To be a teacher who is now looking for a career as a barrister or a solicitor

[Amammai]

I’m posting from a point of the complete unknown.

Would a move from being a primary school teacher (18 years experience) to a solicitor or barrister be a completely ridiculous move?

An Instagram recruitment post from the CPS caught my eye and I’m now down a rabbit hole of research. Something about these roles has really caught my interest and I think this could be a potential career pathway for me.

There are many aspects of teaching I still love but after 18 years, I am questioning how much more I can give to the role.

So, has anyone trained as a solicitor or barrister at a ‘later point’ (I’m 40!) Would the move from teaching be doable? Am I kidding myself I could actually do it??

Also, it's better to be in Chambers as you have colleagues to cover work you can't do, clerks and admin staff to manage bookings and billings. I'm not aware of anyone (except for maybe a few v experienced people with their own secretaries etc) who's done as well alone as in a Chambers.

"You could also try taking a mock bar aptitude test to see if you are intelligent enough, but I’d probably have to say training as a barrister post 40 is not really likely to be a viable option for a wide range of reasons."

I'm sure it's not easy @MrsPinkCock but I certainly wouldn't go as far as "not viable". I know a lot of pupils and newly-qualified barristers who were late 30s to late 40s when they started pupillage.

Thanks. I have just looked it up and it is three years of practising with a qualified person, although that can include the employed bar, so there’s the answer to my musing…

https://www.barcouncilethics.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2019/10/Sole-practitioners-1-2.pdf

A few things would stop that for a barrister.

Firstly, you'd need to have completed pupillage to get the practising certificate, and pupillage is the real bottleneck at the bar.

Secondly, you have to be in a Chambers for a minimum period before you can set up on your own - I think it's 3 years post-pupillage.

Thirdly, the admin and regulatory stuff would be tricky to manage.

Fourthly, it's as a very junior barrister you are most reliant on Chambers for getting work - the junior stuff either comes into Chambers and the clerks allocate it, or is returned from more senior and busier tenants.

It looks seriously stressful to me, being your own clerk as well as actually doing the work!

So many matters bring in more than one area of law, or work of varying levels of complexity. It's rare for me to instruct a barrister and them not also bring in a colleague with a different specialism or a Junior (to do the grunt work).

Barristers /solicitors in large part group together because it makes sense to do so. To learn from each other and collaborate. And also to share the cost of clerks and other staff so they don't have to spend time that could be spent on chargeable work dealing with billing /diary management/admin etc

I think a few messages have cross-posted with me posting a Bar Council document upthread, where I did discover and acknowledge the requirement to work three years with an experienced barrister.

Perhaps I am missing something, but once that experience is in place, I don’t think that someone who was already an experienced professional would find the administrative aspects of running their own chambers too daunting. Is it that different to being a self-employed consultant in any field, working with a PA? Surely you could contract-in someone with clerking experience? Use Xero for your accounts? Network with solicitors in all the usual ways? Access court forms online? I understood that the Bar was actively trying to modernise, reduce barriers to entry, improve direct access and eliminate some of the arcane practices that made it effectively a closed shop for so long.

The Bar Council document is quite funny in parts as, under ‘equipment’, it recommends that sole practitioners use a computer that is connected to the internet. Well, yes…that would be a good plan in most fields of endeavour!

Obviously you are never going to make silk going down this route or get the highest-status briefs, but could it work for someone who had already earned some money and wanted to do something different in midlife?

Again, because decent chunks of legal practice involve collaboration across different specialisms, sharing resources (eg text books, precedents etc - all very expensive), a junior and a senior working on a file.

And the way cases move around, take a different length of time from originally anticipated etc mean work sharing is key to ensuring cases are covered

It's been explained quite a few times now

What you are saying might work for a more advice based practice, perhaps, but even then it's rare for any question not to cross specialisms

But why bother in the first place @BadSkiingMum ? That's the sort of stuff the clerks in a Chambers do already, plus chasing fees, getting work in, talking to solicitors, etc. I can't see any advantage to being a sole practitioner, whether in later life or otherwise, just a lot of extra hassle.

Yes, I do see the point about collaboration and agree that it is important. But couldn’t it happen outside a traditional chambers set up?

I do self-employed knowledge-based work and have a network of people with whom I could collaborate if needed.

The type of person I would have in mind probably would be working in a specialist sphere, bringing to bear the knowledge that they have obtained in their previous career.

