To consider retraining as a solicitor with young children?

[Retrainingideas]

Currently have 2 DC under 5. I’m a SAHM for now, but would like to go back to work once the children are a little older.

However, due to DH’s job, chances are that I’m always going to need to be fairly flexible in terms of WFH/school drop offs and pick ups etc. I wouldn’t want to be reliant on formal childcare and don’t have much help in terms of family locally.

I like the idea of family law (sorting out divorces etc) and also employment law. Are these particularly competitive areas? Likely to be fairly flexible/inflexible?

Are law firms open to taking on those only starting their careers mid 30s?

i’d be looking to work out of London, so not at any big city firms.

I’d also ideally be earning £50k+ and not working 5 days per week. Is this possible in this career? If not, any other areas of law I could look at that would be more flexible?

People either seem to be in one of two camps - camp A: retrain, it’s super flexible, great salary, or camp B: the pay is awful, it’s not flexible and they’d never recommend it as a career.

Quite a few of the solicitors I know fall into camp A! I just want to know why there are such differing opinions and whether this is due to the specific area of law.

Really! I presumed all areas of law were fairly decent in terms of salary!

My aunt did a similar thing with four young children and by the time they all went to school she was up and running and had a great career. She's retired now. Good luck.

I work for an international corporate law firm so slightly different to the kinds of firms that specialise in family / employment (we do employment but mainly act for big corporate employers) but in my shop you wouldn’t be able to do a training contract part time nor would you be able to have flexible hours. It’s very much a profession where client needs dictate the workload and work hours and especially as a junior you are expected to be available during normal working hours plus out of hours if on a busy deal etc. I wouldn’t be happy if my trainee repeatedly went offline at 4pm to do pick ups and couldn’t flex when I needed their help. The firm wouldn’t put up with it either.
Some people do 4 days per week but only once they are more senior and can control their workloads better. As a trainee you have no control over the work you will be asked to do. I had my first child a few months ago and will ask to do 4 days when I go back but I fully expect those to be long days and have to work evenings, occasional weekends and non working days. I’m 8 years qualified so fairly senior.

Smaller firms might be more flexible but they won’t pay you £50k especially if part time.

Being older is not a problem and can in fact be an advantage but if you are entering the profession thinking you can seamlessly work it around family life that’s not going to work and the attitude might put firms off.

Have the As gone through the intense work/study pressures to find a good work life balance? All the solicitors i know worked intensively to establish themselves. Im not sure whether it is now super flexible for them, i suspect they still work very hard.
Have you considered governance and company secretary type roles.

My brother is a solicitor - he is now earning a good wage and able to have a degree of flexibility… sometimes. Other times he works long hours. His wife is part time to allow him the flexibility to do his job around their kids.

It’s going to be a struggle to find roles with the kind of flexibility you need when you will be competing with people in their 20’s who can work any hours needed, travel easily to visit clients without needing to factor in school runs / kids off sick etc.

As other posters have suggested, public sector / civil service could offer you the flexibility you need, a 37 hour working week if FT but you’ll need to work your way up a bit or get lucky for a £50k salary, or have very good transferable skills / management experience to go in at SEO/G7

Family law is not family friendly. Long hours and if you’re in court you have to be there. Chances of being available to pick the kids up are slim to nil. Most places are asking people back in the office at least some of the time.
as for salary I think that’s optimistic, especially if you want part time. Maybe look at job listings and see what the salary’s are being pitched at.

OP it is all possible but it is a very competitive profession and you will need to do a law conversion course and then the SQE1 & SQE2 plus get some work experience before you qualify. The studies are quite intense. Can you afford this financially and do you have the time? If you really want to do it I'm sure you can but you need to be committed. £50k working 4 days is doable depending on the firm but might not be immediate and you'll need a training contract or a paralegal role before you take on a qualified role.

