To think that a solicitor is not a key worker?

[Sandiepatterson]

Grrr, three sets of parents at our school are solicitors. Not family lawyers dealing with courts but plain old private client wills and trust lawyers. They most definitely could WFH but no, they've ALL sent their kids to school.
AIBU to think they are being unreasonable?

Criminal lawyers are clearly key workers but the rest of us (solicitors) are not.

The rest of us should be supporting the criminal lawyers who are earning peanuts and closing down more and more firms.

Criminal lawyers are our key workers.

Of all the types of lawyers, surely wills and trusts lawyers are some of the most important at the moment.

Criminal lawyer checking in (defence). Most of our hearings require our attendance in person. On the odd occasion we’ve been able to proceed via video link it can’t be in the presence of children.

Crown Prosecution Service are mostly doing remote hearings but defence are not. That includes shielding defence solicitor who have duty solicitor status.

I’d also say private client solicitors (wills and probate) and council solicitors (covering a wide range of local authority matters such as child protection) are also included.

Most civil lawyers won’t be covered under KW status and most are WFH juggling cases and kids.

I'm a solicitor (not criminal / family) and for the most part able to work from home.

As others have said the courts are still running. I'm regularly participating in video trials. I have a 3 day trial next week. Kids in the background would almost certainly slow the process down and make waiting times for listings even longer than they already are.

In order to prepare for trials I've needed staff in the office to help sort bundles that the court wants in paper format, not electronic due to the volume of papers. I couldn't prep that from home as I do not have professional printers to hand capable of printing tens of thousands of pages. But for that trial a company would certainly collapse with further ramifications for the directors and the company's employees, creditors etc.

OP, iF you were employed by said company and faced losing your job, I imagine you'd be saying solicitors were key workers...

Are we going to do this for every job on the critical worker list??

Looks like it.

Anyway, here is the fundamental problem ...

Back in March it made sense to come up with a list of functions that could be shut down for 6 weeks or so with no great detriment to society and a list that couldn’t - hence ‘key worker’ status.

10 months in, most industries that can are struggling on, regardless of their ‘key’ status. And the government are damn glad of that because of all the lovely tax revenue.

But we now have this bizarre two tiered system where some children are deemed ‘worthy’ of in person schooling because of their parents jobs and it is utter bullshit.

My DH is a ‘key’ worker according to the list, but is much better able to wfh than I am (I’m not key).

Neither of us can work and homeschool/entertain children at the same time, because practically no one can. We’re all being asked to achieve the impossible.

That's a good point Keating - we thought it was 6 weeks. This time it's probably more

Which, to be fair, is why neither major party wanted to shut schools this time round.

The ones writing the Covid Regulations are!

I wish solicitors dealing with trusts were working properly. It's taken over 2 years for them to set out a simple estate and they are a large national firm. Bloody incompetent is what they are!

You missed the memo. EVERYONE is a key worker now. And if home learning will cause you a mild inconvenience, then apparently you can get a school place for your kids...

This. I'm not in the UK, but when we were in lockdown solicitors worked from home, but they couldn't send their kids to school.

🤦🏼‍♀️

This is why we need to reopen all schools as it is just too complex to decide who is key/critical and who is not. My son who drives a food delivery van is presumably key as people starve if the van drivers don 't drive. My NHS doctor consultant sibling obviously is too. Lawyers (as above) are. I was talking to a lawyer this week who has trials and is key and his spouse is a trainee teacher (on the list too and they have school places obviously as both work full time). My neighbours up the road are a doctor and nurse couple and I presume the children are in school. On and on and it just leads to unfairness. Better just to reopen all schools come what may particularly now figures are improving and vaccine taking effect.

Litigators and private client lawyers are definitely critical workers.

You know three sets of parents in which both sets of parents are probate lawyers? That seems like a lot.

But YABU as you probably have no idea what their work involved and why it's important.

Don't know enough about law to say whether you are or are not BU, but to those saying "mind your own business"... for those of us who are seeing our kids struggle out of school due to the pandemic, this very much is our business. We hear: more kids in school, more transmission of virus, longer this goes on, the longer all the "non critical" kids will be out of school.

formerbabe

You missed the memo. EVERYONE is a key worker now. And if home learning will cause you a mild inconvenience, then apparently you can get a school place for your kids...

