To be worrying about my future employment prospects?

[Maya2021]

I work in law - sadly not one of the highly paid specialisms. In fact I'm in personal injury which is about to go through massive reforms, which are likely to shrink the market and mean a lot less lawyers are likely to be required.

I've worked in this area of law for over 20 years, however I haven't directly handled cases for the last 10 or so, I've either been managing teams of more junior people or carrying out audits, technical reviews, delivering training etc. Which has all been good, mostly I enjoy my job and am well respected. But I don't earn a massive amount by legal standards (under 60k) and it is looking increasingly like I won't have a job in 12 months time.

So the question is what do I do now? I will get statutory minimum redundancy, that's all our company pays, so that won't get me far. I can't go back to case handling as my knowledge is so out of date. The work I do now is not an essential to firms especially where they are cutting costs. I can't do another area of law because I have zero experience in any other specialism and realistically no firm will employ a middle aged PI lawyer as effectively a newly qualified. I have made a few enquiries of agencies just in case I was being unduly negative but they have said I will be hard to place without any recent 'front line' experience.

I don't know what to do. I'm too young to retire and can't afford to, I have barely any pension and a sizeable mortgage...is there anything I'm not thinking of? I'm not formally at risk yet but it's really only a matter of time once the reforms are launched later this year.

Yanbu to worry but 12 months is a long time to get a plan together & I'm sure with the skills you have from audit, training you'll figure something out.
I think i would approach it from 2 angles. What skills do I have and what jobs need them.
What would I be doing in an ideal world.

From a practical side with skills i would look into areas like compliance, data security, GDPR or whatever comes after it in the UK post-Brexit or even something like internal audit.
Good luck!!

Start looking, see what’s interesting, see what’s missing in terms of your experience and if it’s possible to get some of it in your current company have a chat with your boss. Maybe handle a small portfolio of claims too.

There's no opportunity for me to case handle in my current role unfortunately, and I am hugely busy with my day job and preparation for the reforms, so I can't request additional work anyway, I'm doing 10-12 hour days regularly just on the work I need to do.

When I spoke to agencies I did ask about compliance/ GDPR but was given to understand that it's tricky to get into without additional qualifications in financial compliance etc. Auditing would be more within my current experience but I'm aware that audit functions are now being scaled back in many law firms and insurers, so I'm not sure how many opportunities there are likely to be.

What about legal education? Something like teaching the GDL or LPC.

Many of the big law firms are setting up legal services centres outside London to reduce costs. With your management and audit experience could you look for a supervisory role at one of them?

The government legal profession seem very hot in offering their lawyers breadth of experience, could you look into a role with them? Local government also sometimes have interesting roles. Even the army legal service?

Court legal adviser for HM Courts and Tribunals Service, or look into the Legal Aid Agency? Policy roles related to legal issues with the Civil Service - it can be hard to get your foot in the door, but you might be lucky if a specific area that really suits your skills comes up.

I did think about GDL/LPC but I think it can be quite over subscribed. I'm also not sure how it's been affected by Covid, whether roll numbers are reducing etc. But something to look into.

A lot of GLS places are often only as temps, but even if not, again I think what I would struggle with is that I can't go in as a handler as I have no recent case handling experience.

I'm based in London and not really able to relocate for a few years so working any more than an hour outside of London would be tricky if it was an office based role.

Where are you based, is it near a financial hub or city centre?

As TheUndoing says Civil Service? You don’t say if you’re a solicitor or paralegal but lots of your skills will be transferable. Search civil service jobs.

Treasury solicitor? They have all sorts of specialities and retrain you as needed I believe

I'm in London, the outer part rather than central.

I did apply to Treasury some years ago and I know at that time you did have to have current or very recent handling experience. It might have changed now of course, will look into it.

DWP job centres have a special pot of funding for people who’ve been made redundant in the last 13 weeks - it’s called the Rapid Response Service.

This is spent on qualifications/training that will allow you to find a new job.

So re. the GDPR or teaching qualifications, if you are made redundant and you decide to go down those routes, there’s every chance the DWP would fund it for you.

www.citizensadvice.org.uk/work/leaving-a-job/redundancy/preparing-for-after-redundancy/

Ah I didn't know that. Worth bearing in mind.

My fear is that I will either not be able to obtain anything, or I'm going to end up with a substantial salary drop, down to 30-40k which I would struggle to manage on financially especially if I need to factor in commuting costs (when we start commuting again!).

What about law using similar skills like tribunal representation? Not sure how it pays but would strike me that you work with someone to build a profile of how they were harmed etc.

What about asking your current firm to redeploy you as a professional support lawyer (PSL). This would entail you keeping precedents up to date, training people in house and sending out details of updates within their fields so they don't need to keep an eye out.

If your own firm know that your role is going to disappear and you are working as hard as you are they will want to keep you somehow surely.

I don't know anything about tribunals but can look into it.

We don't have any actual PSL lawyers, I partly do this for the teams I work with but it's not a designated role. I don't foresee them creating one given they're reducing headcount and have already (in the last year) made a number of frontline staff redundant.

I wouldn't mind doing a PSL type role elsewhere but according to one of the agents I spoke to, my experience is too narrow.

I can't work out whether you are qualified as a solicitor/legal executive or whether the role you currently have is more in the capacity as a paralegal but local goovernment legal teams might be an option to look at as well as inhouse legal teams.

I'm a solicitor.

In terms of in house, I know a lot of motor insurers are looking to reduce staff numbers in view of the upcoming reforms. If they are recruiting, GLS/ Civil Service is probably the better option.

As you are in London definitely try Government Legal Department formerly Treasury Solicitor. They are advertising now

www.civilservicejobs.service.gov.uk/csr/index.cgi?SID=cGFnZWNsYXNzPUpvYnMmcGFnZWFjdGlvbj1zZWFyY2hieWNvbnRleHRpZCZ1c2Vyc2VhcmNoY29udGV4dD0xMTkzNjM0MjImb3duZXI9NTA3MDAwMCZvd25lcnR5cGU9ZmFpciZyZXFzaWc9MTYxMjE3ODk3Ny01MWI2NmI3NmQyOWVkZjlkM2RmZGY5YmMxMzRmN2QxZmNlOWU0NWE1

Hi - what about PLC, Lexis Nexis or similar OP? It is an opportunity to update legal knowledge and then use that to go back into private practice in due course if the situation changes. It would also enable you to move into lecturing or similar.

The Law Society run refresher courses for people (mainly women who have taken career or maternity breaks) but perhaps it may be a way for you to get back into actual practice. I feel you are probably just having a bit of a crisis of confidence and with a bit of training and skills update you may feel more positive.

I'm really not lacking confidence, I'm concerned about my prospects, and I think justifiably so.

Speaking to agencies has reinforced that, because they have confirmed companies aren't currently looking to hire at my level, most promote from within, also there are redundancies going on in most law firms, and if I wanted to go in at fee earner level I'd need recent case handling experience, which I don't have and can't obtain.

I think you should try a different agency because it is not my experience that currently most law firms are making people redundant at all.

The Law Society refresher course is specifically for people who do not have recent case experience (that is the point of it) and it may be a way to boost your employability.