To consider a career change from law

[Flamencoflamingo]

Hi all,

Long time lurker, first time poster.

I’ve been thinking recently about a career change from law, and I’d appreciate others’ opinions on my reasons/alternative career options.

I’m 26 and I’ve been treading the paralegal hamster wheel for the past 2 and a half years. In this time I’ve worked my way up from smaller regional to city firms, where I’d always set my sights for a career. I’m glad that I’ve reached this part of my career aim, but I continue to chase the ever elusive training contract and I’m starting to reconsider my options rather than blindly going after something which I’m beginning to feel may not materialise.

In addition, I don’t find my work particularly satisfying. I know this is normal at the outset of any career, but I think the issue isn’t so much that my caseload isn’t high-flying stuff, more that there is a lot of pressure on paralegals now to be responsible for court deadlines and form submissions, and I don’t feel well supported by my new team (which I moved to 3 months ago) in this. I’m working in a completely new area of law, and despite asking I still haven't had the processes in this area fully explained to me, and I constantly feel anxious that I’m teetering on the brink of a colossal fuck up (which I’ve seen happen to others).

In addition my recent scouring of MN threads on this subject tend to reflect my view that the market is oversaturated with graduates, and junior roles often aren’t compensated in line with the amount of hours put in and pressure applied! It certainly isn’t Suits.

I originally studied a humanities degree before converting to law. Areas of my work that I enjoy are the investigation process (interviewing and researching), problem solving, and building up working relationships with those involved in the investigation process.

The two careers I’m struggling to decide between are the civil service (problem solving, similar culture to law I imagine) and journalism where I could use my writing and investigative skills, but I wonder if I have a glamorised image of the latter? I also wouldn’t know the first thing about how to get into journalism, whereas the civil service has a similar application structure to a lot of law firms’ vac schemes and training contracts, and I suppose would be a more natural change.

Any advice or opinions would be appreciated!

I am an ex-journalist. I retrained as a teacher. I enjoyed writing but I hated intruding on people's grief, or just generally taking advantage of people. The hours are really unpredictable, you can be threatened with violence and there is a hell of a lot of pressure to find stories and to be the first to break them. Teaching is much better for me, however it has gradually got less enjoyable over the past ten years. No job is perfect.

Areas of my work that I enjoy are the investigation process (interviewing and researching), problem solving, and building up working relationships with those involved in the investigation process.

How about joining the police?

I am a solicitor 10 years PQE. If I was starting now I probably would do something else! I see incredible quality graduates in paralegal roles finding it impossible to get a training contract as there aren't as many as there used to be. The hours are horrid and trainees are often treated really badly with minimal quality training. If you want to do it research the firms you want to work at really carefully.

Your current position sounds dreadful though. I'm in house and we have paralegals that we train and help get training contracts (the work is full and most will only last 2 years doing it before getting frustrated so we'd rather get 2 years out of good quality paras that we can send off to a great career). If you still want a legal career try looking for roles like that.

There is a bottle neck at training contract stage but you can get through it. As others have said above, some firms take advantage and some support you. My advice is have the confidence to be fussy about where you work. Also be open minded about your practice area. I was in a cohort of five trainees and only one of us ended up qualifying where they expected. I was rejected for MANY training contracts but you only need to be accepted once. I ended up training in a great, exciting firm and I think I landed the job because I 'fitted into the culture. That's not necessarily something you can plan for and I know I was lucky. It sounds like you've already landed a pretty prestigious paralegal role and those aren't easy to get either so you should take heart from this - and good luck!

YANBU.

I'm a 20+ PQE lawyer, my area is personal injury which is basically screwed due to the upcoming whiplash reforms - if I'm lucky I might have a job for another 3-5 years but beyond that I need a new career. I wouldn't recommend anyone to go into law; I know people who took years and years of paralegal work to get training contracts and even then in our area it's pointless being a solicitor anyway!

Get out while you can and do anything else, that's my advice.

Pros and cons, like any job. It is as rewarding as most jobs (not very!) and very well remunerated at the top level. However, a bit more tricky if you are in a local firm or doing PI or conveyancing. Ultimately you need to compare your qualifications to those who are getting TCs and ask if you tick the right boxes - if so, why shouldn't you go for it?

I'm 40 years PQE and if I were your age I would be looking for a better way to earn a living. There's no future in it.

Ugh I feel your pain. The wage is good, but the work is horrendous. I'm stuck in the trap of being used to the wage but hating the work. It's so hard when you spend ages training in something to realise you hate it. I keep thinking I'll bow out when the kids are grown up and do something else but it's very difficult to decide what's best

The wage is good, but the work is horrendous

O/t but I cannot resist it. I once saw this painted on a wall:

The wages of sin is death but the hours are good and the working conditions are FANTASTIC!

I love being a lawyer. But the things you describe enjoying form no part of my legal job. The things you say you're struggling with I'd expect my trainees to work out for themselves. So to me it does not sound like you are suited to becoming a lawyer.