😂😂😂😂

@puffinkoala

You can't work from home and appear in court at the same time

You absolutely can, because many courts are doing remote hearings at the moment.

Children are not allowed in a court room generally speaking. Yes, you have court hearings remotely, but not appropriate for children to be there. Any distraction means you might miss a crucial point which could have significant consequences for people's lives, families etc.

There are over 600 lawyers at my firm. Fewer than 5 have used KW status.

YABU

@GetOffYourHighHorse

'Key worker bashing, makes you sound jealous, controlling and miserable. It's all "unfair" and soooooo mean.'

No no you misunderstand I absolutely support keyworkers like hcps, police, shopworkers, van drivers and teachers to name but a few but imo those that can work from home shouldn't send their dc to school at the moment.

I accept the rules mean they can, but as has been said throughout this pandemic just because you can doesn't mean you should.

I'm sorry but that's an unimaginative list of key workers, as we can see there are other roles needed right now to keep thing ticking over e.g. civil servants dealing with brexit related stuff, which might included people working on publishing information to the public about post brexit trade or teams creating government content for Covid related information. Many crucial jobs are now in the digital sector, especially as all our engagements have moved online since Covid. Some call centre staff working for internet service providers will be key workers whether they WFH or not, they are glued to their desk supporting the country's communication infrastructure so that we can keep functioning as a country in some sort of way albeit online. Other threads on MN show how completely impossible and damaging to families it is to WFH and homeschool KS1 /2 dc.

@FreeButtonBee

I am a solicitor and my husband and our kids are not in school (I have kept our nanny at huge expense to make sure we can continue to work)

I have no problems with a wills practitioner using their KW status if appropriate.

Is the nanny costing more than before then?

@VanGoghsDog I would imagine a nanny covering the whole school day /remote learning is different from a nanny that just has to cover school runs and tea time?

This entire thread seems to be ‘how are solicitors supposed to do their jobs while homeschooling?’ Does that mean that other jobs which are ‘not key’ can be done while homeschooling?
Definition of key workers w.r.t schools should ONLY apply to people who cannot work from home. If you can work from home - homeschool like everyone else. Only if both parents cannot WFH should children be allowed in schools. No exceptions.

Also... you cannot complain that people are ‘Covid policing’ given that this entire lockdown working relies on the majority following the rules, not individual effort

I've been run off my feet dealing with probate and the huge volume of people who wanted to either make a Will or update their existing ones. I've taken instructions in clients' gardens, on their doorsteps, through care home windows. Do you think I should take 5 year old DD along with me OP? So many of my clients have been shielding and/or vulnerable. They can't leave their homes, don't Zoom and to do the job properly, you have to see clients face-to-face. DD has had a part-time KW school place (I'm a lone parent) and I've worked in the evenings, often til midnight and from 5am before she wakes up just to try to keep up with the insane workload I've had and I've homeschooled, just like you. They did zero learning in school in the last lockdown and they're not covering the daily tasks set fully this time either. DD has definitely not been at an advantage being in and I feel really guilty about that. It's been hell. I'm not saying it hasn't been for you and millions of others but I literally couldn't have done half of my job with DD by my side. Your post just sounds so bitter and ignorant. Yes, the private client solicitors you know may have colleagues in their office who can do all the home visits and/or partners who could be homeschooling so maybe those particular ones are in the wrong but you're so wrong to think all private client solicitors are the same. I could write pages of examples this year when I've had to see clients face-to-face but I won't cause hopefully you've read every other reply and realised how thoroughly unreasonable you're being.

YABU and this has been hashed out a million times. Unless you are only working on a covid ward you can send them in and no one else blah blah blah. You don't know their situation so it's not for you to say.

[quote KeyboardWorriers]@VanGoghsDog I would imagine a nanny covering the whole school day /remote learning is different from a nanny that just has to cover school runs and tea time?[/quote]
I wouldn't call someone who covered school runs and teatime a "nanny", personally.

Yanbu
Total bullshit