solictors and lawyers,why did you choose your career....

[brimfull]

and are you happy with it?

DD considering this but would like to know

what qualities do you need?
what subjects at a level did you do?
tia

I sort of fell into it too (with a bit of parental pushing!). I also didn't enjoy corporate law, and sort of wish I was a child/family lawyer instead. I would also say that your dd should shadow all types of lawyer before deciding. and I would also advise not to do a law degree (dull dull dull) as it is easy to switch to a career in the law and do an enjoyable degree

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Lawyer is the more generic term and includes barristers and solicitors.

How old is your dd? Do you have any solicitor mates who might take her into their office for a day? Perhaps her school can arrange for her to spend some time with a law firm.

There are so many different areas of law. I couldn't ever see myself doing family/conveyancing etc and I'm sure there are loads of people who would hate what I did. The good thing is that you don't have to have a law degree so she can study something that interests her and then decide after that.

don't htey
so they're all lawyers?

good to know about law degree being dull and unnecessary

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Cod is talking rubbish. Lots of solicitors call themselves solicitors. Trust me, I'm a solicitor.

Agree that criminal money crap.

Corporate/magic circle money is excellent but you have to sacrifice your social life a lot of the time. However, one thing I loved about working in a big firm was that there were so many great people working there and even when we were working hellish hours under massive pressure we all had a great laugh (most of the time). Great for team work and all that stuff.

toblerones get stuck in my teeth

I did find it a huge laugh in the old days, pre-kids, when I was a transactional lawyer. Lots of going to bars at 11 p.m. straight after work (!) to get drunk on pink champagne, stagger home about 3 a.m., get up at 6 a.m. have a shower and go back to work, eat a bacon sandwich at 7 a.m., work until late again and do it all again.

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But I really want my DSs to do something that they are interested in.

Dinosaur - you are describing my old life! Loved it at the time but there's no way I could do it now with children.

I absolutely hated working in a large firm - it was full of self-important arrogant people imo. Lots of people I knew hated it too, and some loved it. I didn't get a buzz from the deals and found it all hugely unexciting.

I liked the money though

DH calls himself a solicitor, he works in a magic circle firm. He sometimes calls himself a litigator though, when he needs to be more specific about what he does.

He finds that often it depends what specialism you go for as to how much life you get - it's not that often he has to work all night or really late or whatever, specially at the level he's at. He obviously gets paid well and is expected to work hard and sacrifice a certain amount of his life for that, but on the plus side he would not get the exceptional quality of work he gets elsewhere. Also as he has been in the same place since going to law school he has earned a bit more flexibility so had no problem taking time off when DS was born, when he went into hospital/needs appointments etc - there is trust there that he will get his work done and be reliable.

So it's not necessarily as bad as it sometimes sounds.

am loving the term "magic circle"

DH regularly goes to work with a top hat on carrying a white rabbit to whisk out of it..

I wanted to be a lawyer since I was about 10 as my dad was one and it seemed quite glamorous and exciting. I was an employment lawyer at 2 city firms, not magic circle but big firms and loved (virtually) every minute of it - as others have said, the hours and pressure do vary depending on your specialism and employment isn't too bad unless you have a big trial coming up. It's quite varied as well and can involve interesting international work, although not much opportunity to travel - you get more of that with corporate work. I wouldn't write off the idea of a law degree either, I loved mine. I'm now a support lawyer at a regional firm as sadly the city firms still aren't very compatible with having a family, but that is changing and things would almost certainly be easier by the time your dd was in that situation.

From 15 years of doing this ... there's room for quite a lot of different sorts of people, but to really enjoy lawyering, I think you essentially need to be the sort of person who knows-what-they-know.

By that, I mean a basic instinctive character trait - the kind of child who remembers their gym kit because it's Tuesday so Of Course kit is needed - doubt/confusion/being swayed by other people's having forgotten theirs simply not coming into it - and if other people challenge you, you quite enjoy demonstrating you're right (though ideally without being rude or saying With The Greatest Respect). Is your dd like that?

On top of that quality of confidence & certainty in your own understanding, other good traits would be (i) enjoying getting to grips with complicated & detailed things; (ii) being good at explaining complicated things in straightforward terms; (iii) ability to tell the wood from the trees - ie hone in on the important point(s) & filter out "noise"; (iv) ability to get on with people (eg varying your way of talking about things according to the kind of person you're dealing with); (v) non-ball-dropping - if you say you're going to do something by a particular time you can be relied on to do it.

Pretty much any kind of academic qualifications which develop & demonstrate the above will do as a start - as everyone says, you can always do the vocational discipline later.

Haven't answered actual thread title I realise.

Lots of lawyers in family - so it was always hovering there for me once I'd finally decided not to be an academic.

PS I don't have all those qualities I described below (apart from the non-ball-dropping, I am good at that) - and I don't find being a solicitor wildly self-actualising to be honest. But I've got lots of very happy colleagues, & they're the kind of people I described. So I thought that would be useful.

bink-that is the exactly kind of thing she is needing to know,I just couldn't put it into a sensible question.

She has quite a few of those traits you describe,I'll show her this thread when she comes home.
Thanks so much.

Binky's description is FAB

I decided to become a lawyer after doing economics at university. My maths wasn't good enough to become an economist. The careers service gave me a quiz to fill in about what sort of things I enjoyed and the computer recommended 1. solicitor 2. barrister and being an obedient soul who likes clear instruction (this is another solicitor-like trait) became a solicitor.

It's a hugely varied profession despite the financial call of the magic circle. You can do environmental law acting for Union Carbide, or for Friends of the Earth, for instance. Or trade union law acting for British Airways or TGWU - two sides to every case.

I think the argument against a law degree is that many kids decide to read law at 17, get a training contract and then suddenly discover they are 23 years old, a qualified solicitor earning shed loads of money and hate it, but cannot bring themselves to find another job because of the said shedloads. However, if you want to travel and qualify abroad, there are many places where they do expect their lawyers to have a degree in law.

What does magic circle mean?

magic Circle^ prestigious practices, with big names and top of their game practitioners. pay well, highly competitive, pressure to pull in fee related work, work/hard play hard environments.highly sought after. either love it or hate it
"Look at magic circle",

Why does she want to be a lawyer? She should really think about that because it will affect the type of law she practices and also the type of firm she works at. That in turn will affect the money and lifestyle situation.

Lots of kids seem to think that lawyers earn massive amounts of money which simply isn't true. I know I did. There are lots of other jobs which pay far more though and don't put such massive time demands on you. Lots of lawyers qualify and then drop out beacsue its not what they thought.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoy my job. I work as an employment lawyer at a large international firm. Employment law is very varied and interesting but a lot of work is involved keping up to date.

Your dd needs to be aware that A level grades and choice of university (and subjects at university) are all important. At my firm (which admittedly is one of the big boys) we have so many applications for training contracts that applicants don't get past the sifting stage unless they have straight As and have been to a good university. Then if they chose to do family law, criminal etc instead of commercial subjects they will get kicked out. This won't be the case at smaller firms though.

Not sure what High street firms pay nowadays but at my firm you'd be looking at about £35k for a newly qualified rising to about £60k - £70k at 8-10 years (in the regions) so its not a fortune (I admit I do have a bee in my bonnet at the moment about my salary!!) London firms pay far more though. US firms pay top dollar.