career as a paralegal? How much/how long? advice please

[bumbleandbumble]

I am seriously considering a career change.
Can anyone tell me how much and how long it takes to qualify as a paralegal?

I have a graduate degree and masters, although neither are in law...
I am confused which level to start at? I have google it but am unclear where a graduate starts? Surely not the same place as someone finishing A levels?

Also can anyone give me an average of salary for a newbie in London?

Anyone can call themselves paralegal tomorrow if they want to - just go into an office and do the work. However plenty of them have done the GDL and LPC and just cannot find a training contract so there would be competition from those.

How long does the GDL or LPC take to complete?
I want to train in order to get a decent job...in London there is so much competition, without connections... I do not see how I could get a job with no training or experience?

Unusually people do the GDL if they want to become solicitors but did not do a law degree and it is one year full time (although some people do it part time over longer and then the LPC is done by those with law degrees (and those with degrees who did other subjects and then did the GDL) for a year full time before they do a 2 year training contract (which is paid) with a law firm to qualify as a solicitor.

The problem is that far too many people are doing those full time courses who have no chance of becoming solicitors because their exam grades are not high enough or they are not bright enough so lots of students have incurred two years of extra student debt with no chance of qualifying as solicitors and they then go on to the market and apply to be para legals usually in the hope that eventually a law firm will take them on as trainee solicitors. They virtually all have a first degree and then the LPC year or a first degree and the GDL although some do it just with a 3 year law degree.

It very much depends what the task is. There will be some para legal tasks which any competent school leaver or secretary could do who is bright, getting papers into date order and that kind of thing. Then there will be others which require a bit more legal knowledge so having the GDL or a law degree might help.

In London the hardest factor is needing mostly As in all exams etc rather than connections to be honest. You cannot even submit your online applications unless you have enough UCAS points. If you've poor exam results but connected you don't get in as the better firms have good HR procedures. The main block for most people is not high enough exam results which is really good - the last thing we want in law is letting people in who are not clever enough and will give clients bad advice.

It's certainly not worth paying your way through the GDL and LPC to be a paralegal. It will cost you £15k in fees, two years of your life and you'll earn £30k pa tops in the City as a paralegal. You'll mainly be shuffling paper. It's only worth going to law school if you really want to be a solicitor and are actively chasing training contracts. No one funds their way through law school to be a paralegal - no need and very expensive.

You could do some training at night school to qualify as a legal executive - I have no clue what the market is like for ILEX qualifications these days but if you call a few recruiters (try Hays Legal) and talk to them they will hopefully give you an honest appraisal of the sort of experience and qualifications you would need to get a job and what the pay would be like.

I can't fathom why you would want to, though. If you want to go into law, I would qualify as a solicitor in the normal way. Think carefully though - it is a very very unhappy profession at the moment and most of the people I trained with (myself included) have made career changes to get out of it! If you have never done any sort of work experience in a law firm, you absolutely 101% MUST do so before you go any further. Why does law interest you and what do you do now?

I am fed up with my own career in the arts sector. It frankly doesn't pay and now that I have children, and my husbands career is tanking...I need to step up and earn decent wages, simple.

My father was a lawyer, now a judge, and I have always been interested in law. Recently both my husband (via his work) and me personally have had to deal with some difficult property litigation. I have powered through, doing most of the research myself and now seem to know more than even my solicitor! It sparked my interest and I am really good at it.

I have undergraduate and post graduate degrees and I have top marks from them. Not meaning to brag, but I am super clever and feel my talent is being wasted in the job I am currently doing. I regret not going to law school.

I am 35 though, is it too late? I don't want debt, but I am willing to pay for training if it means a better salary...

You can do the CILEx route part time or by correspondence and either become a Chartered Legal Executive or do a few more heads of Law and then do a practice course to become a Solicitor, but you do need a job while you do it. TBH with Legal Exec rights of audience these days, there is not much point doing the conversion. But I agree that Law is an unhappy profession these days, I would not want to be practising on my own account, but I am employed by a Local Authority...

Look if you are super clever and your father is a judge of course you can become a solicitor, not a low paid para legal nor even a legal executive. I worked with a trainee solicitor who was in her 40s and had two children of 18 and 20.