The civil service is very diverse and you will need to narrow this down quite significantly to find something that involves interviewing etc There are jobs eg investigation officers at the Insolvency Service and immigration case workers (the latter involving very emotional and stressful work). There are probably other investigation type roles in HMRC, FSA etc although they may expect some relevant knowledge or experience eg finance and science. The insolvency service tends to recruit from the police. However there are ways in eg the employment agency service inspectorate (if its still called that) recruit from the general civil service and you then get the skills to move into other investigation roles. So what I'm saying is if you go the civil service route you may have to do a new mover of different roles before you get one that you want. In the meantime though you may find you like something else entirely eg policy development, working in Parliament.

I know nothing about being a journalist except that every article I read where I am well informed I find to be inaccurate and misleading. I assume due to pressures to create sound bites/easily digestible material. On that basis I wouldn't want to do it.

You could also consider working as an investigator at a regulator. There are many but I'm thinking of the BMC for example.

How many TCs have you applied for (in total)? I remember completing pages and pages of hard copy application forms back in the day - but as PP says, you only need to land one. If you’ve already applied everywhere but no luck then I wouldn’t carry on paralegalling.

I’m now general counsel and have no plans to change (couldn’t go back to a law firm!) - very happy - hopefully there is a future in it...

You should consider consultancy and banking.

lost agree to a certain extent but I think many careers in “law” will look different -lawyers might need to combine legal skills with eg finance or management consultancy skills
The paralegal in my team has just won a TC at a top 30 law firm after a year of PLing in-house; firms are still hiring (and some are still taking on trainees in the same numbers - my old firm is)

You could also consider working as an investigator at a regulator. There are many but I'm thinking of the BMC for example

Yes, I’m a qualified solicitor and that’s what I do-not the BMC but another regulator. The work is interesting and diverse and the flexible hours and working conditions are excellent. The wages aren’t amazing but they are fine and an increase is being looked at.

Thanks all for taking the time to reply. I’ll try to respond to as many points as I can.

I’ve considered areas like consultancy and banking as being similar, but I’m not sure that I’m really qualified for them. There again I suppose the point is that there are a number of transferable skills between law and these areas, so certainly worth looking into.

I don’t think a career in the police is for me, but I can see why it’s been suggested.

In-house work is also worth considering with regard to being more attractive in terms of work/life balance and training, although I have no experience of this area and wouldn’t want to move only to find that the same sense of job dissatisfaction applies.

I’ve applied for training contracts for the past 3-4 years, averaging around 15 applications each year.

ClareB83 thank you for taking the time to leave such a detailed post. I appreciate what you’re saying with expecting trainees (and therefore paralegals) to sort out issues such as timelines themselves, however, what I’m finding is that no one in my team has the time to fully explain the systems to me and a lot of this is contained in our own electronic filing system, so I need to understand the firm’s processes as well as general court processes which I can just Google. Perhaps this is also something which comes with experience, and the more cases I work on the more comfortable I will feel. I think I’m finding difficult having moved from a team where I was really on top of our processes and well thought of in supporting senior fee earners (but chronically overworked to the point of burnout).

With regard to your points on the civil service, policy analysis is in fact an area that I’m interested in. I imagine it involves more research and reporting than anything else, but would also expect it to contain some “interview” elements in the course of analysing policy impact.

Hope that covers everything raised so far. Thank you again for your input MNers

With the problem solving interest have you considered management consultancy? This would provide a fast paced career like law with potential for great professional and financial achievement.

And as a lawyer I expect you have the right work ethic (ie long hours and hard work / dedication to the role)!

10 Years PQE here. I work in local government (after working at a large regional commercial firm and hating it).

I love working in house.

I’m a journalist. It’s not an easy job to get into though easier in London, and it takes a long time to get to where you’d like to be.
A lot of journalists get slated on here but what people don’t realise is that most of the hacks working on the broadsheets have worked their way up through regionals, The Sun, Mail, Mirror etc.
You don’t get straight in to working on investigations for The Guardian or whatever you see yourself doing.
Lots leave the industry very early on because the money is rubbish and the working conditions can be arduous.
All that said, it can be very rewarding and it can be lots of fun. My favourite has been being freelance where I’ve worked for all the national daily titles and dabbled in real life magazines.
I’ve taken a short term contract with the emergency services doing media relations for a bit of stability for now as my life circs mean I need it, but I’d like to go back to freelancing soon.
My point is, it’s a precarious industry. If you fancy it, you’ll need to do some work experience (unpaid probably) and some additional training, and be prepared to not earn much for the first few years.
If you’re happy with that and have either a supportive partner or low living costs, then definitely go for it.
I sound negative, but I love my job. It’s just not as easy as jumping from one thing into it.

In-house at a large bank, senior associate equivalent and also considering a career change. Used to be in private practice. Leave and do something fun! I know very few (if any) lawyers that enjoy working in city practice. Many of my colleagues in law have mental health problems as a result of the city law firm mentality/culture.

I left a legal career after just a few years pqe. It was the right thing for me culture wise and I was lucky to move to a regulatory/advisory role at a university. There are lots of jobs in that sector and they like career changers that offer new skills. From my experience those successful and happy in law have a thirst for it and the competitive nature of it, and therefore do well. If it doesn't sit right with you at this early stage then sounds sensible to look elsewhere. Best of luck

I wouldn't go into journalism. Pay is rubbish, online actually means jobs are decreasing and there are a lot more staffers than senior positions. Most I know end up 'going freelance' at some point when they realise there is no progression left. Some are successful, some really struggle.