Retraining

[IHeartKittensAndWine]

So, in the past year I've been made redundant and have had 2 miscarriages. I've recovered well from all this but it's got me thinking. I've decided that I don't want to have children just yet and I want to retrain... as a barrister.

Background - I'm 28; I have 4 A's at A Level and a 2.1 from Oxford (a middling one- my grandmother was terminally ill and I was suffering from depression in my final year). I also have 6.5 years work experience - split equally between the private sector and the Civil Service. I have always been really interested in the law - read up on cases, taken projects at work with a legal element etc. I enjoy the work I am doing at the moment - but long term I don't think it's going to provide me with the intellectual stimulation or general challenge I'm looking for. DH and I have had a long chat and he's told me to go for it. I am shaking with excitement!

Just wondering if anyone else had made this change, and how it worked for them. In particular if anyone did the GDL part time, which is my current plan: partly for financial reasons but also because becoming a barrister is fairly high risk so I want to have a good career history to fall back on if I need to.

We mentioned this to family on Boxing Day - my mother is over the moon, but everyone else was fairly dismissive. One DSis said I was too old to succeed at it, and MIL said that I was being selfish. Both responses made me feel a bit and .

Any thoughts on how I can make this work appreciated...

Sorry to hear about your miscarriages, IHeart, but congratulations on your decision! I don't have any actual advice but I am retraining as a midwife at 30 after six years in a totally different industry, so I understand a bit of what you're feeling.

I know a couple of people who have retrained as lawyers at your age and older, so I don't think you have anything to worry about. Best of luck and ignore the naysayers.

I did the GDL part time and am now (after a break) looking at doing the LPC and going down the solicitor route. Part time is a very good option for people in your circumstances as it allows you to keep earning and also you can have time to decide if law's for you before you have to start applying for pupilage.

Two words of warning

1. it's a very intensive course with an awful lot of knowledge to cram in. It's unlikely to be something you'll find hard on an intellectual level (your background is very similar to mine) but the work never ends. There's also very limited call for independent thought which can be a challenge to adapt to come the exams ie the biggest challenge is to learn how they expect you to answer the questions. Basically you're going to kiss goodbye to all your free time for two years. It's important that DH understands this and you work out how you'll keep your relationship afloat.
2. it sounds like you already know this but there is massive competition for pupilage and onwards. Very few of the people I was on the part-time course with managed it. However, I think that was more to do with a lower academic standard coming onto the course (and of course no one started with a pupilage/training contract already) than a bias against part-timers.

Ps if you're selfish - I'm going to be doing my lpc part time (involving one weekend in three away from home) with a two year old and infant at home! I see it as good for the family in the long run and DH agrees

I think around 250 people a year are called to the bar. More people become astronauts (seriously! ).

You sound very bright and motivated, so I am sure you will achieve this if you want it badly enough, but make sure you really do want it and that children are genuinely not on the agenda any time soon before you commit to this as a career.

But there's no reason why she can't do the gdl first and then take a break to have kids. You're allowed a seven year gap (between gdl and lpc assume same for bvc). Doing the gdl part time she's only losing money and, assuming they can afford it, it's better to take the risk than think 'what if' in 20 years' time.

Seriously there are more than 250 new astronauts a year? Have there been than 5 Brits in space ever? Also I've seen figures of more like 1500 called to the bar a year and 500 getting tenancy. This is pre 2008 but then OP will be applying for pupilage in 2012 at the earliest. Still diff odds but OP sounds as if she realises it won't all come easily.

I apologise for being glib.

I'm not an expert, I was just regurgitating something I heard in a presentation on a government presentation on STEM-related careers (I work in education). Thousands of people are employed in the UK aerospace industry (OK, not atsronauts!), whereas 250 people a year become barristers. I don't think those figures were far off.

I'm not being all doom and gloom. I've just completed a hardcore, intensive career change myself. I just think it's really important to have all the facts before you embark on a career change, including good labour market information and a back-up plan.

...oh, and for the record, most astronauts never go into space

Ok aerospace industry I buy :)

Thanks all for your messages of support . Yes, there are almost certainly more jobs in the aerospace industry and if I had scientific aptitude and inclination I would certainly consider it.

I have a two-fold back-up plan. The first is the career I have (hence doing the GDL part time); the second is either the LPC route/the "employed bar". And I am also considering a childcare break between GDL and BVC but that depends on a lot of other factors, such as where DH's career is and our actually having a baby!

I am really scared of failing - my degree is the only thing I've ever "failed" at (because I was on track for a 1st I didn't get). But I'd rather fail having tried than not try at all.

Bedubabe, I have heard several people say that part-timers don't tend to do particularly well in the GDL and most don't get pupillage - do you think this is because they aren't taught as well, the standard of people coming on is lower (I don't see why it would be neccessarily...?) or that the people doing it don't "put as much in" as those on the full time course?

I think it's an enormous amount of work and part-timers inevitably have other major commitments. There also were, quite frankly, a lot of people on my course who were obviously never going to make it - they just weren't academically strong enough. I'm not sure about the make up of the full time course but the BPP part time course seemed to take anyone who applied.

I also think people who haven't managed to get a pupilage/training contract in advance were much more likely to go on the part-time course for financial reasons. Finally, part timers are also older. It's harder to get a training cbtract when you're older (can't comment on pupilage) as you're seen as less mouldable and less likely to fit in with the other trainees. 22 year-olds don't have to explain why they'll be happy doing grunt work!

If you put the work in, you won't fail. It really isn't an academic challenge but a process of adapting to a new way of working and the scale of the workload. It's actually prob about 1/2-2/3 of an Oxbridge undergrad workload but you'll have a full time job on top. What was your degree in?

Thanks bedu . My degree is in History and Politics. I'm also planning to reduce my work commitments to a 0.7 FTE equivalent - my company has allowed other employees to do this to fit study and childcare.

BPP is one of the places I'm applying to - do you mind my asking what you thought of them. Which of the part time courses did you do (weekend/evening/distance/day)? I think I'm going to go for the evening one so that I can have 1-2 weekdays and 1 weekend day clear to study, and it seems easier in terms of time management than less frequent weekend classes...

I did evening. I also know people who have done the distance course. If at all possible, I would avoid the distance learning option unless you are very self-motivated as there's much more potential to leave everything until the last minute.

Two/three days to study plus the evening classes should be fine as long as you're productive.

My experience with BPP is that they're fine. They spoonfeed you the course but then so does everywhere as it's really a crammer thing. They are primarily a business and I and others have occasionally got the impression they don't care about much as long as the fees are coming in but that's the nature of post-grad education to some extent. Certainly with the distance learning course there have been big problems on the admin side (changing course dates etc) but nothing that you can't deal with without proactively chasing them. The quality of teaching I had was generally good

They give you a manual with everything you need to know in it so tutorials are mainly to get an idea how to answer questions. Not really sure what the lectures are for but then lectures don't match my learning style anyway (I tend to doodle and fall asleep )