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?

I'm on here to take a ten minute break. I have about another hour to do this evening. I started work today at 8am.

I am normally an optimistic/go for it/YOLO type person but as a lawyer with DCs honestly, don’t do it. The pay isn’t as amazing as you’d think outside of top firms and certainly not worth the stress, long hours and pressure. I’m getting out.

@Retrainingideasno one on this thread seems to think q career in law is conducive to working around your kids - especially without childcare. How many solicitors have said being a lawyer is compatible with your goals?

Oddly, there is no requirement to do the law conversion course anymore. If you have any degree, you can do the SQE which takes 2 years, and you can do it whilst you are working as a paralegal. One of our trainees did this and then her paralegal work experience counted towards her training contract. Her original degree was in something like performing arts.

Could she have managed this, had she been in the same circumstances as the OP? Doubt it.

I think being older and having children would make you more appealing to employ in family law, especially public law (care proceedings) but the money is crap. And you would need to find somebody to take you on as a trainee solicitor.

It's very poorly paid and not family friendly but if it's something you know you love give it a go. Honestly pay wise you earn more money in any supermarket.

No I doubt it.

There aren't any when you are junior.
Most solicitors wait to start a family until they are more senior and have earned their stripes. A junior is expected to be in the office from 8am - 6pm five days a week, even in the regions.
Salary wise, that level of salary probably wouldn't be available until qualification.

I suggest you consider something else.

You don't have to do a law conversion course but if you don't, you need to demonstrate an existing knowledge of all of the compulsory areas of law to be able to do an SQE course. Not many people can do this.

You can sit the SQE exam without any legal training but the chances of passing are slim.

DC is currently applying for training contracts as a non law graduate. Most firms require you to do a law conversion if you are a non law graduate in order to apply for a training contract (since they know you have little chance of passing SQE without studying law).

SQE was supposed to enable wider access to the profession but it's done the exact opposite IMO. You now need money, to be extremely bright, to be very good at passing closed book exams and to have an extremely good memory.

Your age won’t be a barrier but during training there is little to no flexibility. You won’t be able to do a training contract from home. You’ll be in the office Monday-Friday 9-5 as standard but often expected to work over for pittance and even if you pass all the exams and log those hours there’s no guarantee a firm will want to take on someone recently qualified for more than £28k outside of London.

I got a first class law degree at 30 with three small kids. It was so hard through the exams and then training on top. I now work legal adjacent and not as a solicitor because I couldn’t afford to work for £28k and my job lets me work from home 4 days a week and pays about £10k more.

Ai will replace a lot of law

DC going through the application process had an online interview which asked him which prompts he would put into chat GPT to produce an answer to a client's question. AI will mean far fewer juniors are required.

Sorry to piss on your rainbow OP, but law’s a pretty rubbish industry demanding stellar academics in exchange for the privilege of working with sociopaths and the emotionally unintelligent.

Plus it’s about to be superseded by AI.

I’d avoid, honestly.

I agree with everyone here. I am in an HR/employment law role in house and I have good hours in that I don’t have to stay late but it is very much full time and days are packed. My kids are older now but I have never had the flexibility to leave to do pickup etc and childcare was always necessary. I also lead a large team so can’t just disappear or totally control my hours, I need to be available during work hours. Still it is considered a more “family friendly” role as when it comes to big matters the outside firms handle things and are the ones putting in the crazy hours for big litigation deadlines etc.

@Piglet89 interesting what araa of law with the emotionally enhancement

@FatEndoftheWedgedidn’t understand your post.

My comment about lawyers being emotionally unintelligent is valid. I suspect this enormous failing comes from their constant search for the answers to every problem among legislation and cases, rather than thinking about human nature.

But I work in financial services regulation, populated almost exclusively by rather odd geeks. I expect family or crime might be different.

I'd train as a plumber instead.

Currently undergoing an apprenticeship at a law firm (a very small company in a small town) at the moment. If I asked to go into flexible hours or part time I think they’d suspect I’d been possessed. Unfortunately 9-5 mon-fri is very much expected, and I’m very lucky my hours generally do stick to this pattern as in most larger firms they exceed this and you’re very much expected to just stay until the work is done. You might get away with that flexibility as a partner, but this is 10/15/20 years into a career that you’d be talking and even then you need to prove you can handle this. I wouldn’t say retraining at a later age is necessarily a bad thing, but doing so when your priority is (rightly) your children will make things incredibly difficult for you. Sadly there is a reason why law is very male heavy - particularly in older age groups - and it is because they don’t have the same childcare responsibilities (generally speaking of course). As an aside, I’d like to add that as an apprentice I am currently on minimum wage, and our other trainee who is a few years ahead of me is on 24k, so I certainly wouldn’t be expecting big bucks instantly

Not to derail this thread but I’d be surprised if it replaces such a huge amount of law as has been suggested. Sure it will require less support staff for more menial tasks, but I’d be surprised if we didn’t still require solicitors for oversight, corrections etc etc for at least the rest of our lifetimes. AI is by no means reliable enough to blindly trust for the law

I think we will see massive change over the next ten years and law firms will basically need partners to give strategic advice, a few mid level lawyers and very few juniors. Just enough to keep the flow of lawyers coming but ultimately fewer lawyers will be needed in general.
There will always be a need to check what is generated but AI can already, in seconds summarise a lengthy document, check it for particular clauses, draft agreements, prepare basic answers to client queries which then just need pimping by a qualified lawyer. It could already be used to halve the number of lawyers I suspect if it was utilised correctly.

Electrician’s better because at least one can only be figuratively in the shit if one makes a mistake as a legal professional.

Agree. My husband and I have already used AI to great effect to challenge a tradesman’s assertions on a recent whole home renovation and draft an email to our lead contractor. It’s amazing what it can do.

I do agree it will definitely limit a large amount of admin staff etc, as to whether lawyers will be reduced i’m not as sure as the trust really isn’t there for AI. That said a lot can change in a short time and who knows what it will look like in 10 years, only time can tell