So the way you could do it is get some work experience and voluntary legal work as soon as you can. Then do the GDL (which is basically a law degree in a year condensed which non law graduates do - both my daughters did it, whereas I read law so didn't) part time - you might even find if you can get a para legal job they pay for you to do that course. I think you can do the GDL full time on line as another option. I am not sure how easy that would be to fit around your arts job though. Perhaps do it full time in one year on line if that is possible, around your other work or over 2 years part time. You could look for a para legal job in the mean time perhaps. I see loads of paralegals on law courses I give and through work and most of them are GDl and then LPC people who were not good enough to get a law firm to sponsor them through those courses and are hoping to get a solicitor training contract at some point and are being paralegals in the mean time.

If you are very clever you could certainly apply to law firms for their vacation scheme programmes where they mostly recruit from for trainees. Those firms pay all your full time fees on the GDL and LPC plus an allowance - my daughter was funded like that. They recruit several years in advance to timing is key to it. They often like people who have had other careers and have more to offer than your usual early 20s person. You would probably need a 2/1 in your first degree.

Lots of the law firms have guidance on their sites www.cliffordchance.cityandlaw.com/uploaded_files/CC_CRR.08.pdf
These are firms where you can as an equity partner hear £1m to £2m, a year. We need many more women after those types of senior high paid roles. There are far too many men sticking it out and too few women.

(My "unusual" above should have been usual)

I don't agree law is unhappy. I adore it. Both of my daughters adore it. We make quite a bit of money too. It's wonderful. I recommend it to everyone. It may not be fun if you do low paid legal aid type work.

Why on earth would you want to be a paralegal if you have good academics?? Do it properly. The bigger the firm you work in, the easier it is in my experience - you will have better facilities, better training, you'll be surrounded by talented people - and if your kids are old enough that you don't need or want to be home early every night, it might suit you. They would pay for your training too.

Thanks for the snide remark Greengrow, but I am ex-magic circle. Sorry to disappoint though.

What snide remark? Someone said some lawyers are having a difficult time and I said that is probably legal aid lawyers. Isn't that true, rather than snide?

Here you go - "It may not be fun if you do low paid legal aid type work." This came across as very snide, I'm afraid. Your assumption that unhappiness must somehow be connected with not earning very much.

I can't comment on how legal aid lawyers feel about their jobs - I've never been one and I don't know anyone who has. The people I know are or were all at city firms or large (top 30) regional firms. There was a front-page article published in The Lawyer (ages ago now, admittedly) which quoted that 60% of associates in the City were looking to leave the profession. That was pretty much my experience with the people I worked with. It is rather more 'settled' in regional firms, although I do know a few people who have moved to PSL roles or to in-house roles to fit with family commitments.

I would reiterate OP that you must seek out some work experience so that you can see what working in a law firm is really like. You will need to do that anyway to have a chance at getting through the recruitment process.

Ah, I see. I am lucky to like what I do. It does tend to be article after article in the press about legal aid lawyers being unhappy with their work and their pay. Their will be unhappy moaners in all professions of course. Some people are just miserable whatever they do. If you don't like something change it.

I certainly second the getting work experience part or even just a few days at a few different types of firms.

you do however have an unerring ability to equate high earning and endless hours' work to happiness; accept just for once that not everyone thinks your way Greengrow. Plenty of people with values and ideals who are highly fulfilled by Legal Aid work, and some who make good money out of it (Hodge, Jones & Allen all earning more than you I'm sure, however much you bang that drum).
You're lucky you like what you do but you are unable to understand that other people enjoy other things.

Anyway - back to the OP. I'm recruiting paralegals right now. Most of them have law degrees and the LPC and the debt that goes with it. A number of them seem freakishly unmotivated despite that, or are perhaps unaware of the effort they need to make. One of them did however tell me about a route I was unaware of previously - a combination of degree + LPC and a lot of work experience (doing LPC part time I guess) somehow via ILEX lets you qualify without doing a training contract.
Salaries for non qualified paralegals can rarely justify the fees it takes to get there.

Many people in the legal aid sector stick with it despite the low pay precisely because they get so much job satisfaction out of helping vulnerable people who are being shafted, and because areas such as pubic law are so interesting

These days it's quite hard to get a training contract straight out of law school, and a lot of people go for paralegal jobs first. If you get a paralegal job you may be able to get a trainee post within the same firm once you have proved yourself, and anyway you're more attractive to other potential employers if you've got some relevant experience on your CV. The trouble is that it's getting increasingly difficult to get paralegal posts. However, someone with OP's experience of work out there in the real world may be at an advantage.