I think you have to be realistic that there aren’t many careers you are going to be able to start in new and have the flexibility you desire. Rightly or wrongly that usually has to be ‘earned’ through hard graft to start with in any career paying a reasonable wage. I think you’ll need to compromise - either on the flexibility or the wage. You’re unlikely to be able to have both.

I think with your requirements this is a very bad plan. As others have said, training contracts are competitive even at smaller firms (and obviously very small firms will not offer them) and no one will be impressed if you’re asking for flexible hours before you even finish your training contract. While it won’t necessarily be a disadvantage, I don’t think the fact you’ve had a previous career will be seen as a huge advantage either.

What has your work experience involved to date?

I've worked in-house my entire career and my experience is that large teams can be happy to let people working in other areas of the business get involved with an eye to joining part- or full-time if it's part of a reasonable development plan. So, if you work for or still have connections in a large organisation with an in-house department I'd start there, although this is won't be family law work and there are far more opportunities for generalists than employment specialists.

HR, project and commercial management, property, supply chain - I have seen people from all of these areas end up in legal teams in-house. Quite often you can do effectively the same role without needing to qualify.

Compliance and data privacy are other areas that attract both non-lawyers and lawyers.

I'm an employment solicitor and I have a lot of flexibility but i'm well aware that in the minority.

Your age shouldn't be an issue but don't go into a career as a solicitor thinking you can collect your dcs from school as that isn't the norm (especially under 5 ywar pqe when you need to be supervised/advice from senior colleagues).

I collect my dcs 2 days a week at 3pm, and could do it everyday but it is easier sending them to wrap around as the 40 mins i'm out collecting often makes it awkward to fit in appointments and quite frankly I don't like playing catch up in the evenings - that sucks!

There’s a huge pay gap between high street and corporate law firms. The huge salaries belong to the latter.

I do know a few people in their later 30s or older retraining as lawyers at the moment but I don't know if they have young children.

I would also consider your work experience and your academics as PP have said

I think you might be approaching this the wrong way around. I think hoping a career will compare well with some idealised lifestyle is a bit naïve, especially a career like the law. I think you need to approach it the other way with what realistically you can offer an employer because that is certainly how they will look at things. If it is part time, with a high degree of flexibility to come and go subject to family demands I think the law is probably out.

People who get that degree of flexibility with law likely have likely earned it through demonstrating commitment and very high level competence over many years. A person on a training programme obviously will not have built up that kudos with employers.

Not gonna lie, I wouldn't. Demanding, stressful job, and takes YEARS, and 100s of 60 hour weeks for you to get to a good/well paid position in this career.

I’d suggest looking at the Government Legal Department rather than private practice. Your politics degree may be advantageous and you’re more likely to find the flexibility you want.

The GLD lawyers I know all work at least 9-5, and often more than that when things are at crunch point. None of them are picking their kids up from school.

The GLD trainee solicitor scheme is also hugely competitive - we’re talking thousands of applicants per space available.

I’d love to know what practice areas they’re in and when they trained if they’re in camp A!

I’m in commercial so work with a lot of employment lawyers and have friends that work in family. Neither area is particularly flexible. Yes there can be some flexibility but usually not until you’re later in your career. Eg I can WFH most of the time (usually two days in the office but I can pick and choose and if I need a week without it, it’s fine). I can be somewhat flexible with my time but work comes first so the expectation is that I’m fully available during core hours. With anything potentially contentious there is likely to be an element of litigation so your hands are tied with court dates and times/deadlines.

As for residential property - there’s a reason that people always complain about solicitors. The public wants low fees so the costs are driven right down and the firms make up for it by taking on a lot more work. That means high matter loads, stressed out clients demanding responses and the risk of letting things slip and losing someone their dream home. It isn’t an easy job nor particularly flexible.

The only people I know that go part time are women who are well established already and go part time for childcare. No concept of part time on a TC because there are strict rules around practice hours etc. There are so many people wanting jobs in law that firms have their pick. I’d be incredibly surprised if they chose someone that can’t commit to the job and you won’t be looking at £50k for a while.

