To change careers at nearly 40 and study law?

[Hubbel]

Ok, here goes.

BA and MA degrees from Oxbridge. Successful career in academia involving frequent international travel. Great salary, mostly loved my job.

Had children and took career break for five years. Worked on something unrelated to academia with little money but fulfilling/successful.

Stressful period and divorced ExH. Back to academia but had a very hard time finding a similar position to what I held previously. Accepted job with smaller salary and fewer responsibilities than I had 10 years ago! I feel so over qualified and under appreciated in job to the point where I think about resigning every day!

Had a couple of life changing events happen this year and just think is this it? Apart from DC I am not fulfilled in life. I have a brain but working in a job where I feel over qualified is dire… I feel my experience is wasted in this position. I have applied to many other positions but academia is not the same as it was. Jobs are very competitive and salaries have barely risen. I have had numerous interviews for better jobs with almost the same response, someone else with more experience beat me to it. On top of that I’ve lost my enthusiasm for academia which probably shows in interviews.

I am looking for something new. I want a challenge and feel I have a lot of energy and drive which is wasted where I am. I know I’ll have to retrain with years of study but don’t want to look back in another 10 years thinking I could have done/been so much more.

The pros are I have always been interested in law and have worked on law related projects. I love networking, am a deep analytical thinker and have all the experience of research, writing and managing projects etc. I want to use my brain, learn new things and feel appreciated! I want to feel I’m able to move up a company with career progression with the potential of earning more.

The cons are I currently work part-time and juggle two children and I am tired! So tired every day. But I think this is partly because my job is literally sucking the life of out of me. I’m a single parent living within commuting distance of London. It would be great to work in London but how could I possibly do the commute with school/being a single parent etc. I have a lot of life experience but I’m nearly 40, too old? Would pursuing a career in law mean I barely see my kids?

What do you think mumnetters? Should I go for it or am I mad to consider?

Most people I know who are lawyers hate their jobs.

I know a lot of lawyers (being one and all). Most quite like their jobs but have the same moans anyone else does.

This is very interesting, something I'm also looking into.

Go for it, I did my degree at 40 and never looked back.

What are you going to do for childcare when you have a day where you cannot leave on time for whatever reason?

She will probably do what the rest of us do who are single parents and lawyers or have a husbands with a job - have a back up plan or if the children are school age have a live in au pair who is happy to baby sit some evenings or a nanny. Lots of mothers and fathers without a stay at home spouse are lawyers.

There are tons on different career options in law. Being the top prosecutor for Interpol and reviewing contracts for NHS are very different. Both important and both law but just very different. These warnings about long hours, boys clubs and burn out are definately true but not to all aspects of law. I feel like when changing careers at 40 (which I say go for it) it's good to think what type of law you want to do.

@Hubbel I'm training as a Quantity Surveyor, lots of work around and paid well. There is an element of commercial law in the degree, maybe could be an option for you?

Law is hard work, but I'm really not recognising all these tails of having to sleep your way to the top or being groped. All the big City firms I have first hand experience of are trying very hard to improve gender balance and do not tolerate inappropriate sexual behaviour. I've been in law well over a decade and have never felt discriminated against on the basis of my sex.

The top City firms pay north of £100k once you qualify after your two year training contract.

It's a tricky one. I think the Magic Circle firms that are more committed to diversity may well snap you up for your life experience (A&O, Freshfields and Linklaters spring to mind) but it would be a challenge to manage the hours around childcare. 9.30 to 8 would be typical, and last minute very late/all-nighters are not at all unusual and come with the territory.

I would definitely apply for vacation schemes to get a feel for what the life is like. The big City firms do pay you to do them which is an added bonus.

The Government Legal Service might be a better option for you - much better and more regular hours although obviously the pay is less.

squee, same here and I qualified in the 80s (at a firm by the way in London which even then had 50/50 male/female trainees).

I agree that you have to be prepared to work long hours - although with such high pay that is just part of the deal.

I think most non big London firms will not pay for you to do the exam year. So you'd have to fund that year of both studying costs and lack of income.

My dad did an evening course law (different country) in his 60s, retired from his daytime job at 64, worked as a lawyer till he retired at 80.

My best friend's mother did exactly that in the 1970s. Had the family unfashionably old (36 was last one) . Studied by correspondence course when they were growing up, qualified as they started secondary., landed a really top job a couple of years later., and worked till she retired aged 67. Lovely lady sadly died only a couple of years into retirement.

@hubbel I love teaching. There are many problems obviously, but as a mature mother I know that there are problems in any career.

My eldest is in teacher training at the moment so I haven't put her off!

Go for it and good luck!

I'm a lawyer. I'm 42 about to go back after mat leave. I'm in dreading it and think that I might have left progression in my career too late. And I'm nearly 20 years qualified.

My pays all right but that's because I was working during the 2000's bumper years where year on
year you could expect a 10k payrise. Those more junior than me (but still doing the same job) aren't being paid what I was paid nearly a decade ago.

Partners are getting made up later and later. When I first qualified you could expect to get made up at around 6 years pqe. Now you'll be lucky to do it in 10.

Anecdotally, very few of the more mature trainees are still around after 4/5 years. Trainee and nq work is often drudgery.