Say a solicitor is instructing a barrister on a particular case. The barrister's already done (for example) grounds of appeal, advised on the merits of a case, had a conference with you and the client. You get a preliminary hearing date through, and phone Chambers, who say, "sorry, Mr. Smith's already in court that day", and they suggest a couple of juniors who are available. You can have a quick look at the juniors' profiles on the website, pick one, and instruct the junior. Mr. Smith and the junior can have a chat about the case, make sure everyone's happy about what's going on and the plans.
If Mr. Smith's a sole practitioner, that's much more complicated both for him and for the solicitor, too.

People over 3 years' experience can do this, it's just not many see any point in it, I think. A lot more grief, and no particular benefits.

Yes, it is, if you’re doing commercial work, which you’re not qualified to do and which is highly competitive to get into. Barristers are self employed, no holiday pay, no sick pay and no pension and when the hours of work done is divided by the fee, part of which is paid to chambers as expenses, it’s often below the minimum wage. That’s why they went on strike and that’s why it’s tough. You’d have to be supporting yourself for several years before you could think of paying a mortgage, for example.

It's not so much "daunting" in the sense of the tasks being difficult, but difficult in various practical senses. Firstly expense wise - Chambers rent varies but is circa 12 - 25% of receipts - mostly around 18-22% IME. It would be difficult to get clerking/marketing/finance report contracting out without spending much more, not to mention office space, books and legal databases (books and legal databases are v pricey).

income liquidity is a huge issue at the Bar because people take so long to pay so being able to rely on collective services is really valuable.

Secondly in times of time - I can't be in court doing submissions or cross-examining and making/receiving calls, sending complex emails etc (and time out of court is spent prepping/doing other admin tasks/family time/I'm too tired). Thirdly because most barristers need colleagues who can cover for them (e.g. X has got a one hour hearing on Thursday but someone has just sacked their barrister ahead of a three week trial, so unless he can get someone junior to do the one hour hearing, he'll lose the trial).

Not impossible to be a sole practitioner but much easier for those right at the end of their career, when they've built up the expertise and have one or two longstanding clients than in the early stages or the middle.

Definitely not a good idea for someone with a young family (there may be exceptions) as in a highly unpredictable job it would seriously strain any free time and make getting favours off colleagues virtually impossible.

I suppose that they might just want to be a barrister and do it on their own terms! People do all sorts of things in mid-life and this might be a way to short-cut the years of having to compete with people their children’s age or suck up to gain favour from the head of Chambers or serve their time doing pitifully paid work to oblige the clerk or whatever the barriers are to junior barristers.

I am not trying to undermine the system but just pointing out that different routes might appeal to different people, at different life stages.

I think virtually any area of civil law at the Bar is a better base salary than teaching (unless a teacher in senior leadership) and private law family too. Not just high end commercial. It was the criminal bar which went on strike over legal aid fees for defence work.

That said, there is no pension, setting aside tax is difficult and the job itself as well as predicting when you get paid is hugely unpredictable.

Because it's unpredictable, I spend a lot more on things which make my life easy (e.g. living in a more central location but smaller property, nanny, cleaner, I take cabs a lot so I can work in the back, I send laundry out) so the difference between some aspects of my life and that if someone on a lower base salary aren't all that obvious (e.g. my teacher friends drive nicer cars!) but personally that's a trade off I am happy with.

You seem weirdly invested in this for someone who isn't a barrister

In my experience lawyers who try to fast track past the entry level work inevitably come unstuck. There's no short cut for the lessons learnt doing low value or 'simple' work, those years are important. So are the cases spent shadowing /supporting a senior lawyer and learning from their experience

And, as someone who instructs counsel regularly, the last thing I want is to pay KC rates for the entirety of the work if some of it could easily have been done by a junior barrister or a pupil

@Amammai You need to do a LOT more research!

I retrained in law as a second career in my 40s. It involved:

1. Graduate diploma in Law (1 yr FT or 2 yr PT) - cost about £10,000
2. Legal Practice Course (1 yr FT or 2 yr PT) - cost about £13,000
3. 2 years working as a paralegal while I looked for a TC
4. Training contract (paid £22,000 pa) - 2 yr fixed contract

I started studying in 2009 and qualified as a solicitor eight years later in 2017. NQ salary was £32,000. I’ve just accepted a new role on £95,000.

Yes, you can make good money but it’s a long, hard slog and you have to take a hit on salary whilst you’re training.

