Need to find another job paying £50k a year

[Griselt]

I'm a personal injury solicitor. Due to various changes many of us are losing our jobs - I am safe for the moment but realistically I have 12-18 months max left. Our firm only offers min statutory redundancy which obviously won't go far. So I need to find an alternative asap.

To support my family I need to earn £50k. I've done the same area of law for nearly 20 years so agencies have already told me there is no chance of being hired in another legal specialist (which is what I expected). They have suggested other jobs in personal injury but the field is collapsing and another job doing the same is surely just delaying the inevitable.

Agencies don't seem to consider my skills are transferable. In my current role I also do a lot of training (write and deliver my own material), circulate updates on latest legal developments, and I led on all our GDPR work so I've got some involvement and interest in compliance, risk etc.

But I'm really struggling. Agencies just see 'injury lawyer' and pigeon hole me. I've looked into govt legal service but I believe they tend to recruit people less qualified than me.

Any ideas for other roles I can pursue? I actually don't mind what I do, it just needs to earn me at least £50k a year...AIBU to think that's achievable?

What about the college of law or BPP etc - could you teach litigation and tort, maybe? The basic is less than £50k, but you can build it it up quite quickly by taking on additional stuff, marking, class tutor, course design, promotion etc? Plus more flexible hours.

There was another thread this week from someone wanting to earn £50k. I think the top suggestions were train driver, plumber or child minder

Op good luck I think you have lots of transferable skills and will be fine in the long run even if you need to tighten your belt for a little bit

Absolutely - you are not considering transferable skills at all. Pigeon holing yourself is short sighted. Have you got a Linked In account? Get that set up, avoid the title Personal Injury unless it's unavoidable. Then get the skills section up and running - that'll give you ideas for where you can cross over easily

BiologyMatters Of course I am not happy to see hundreds of people suddenly lose their job. And I do agree that personal injury lawyers have a role in society and there are, of course, cases where the victim should be compensated.

What I object to is how this industry has massively grown in recent years and we are encouraged to claim for all and every incident that has happened to us, irregardless of how much negligence there has been. It's grabby and immoral in some cases IMO.

I know GDPR will change it soon, but won't we all be better off without all those annoying texts/emails/phone calls asking us whether we've had an accident in the last year that wasn't our fault?

Government lawyers with 5+ years experience will be on £50k+ - so could be a good place to look. If you’re very experienced, there are lots of opportunities to progress further - and weekend work is less usual than in private practice!

Good luck OP.

I’m very glad that there is a clampdown on the parasitic practices of people such as you that push up insurance premiums and make everything more expensive. Try some honest work perhaps. It may not pay as much but you will feel better for it

What an ill-informed pile of crap. And obviously, wrong as well.

Am I the only one who is really pleased that this field is collapsing?

I'm sure you're not the only one, and I'm reasonably sure that you know that.

However, it would be wise to look beyond the 'joy' of seeing PI solicitors out of work and to the long-terms effect of the wholesale erosion of workers rights, for example.

I was going to suggest in-house -e.g. local government legal dept or civil service. It sounds like what the agencies have said, and the potential redundancy, is making you lose confidence. You have loads of recent high level experience.

Not sure risk and compliance is the best area to move into I was looking to move into that area recently and a recruitment agent I trust advised that this field would be shrinking in next few years.

*I haven’t read the thread but I’d like to tell the OP (who is worried about supporting her family) that she is immoral.

Seriously, good luck OP*

Yeah. You should read the thread and then you’d realise what a tit you’ve made of yourself.

really am fairly sure that was sarcasm.

Missed that then :). I am usually good at sarcasm but it’s difficult to pick up here..

The GDPR option sounds sensible even if it's only in the medium term- that's going to tie people up in knots for the foreseeable!

It is interesting that someone who presumably has a law degree but just specialised in one niche area, is unable to move specialisms.

It just goes to show how unrealistic suggestions were on that other thread about walking into a £5Ok job in an unknown field.

Could you move into clinical negligence or professional negligence? Your skills would be very transferable!

I have to laugh at people telling me I'm immoral. I've been doing this job since 1999. Long before the relatively recent expansion of accident management companies etc. And it's worth pointing out that most claims are genuine. Liability disputes aren't necessarily fraudulent for example.

In house doing what I do now isn't really an option as insurers are in the same position. Moving into clin neg isn't likely. I do think my best bet is the risk/ compliance/ GDPR routes. If I can get a recruiter to look beyond my almost 20 years of PI experience.

I've looked into govt legal service but I believe they tend to recruit people less qualified than me.

I work for the GLS and it's all competency rather than experience based, so it shouldn't matter whether you have 1 years' experience or 10. The recruitment process will test your ability to interpret and apply the law but apart from that it's really just lot of it's regular competency questions. The STAR technique is really helpful for answering them - www.thebalancecareers.com/what-is-the-star-interview-response-technique-2061629

The pay's close enough to £50k that it sounds like it would be alright for you and the work is mostly interesting.

I also think the comment about OP being immoral was sarcastic, aimed at Guava, not the OP.

Home Office - new data protection jobs - £64k to £74k

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/jobs.cgi?owner=5070000&ownertype=fair&jcode=1583234&posting_code=0&language=

Have a go. You have been doing a lot of data protection work. You might be in with a chance. The Home office seems to have 3 different data protection jobs there.

In the NHS £50k is band 8b or 8c depending on if you're in London. I'd expect someone with 20 years experience behind them to walk into a job at that grade. If you're prepared to leave behind the legal career and take a new direction then that's a real option. It's generally project management type stuff but usually on fixed term contracts (which are always extended for good people).