Our firm pays paralegals in the region of £15k - £17k. They are nearly all post GDL/LPC and applying desperately for training contracts but sadly not enough to go round I'm afraid.

ugh...I am not sure what to make of the comments. I have heard that law graduates can't get the very few training contracts that are out there...so how on earth would I get a chance with no credentials?

See if your father can knock on a few doors for you, get some contacts, get some work experience, have a taster of various areas of law to see if it really is something you want to do. As some have mentioned above though a lot our Associates confess that they would not recommend law as a career.

father is not in this country...I wish he could help!

IMO training as a paralegal as an end itself and to improve financial prospects in middle age is a waste of time. generally salaries are not that high and paralegals with higher salaries tend to have years of experience and skills. This is harsh but true. London is even worse, you will compete with kids who have law degrees from all over. Better paying paralegal positions are with successful or big firms and so attract kids with good law degrees and excellent grades who want to get a foot in.

In my first 2 years, I did high level grunt work, maintained clients ( scheduled appointments, organised meetings, did interviews) and did research (compiled cases, fact checking, law document review) in a specialist/niche international firm, I did not draft/prepare any cases/documents despite very good law degree and excellent grades for a long while. IMO, paralegals should have done some of this, but nobody asked me and I never saw a paralegal asked to do legal research. The situation varies in different places.

Not to discourage OP, but the lack of a law degree, any legal training and age is a major barrier assuming you had the interest and aptitude. it is possible to change careers but pple underestimate resources, difficulty and time requirements. I read somewhere that for degree level you need at least six months to establish good study habits. I'm doing a postgrad degree now and i've seen many older students at my uni drop out in frustration or not perform as well as younger students due to time, commitments and other worries. It would not be worth it for GDL, I would go all the way and get the degree.

Curious about what kind of law interests you. You mention being motivated by a lawyer/judge parent and some personal research you did into property law. I suggest more research into legal roles, a paralegal is very different from being a solicitor, barrister, judge, legal researcher and of course it all depends on the sector, law firm and department you work with criminal law, corporate law or private practice. Why don't you talk to lawyer/judge, who is better placed to see where you can go and earn more as well as where he can help with connections.

thank you for that...yes I am concerned that its too late for me. Also lawyer friends have said to me..."don't become a lawyer or a paralegal" as they said the long hours would not be compatible with having children...

its just so hard! I feel my talents are being wasted and I can't seem to get a job that pays well despite having a post grad degree and great credentials, and taking time off for babies has really killed me both in terms of self esteem and career wise.

This is a very interesting conversation. May I chip in with a question? I'm a university lecturer in the humanities, top end of the Russell Group with a growing international reputation in my subject (and obviously top degrees etc etc). I have always secretly wanted to be a lawyer and I have the right interpersonal skills on top of the academics. I'm not just being vain or deluded; I know I'd be good at it.

But I'm 40, with DH and DC and can't afford to weather much of a pay cut for long. Is it too late? And how would I go about it?

I'm just about to qualify at the age of 35 and have a relative who qualified in her 50s (and got a bit sick of being the face of diversity at her city firm :) ). If you have top academics and are driven to change it's worth the risk. I'd advise doing the GDL part-time self funded. A year in you can apply for training contracts with the aim of doing the LPC full time. It's fairly low risk assuming you can scrape the GDL fee instalments together without taking a loan you shouldn't end up in debt if you don't get a TC (and I honestly think v few people are guaranteed at TC these days).

If you can't manage a part-time GDL on top of your full-time job then you won't be able to manage the hours most firms will demand in a TC and beyond.

I'm (obviously) a career changer. Law's not a bad job - the massive downside is the hours and the need to be able to dump your life if a client snaps his/her fingers (partic in the early years). Pluses are you get to use your brain and actually feel like you're adding something.

If you do the CILEx route, as of July 2014 you can qualify as a legal executive, then do the LPC and the professional skills course and dual qualify as a solicitor.

It isn't too late if your previous career has given you something which would give you an advantage over other TC hunters. The job of a solicitor/legal executive (particularly a commercial or family one) is to find and implement solutions for his or her client which are enforceable, so a good starting point is to think about how you have developed these skills. What is important is what you bring to the table for the benefit of your client.