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 daren't listen to that while in the office, will have to listen to it later!

I have a feeling it may have an american accent
let me check

bloody hell there are two files - one says "sine-oh-sure" (like cyanide) the other "sin-oh-sure" (like syntax)

that's no bloody help, is it?!

Gah!

Bink will know how to pronounce it - Bink?

Of course it can be done. However I am speaking from my own experience and in the firm and department I worked in if you went for partnership you would have to make some tough choices.

Working long hours was not a sign that you were inefficient - transactional work cross jurisdiction at that level was incredibly demanding timewise. Clients paying top dollar rightly demanded alot of attention. The only senior women there had negotiated part time and were therefore off the partnership track, despite being very very good. All the other mothers had left/been forced out. I do hope where I was is not representative and am thrilled to hear that there are women partners with families that make it work. Good luck to them. I think its a matter of carefully choosing your firm/practice area.

Well I've always said "sigh-no-sher" & no-one's ever challenged it ... and oddly enough I do know people who would challenge.

I haven't time to look it up now but I think the idea of a cynosure having an edge of the alarming & freakish (as well as being a bright star) comes from Shakespeare? Anyone know/remember? Might be Milton ...

I did a law degree at oxford and 10 years at the commercial bar. Very difficult to combine with children and I've now given up - yippeee! Probably easier if you have a wife at home to look after you (which most of them do). Of course, had anyone told me this as a teenager, I would have ignored them - and quite right too!
I would advise your daughter to do as much work experience as possible. You do have to be fairly robust, and there is a bias in favour of oxbridge/public school, so be prepared for that. Can't really comment on solicitors - they do seem a bit more "normal" than barristers, but maybe thats just my jaded outlook... - Good luck to your daughter.

www.yourdictionary.com/wotd/wotd.pl?word=cynosure
here's the Milton ref. For some reason it's a term I associate in my mind with Marie Antoinette, but I'm not sure why.

OOh, just been off being lawyerly in a generally partnerial way and am now having a cup of tea and see that it has moved on a lot.

Bink, you are on fire today! I'm actually still laughing about the "over-egged life path". But you are so right about it often being a choice to work like that (there was certainly a bit of that gonig on with me pre children).

Are the "three nannies" an urban myth? I really don't know anyone like that (and by definition of what I do I know quite a lot of women partners with children). As Mrs Wobble says, I have a DH who knows how to insert the right hair grips/make packed lunches/do reading practice, which makes that second nanny unecessary.

Obviously having a hands-on father around is helpful, but the two-nanny (of which I know several) and three-nanny households are households in which, however competent both parents might be as parents, they are just not often around. Being good at putting in hairgrips isn't very useful if you are in Boston and your children are in Paris.

A former colleague of mine returned to work from maternity leave (baby was ten weeks old) and was assigned to a case in another country, for several months, starting that afternoon. How do you make that type of job possible when your partner also has that kind of job, unless you have at least two other pairs of hands at home?

when I was a child I used to watch Rumpole and thought it looked rather cool.
when I was a teenager I watched a programme called the PAper Chase about being a law student
so mainly tv based.
when I was seventeen I met a guy at a party who was a barrister and he let me follow him around for a ocuple of weeks in the summer holidays and my mind was made up.

I would say the qualities are to do with a good memory and a capacity for hard work. you also need to be a logical thinker and have a capacity to analyse things.

I did A level English Lit, History, Biology, Gen Studies.

I loved studying law, the intellectual challenge and the way it links in with business and morality and everything in between!

I found the work of being a barrister very interesting and satisfying but tbh I found the life a bit lonely. I fared much better in house, being part of a team. It is a very interesting way to earn a living, you get a lot of respect and the work is generally challenging. I got to travel, and did several different jobs, it is possible to earna whack of a lot of money, as long as you sell your soul and your personal life I was never dedicated or smart enough to earn the really big bucks though.

I have personally found my career not compatible with family life, but nevertheless my education/profession continues to open doors intellectually and practically i.e. it trained my mind in useful ways, and people still listen to you if you're a lawyer, even if it was five years ago!

yes but anna it is v rare for a lawyer to be sent out of the country for a couple of months on a case. never happens. either you get posted abroad for a good year plus, or you go on week long business trips. an english lawyer isn't much use to anyone in germany or new york except for a brief bit of negotiating/advice giving on english law, or as a permanent fixture in an english law firm's internationl office.
management consultants, on the other hand, go off and do projects for months and months all over the place because they have no "jurisdiction", their advice applies wherever.

that's my experience anyway.

the paper chase
please say someone else watched this and chose their career path based on a tv programme

ps harpsi a LARGE part of my decision to become a lawyer was Susan Dey's Armani wardrobe in LA Law.... sad but true!

moral: don't read german pension legislation at all. get a german to do it for you. hmmm. now, don't you KNOW rather a nice german lawyer? Fritz? Hans? can't remember

oh no I am not a very brilliant lawyer I don't have the attention span.
I was a good on my feet in court every day have brie f will travel sort of barrister
then I was a good commercial jack of all trades close to the business touchy feely hard nosed bitch in houser.
I am in no way fit for that clever sort of law
you know, pensions or marine or patents.

patent attorneys - now that's clever.

OK. Maybe law is more compatible with family life than consulting. I was basically just agreeing with Caroline below who said she thought that it was useful to know before qualifying that it might be hard to combine a high-flying legal career with motherhood. That was my experience of consulting and I wished I'd known earlier too. I like good data before taking decisions .

it doesn't matter, though, does it all that much whether a particular career is compatible with motherhood or not?
because you might not be a mother through choice or circumstance.
and you might be happy going back to a demanding job because your partner stays at home.
or not.
and anyway even if you do you will still have had several years of a career you love.
and you can go back to it.
or something similar.
or something else.
no-one can possibly predict the way your life will go, you have to do what you weant to do at he time and deal with life as it comes.
imo