People generally put in very serious graft in their trainee/yearly qual years and then get the pay off with a bit more flexibility once they’ve built up expertise and goodwill. I’m not sure this is the career you think it is!

Law is not a family, friendly flexible career in any sense. If you're unwilling to use any childcare and don't have family help I just don't see how you can make this work. Even in a smaller, local practice. This is a pipe dream, those flexible roles don't exist at junior level and certainly not on £50k+.

One you establish yourself and work up the ladder some degree of flexibility is possible and a better salary but that will take a while.

By all means retrain if it's the career you want, but go into with your eyes open.

Yes this! I’m a solicitor, and have worked with solicitors across the spectrum from high street firms to magic circle firms and I have literally never heard any lawyer describe their career as flexible or family friendly. Yes, you generally get more flexibility the more senior you get, but when you’re junior you are effectively waiting for your boss to review your work and they are waiting for their boss to review their work so your timetable is dictated by them, ie they could well finish their review at 3 in order to pick up their kids then ask you to incorporate comments to send something out by 5pm. Very little that you do as a trainee goes out the door without someone else reviewing it so you in turn have very little control over your own time. I think your expectations of doing this job without childcare in place are wildly unrealistic for all areas of law tbh. Most (female)lawyers working in the City with young kids that I know have full time nannies, or very comprehensive wrap around care or family help.

The more senior you are, the more flexible. It’s a very competitive career, so when you are starting out, you will be working to support a senior solicitor; and that’s the key, support. It’s not about being in a nice interesting job, as a trainee you really need to graft because if you’re away collecting children etc your competitors won’t be.

Solicitor of >25 years here. Don’t do it.

Law at the junior end is NOT super-flexible anywhere. It took 20 years of experience and training a team for delegation purposes before I could reduce my hours (and I am still FT). The “unicorn poo” post above is accurate.

More generally, the well paid bits of law are the least flexible. City/international firms doing corporate and commercial, big-ticket work pay well, but sweat the human assets (and generally would swerve mature applicants unless they are exceptional, ie double first from Cambridge types). High street solicitors pay you in buttons and are closing in droves.

It can be better in-house but you need to qualify and work for a bit (generally) as a qualified solicitor before you can make that transition. A period as a paralegal is almost a rite of passage now.

Law colleges are turning out WAY more graduates than are needed, even more so as we probably need about half as many once AI does everything it promises.

I head an in-house team and my paralegal (who earns £28k) has a law degree from a decent new university and a distinction in her self-funded LPC. She has been trying to get a TC for 4 years without success, and every year there are fresh new LPC graduates sending me their CV’s….

My friend in private practice just spent 3 days drafting an opinion for a client (and charging accordingly). He asked the same question to Microsoft Co-Pilot out of interest, and reckons it correctly identified 70% of the material he’d analyzed.

The only other profession I would say is going to be equally stuffed by AI is marketing, I’m afraid. It would be a frying pan —-> fire move!

I’m not a solicitor, I’m an accountant in a small firm as you describe, my sister and dad are/were solicitors and have a lot of friends in the professions.
I really don’t think law (or accountancy practices) would suit the work life balance you want. They do take older staff that are retraining, my dad had a trainee that was an ex-rugby international! Training as an accountant /lawyer is a full time position because of the way you qualify. You may be able to reduce your hours once you’ve qualified, but as a solicitor you do your rotations and have to have 2 years experience. The pressure to bill and be available is also there, even after qualifying.
Also even on qualifying in a small regional firm you won’t be earning £50k working full-time, our newly qualified staff are earning £42k full-time!
If you want to work in law, I’d get a job as a paralegal/legal secretary and see if it’s for you, you won’t have sunk £££ into training and if you’re good the firm may offer to sponsor you and let you work part-time if you can show them how good you are.

Would becoming a mediator appeal @Retrainingideas?
I don't know a huge amount about it and it might be a non-starter but perhaps worth a look.