first too if you can.