Also, solicitors usually work regular hours as a salaried employee. Great if you like stability and working as part of a team. You get to build relationships with your clients. Barristers, on the other hand, are self employed. They often work irregular hours and travel a lot to attend court. If you get a brief at 7pm, you’ll be up all night preparing for tomorrow’s hearing. They don’t particularly get to know their clients as they fly in, do their advocacy, and are off to the next case.

As others have mentioned, there are alternative routes to qualification including the SQE but you still need to study, sit exams and gain relevant experience.

It really isn’t as simple as “I’ll probably need to do a law conversion course”…

Most of the advice I would give has already been mentioned on this thread.

Read The Secret Barrister books for a nitty gritty insight into criminal practice.

Don't expect to earn big money outside of commercial areas (which are even more insanely competitive than law in general).

Get work experience to see what the solicitor and barrister roles are really like.

I'm a barrister married to a solicitor and I wouldn't recommend going into law to my children. It can pay well for the right area, and the work can be rewarding occasionally, but mostly it is a horrendously stressful slog.

@madamweb
Point taken, but let’s just say that I am not un-connected to the profession!

To the OP, I would say that I am also doing a ‘big’ thing in mid-life. Not retraining in law, but a similar large undertaking. Dozens of Mumsnet threads would have had me believe that it was impossible, unrealistic and utterly foolish to pursue this idea. Yet somehow I am doing it…

Pay attention to the warnings and the naysayers, but also pay attention to the fact that some people do actually do this successfully and it might be a case of navigating a way through the process that works for you.

That’s interesting. My dad was a doctor, my mum a dentist. They both advised me not to go into the medical/dental world and that was many years ago. Not sure that was the right decision.

What would you suggest your DC look at instead, if law and medicine are off the table?

Where can you make decent money without incredible slog?

Interesting, I'm a teacher after doing a law conversion and trying to go the barrister route in my 20s (I don't recommend it, even with some funding the likelihood of being given pupillage IE taken on as a "trainee" is very slim; you need lots of unpaid work experience of various kinds and the slightly less competitive fields of crime/family are paid terribly. Everyone I shadowed on work experience told me not to do it).

Solicitor might have less slim chances of qualifying but still tough. I'd say don't start any type of degree or qualification without a training contract paying your fees for you. And then you're locked into I think 2 years post qualification as you're essentially inducted and then (not exactly sure but I think 2-3 years?) working for the firm after that or you need to repay the fees.

I understand it's not the family firms that can afford to sponsor trainees so you'd probably be working somewhere with poor to nonexistent work life balance for some years and that's after all the studying. I heard of someone (on Rich House, Poor House) who became an immigration solicitor in his 60s but he was independently wealthy. What I did was hard going in my 20s and I didn't have small children (and used all my work holiday for work experience).

I'd suggest volunteering as an alternative, speak to actual solicitors if you still think you're interested, but I wouldn't do it - there's plenty of alternatives that don't require requalifying and fierce competition. Maybe look at policy or charity jobs?

I don't see solicitor and barrister as remotely similar jobs, so I don't think you've done any research at all. It might be worth thinking a bit harder about what job you want, there are a huge range of possible roles out there. Many of them will pay better than law, with fewer hours. What is it exactly that you are looking for from this job change?

If you do go for law then you'll need to consider the cost of additional qualifications, what job you actually want, and then accept you will be paid less for some years for working a lot more hours than you do right now. I would advise you to think very carefully. Perhaps as step 1 you could do some work experience to shadow in the holidays and figure out what job you want. If one of the jobs is still interesting to you, then you could do the qualification alongside work (usually it's done as extra hours study alongside work in a law firm anyway). You can then apply and resign only when you have a job to go to.

Dh is a solicitor but went in to from university years ago. I teach.

He has worked with a couple of ex teachers who have retrained. It takes a while. One went FT back to education to retrain, the other went did the conversion and then got a job in as a lower paid role and worked their way up, with the firm helping towards the education costs.

Both preferred it to teaching but it was hard work with having to retrain and work their way back up. One had small children and I know she found it really draining at times.

However, both are still working as a solicitors and enjoy the job more than they did secondary school teaching.

I did a law degree later in life but woujd I swap to be one? Nope! No desire to be a junior and it's so mega competitive t meat grads who have firsts and tons of volunteering don't get anywhere. And they are happy work until 2am as no kids etc.

In loads of threads of "how do you earn over £100k" accountancy is mentioned which is far easier to get into and work up into a fairly well paid and lower stress job. So it's not all career change is unrealistic but say law or medicine may well be