I admire your spirit OP, but don't know enough about the law to comment on that in particular. What I can say is I am in my late forties and am doing the same job, at the same level as I was twenty years ago (despite getting a PhD in the meantime). That is partly my fault and partly because I made pragmatic choices based on childcare issues. However, I am totally demoralized and think every day about escaping. If you can see a way out - go for it!

I don't know anything about law but I'm just about to change Career all being well, from social work to teaching. I'm also just about to turn 40 and have had a few upheavals in the last 5 years. So I totally appreciate the need for a change and a new challenge. I'm hoping it will be the thing to pick me up and give me a bit more focus again.
Go for it op!

I'm a lawyer and I DO recommend it. I find it interesting every day, whether because you have to solve a technical legal question, or get to grips with a new industry or unusual fact pattern. I know several lawyers who qualified in theirs 40s and are doing really well. Outside the biggest firms it's got a fairly flat structure with lots of matters structure as one associate/one partner, so good people can take responsibility early.

Many thanks all. To all the lawyers, I'd love to come and work with you all for a day to see what it's really like! Shouldn't we all have some kind of 'swap careers for a day' initiative in the UK where anyone could go and work in a different role for a day .

I do admit I read some of these posts and think I couldn't possibly do it because I'm too old, wouldn't see my children, would hate to work in such a misogynistic environment which reminds me of Oxbridge and don't have the energy to work all these long hours. But then I read a few more and it sounds great, probably something I'd really enjoy. So inspiring reading about all the career swaps and those that really enjoy their work.

@smemorata Don't know if you're in academia but you sound so similar to me! I have some really interesting experience but there is little career progression and salaries are the same as they were 10 years ago. Can you find something else/apply for a senior role? I know it's very competitive though.

Realistically I probably couldn't work in London with the commute and childcare factors (unless I had a nanny) but I am child-free in most of the holidays so will apply for the vacation schemes.

I asked the same question a bit further up but could someone please explain the training contract timelines. If they start in 2022 does this mean if you are accepted they will sponsor your GDL and LPC before that? So the GDL will start in summer 2020?

To be honest, I'm not sure I'd pass the intensive interviews and psychometric testing I can barely think what we're having for dinner but will give it a try. I guess this year has taught me more than ever than life is short and there's not really any harm in going for it. As others have said I might be working for another 30 years. I guess I'm in the fortunate position that I can always fall back into academia if it doesn't work out.

The most important thing for getting through the interviews at the big City firms is commercial awareness. Most will give you a short business article or case study to read and then ask you to discuss the issues in it. They're not bothered about legal knowledge, but a grasp of the commerical issues and an ability to think logically. Older candidates tend to do well on this as they have more life experience. The best preperation is to follow the business news.

If you apply now it would be to start 2022, so you would start your GDL in September 2020 and then do your LPC. The big firms will pay your fees and give you some money to live off.

Most women with children I know in the professsion have a stay at home husband, a nanny or an au pair. It can be suprisingly affordable if you go down the au pair route provided you have a spare bedroom.

@Hubbel with you education and experience you could probably get into a business analytics or data science career, with research, analysis and solving problems. Definitely use your brain power, it pays well, and you'd still have an after work life.

squee has good advice above on the timing.

In some ways there are two different careers - City law, £100k when you qualify; even up to £1m sometimes £2m (obviously that is very rare) if you become an equity partner (most people don't - I didn't and I set up on my own). Probably very long working hours. Those firms have the 2 years ahead recruitment and pay for your currently GDL and LPC course and pay out £40k pa in your 2 years as a trainee. (The qualification system is changing but the above is current for this Autumn's applications).

Separately there are many many firms that do not pay for your GDL and LPC course and where your wages may be relatively lower too. Mmy advice to my children has been start high and you can always drop down later to a different or lower paid firm or something like that but it can be hard to go in the other direction.

It is hard to generalise about people's average days as it depends what type of law you do even within a City firm. I do business law and I am very nusual - after working in the City I now work from my house. There was a time when I was out every day but now I try to minimise meetings when i can as I prefe rnot to have them so watvching me work would be like watcihng paint dry (except in my head and on calls to clients then it I suppose comes alive in that it is interesting stuff).

My head of legal daughter will often have people queuing outside her door down the corridor to see her and her average day will have a lot more physical contact with people than mine now is (although mine at her age would have been similar - she is early 30s). Others will be in court quite a bit.

Agree with Xenia except don't assume 100k as an NQ in a 'city firm'. The money's good but outside of magic circle and top American firms it's rarely that good. Rollonfriday has lists of salary at different firms. 60-80k is more typical of firms that would consider themselves to be doing 'city law'.

@somewheredreaming is quite right. The £100k figures being quoted are:

(a) combined base salary and maximum performance related bonus; and
(b) for NQ solicitors - so would be a minimum of 5 years away for anyone starting out now without a law degree; and
(c) only payable for those who qualify into a magic circle or US law firm - a small percentage of the trainees they take on and even getting a training contract is highly competitive; and
(d) comes with a requirement that you will work long and not family friendly hours both during your training contract and for the rest of your career in the magic circle.

Your first two years while you do the academic work will be poorly paid and the next two while you do your training contract also not huge salaries (see table attached) for current salaries.

Should add these firms are all Central London where the median salary for new graduates is around £30k and living costs are much higher than elsewhere in UK

www.graduate-jobs.com/gco/Booklet/graduate-salary-salaries.jsp