Becoming a solicitor

[Clmtht]

I currently work in a solicitors as a compliance officer however I have an interest in actually becoming a probate or family solicitor.

I am based in the UK in greater London.

Whats your experience and whats the average salary (particularly for trainees?). I have a criminology background.

I dont want to ask my colleagues these questions as I dont want them knowing my ideas ahead of time.

Thanks!

It honestly depends what type of law. I work in PI in Manchester qualified is £45k+ more as experience increases. I imagine London will be more.

You'd need to do SQE and a 2 year training contract maybe GDL first as you don't have a law degree.

Does your firm offer Cilex?

Look on the Law Society website. Then NQ job adverts where you live.

Ironically, I moved from residential property to compliance (auditing).

most family law is poorly paid. I wouldn’t expect to get any more than 50k without becoming a partner, unless it’s a big London magic circle firm

You say you have a background in criminology. Do you have a criminology degree. Or is it law with criminology. I don't think criminology is a qualifying law degree even combined.

Also, nobody does family law for the money unless you re doing divorces for high net worth individuals.

Most solicitor jobs are poorly paid and there are too many grads coming out seeking jobs so it is ridiculously competitive for what it is .

Best law jobs are in big city law firms as a graduate and then join a client.

Legal aid family solicitor in the NW: 30 grand a year. It's shite. Same for my peers in the same area of law. I have clients who are cleaners and with their overtime they earn more than me. But then doing legal aid work is more interesting and satisfying to me. It's like a cross over between being a lawyer and a social worker/ counsellor. So it depends on your personality. You definitely would not do it for the money!

You also need to think about the impact of AI on the job and find out what kind solicitors will be needed in the future.

Try asking Chat GPT a law question.

You haven't seen all the articles in the law. Gazette about ai, citing fake case law, that didn't exist?

Ai isn't going to replace humans anytime soon.

I disagree with this actually.

I do agree that in the wrong hands, AI is problematic - I had a letter from a litigant in person who cited case law that doesn’t exist, and when I ran her wording through an AI checker, it suggested that her letter was 95% AI generated.

However, I do use (non generative) AI tools quite regularly in my work, which are designed specifically for lawyers (and are not cheap)!

So I can put a contract in, ask it to review it for compliance, then check it - and it’s much quicker than giving it to a trainee or paralegal. If I want bespoke clauses that I don’t have time to draft myself - it does it for me, I just tweak them a bit. It can even prepare cross examination questions based on multiple documents and identify inconsistencies in witness accounts - and even though all of these things need checking and there is always work to do to get it right, it’s still significant time and expense saved compared to using junior staff. It drafts some legal documents scarily well and takes under a minute, whereas a trainee would take hours and it wouldn’t be at the same standard.

We still take trainees, but paralegals just aren’t needed in the same way since AI.

Edit to add - plus, consider how much more automated things are generally now - for example as a trainee I had to spend hours writing page numbers onto bundles by hand, and tippexing it out if I got a page number wrong - now it’s all done digitally and instantly, saving hours. Or sitting and note taking in meetings - now it can be transcribed by AI. The job has changed considerably since I started.

You practice law the way you practice it. But there is no way as a solicitor the I would ask AI to do my work for me. But then I am not in contract, and most of my work is bespoke.

I actually don’t disagree with you - but, after nearly 20 years, my skill set and knowledge is there, and during busier periods it does help (as frankly, I’ve done it all, thousands of times).

I would never suggest though that a junior lawyer used AI - as frankly, it’s a skill they need to learn for themselves, and it would be a huge mistake to have any lawyer who consistently relies on AI to do their work for them, as they’ll never gain the skills they need to do the job properly.

But AI does have a place, when used correctly, and can be an incredibly helpful tool.

@ClmthtDoes your firm recruit trainees from within? Do you have an annual performance interview where you can talk about your future?

If you have a criminology degree you would have take the GDL I think. Would you pay for that yourself? Then you need to get a training contract or you will pay for SQE too and then compete for jobs. When people said Magic Circle, that’s clearly ludicrous as they do not do family.

When DM died, a probate paralegal dealt with DMs will. I guess complicated ones will go to a solicitor but not necessarily.

I know something about Family law work as DD is a family barrister. I think you might have difficulty in going down that route but, as others have said, high net worth divorce is lucrative. In fact fairly standard matrimonial issues are lucrative enough.

However for solicitors, the firm you end up at really matters. DD rarely does Legal Aid work. It doesn’t pay. Some family solicitors in very smart areas get very smart clients. They also can recruit the best lawyers for these firms and it’s very competitive. So yes, there is money in family law but not so much in children law, more in divorces but which solicitor firm really matters.

Personality, networking, educational attainment will matter and I’d start talking to solicitors in the field you want to ascertain salaries. DD earns a lot - I suspect multiples of her instructing solicitors in most cases.

That’s a really shite wage.

I’m a care solicitor in the East Midlands. Almost 4 years PQE and not on the panel and I’m on £49k with no expectation to work beyond my contracted hours.

This is a slightly higher wage than other firms around here. But the average is about £45k.

Suddenly £45,000 as a legal auditor sounds like a decent wage. Certainly worth the lack of stress v the £60,000 I’d be on as a fee-earning conveyancer.

I'm a family solicitor in greater london! Trainee average salary could be about £30-35k. NQ maybe £40k+. This was when I qualified so a few years ago now, it may have increased. Of course you can get more in Central London. If you have no preference between the two, as much as I love family law and wouldn't leave, I know that probate/private client solicitors are very in demand at the mo and therefore you are likely to be able to obtain a higher salary, if that is your priority.