Don't want to be a solicitor any more - but what else?

[sohackedoff]

Hi. I'm a solicitor who got made redundant (worked in property, so the recession was the death of it!) but now need to get back to work. I definitely don't want to work as a solicitor again, even in another field. Has anyone managed to retrain successfully? Any suggestions would be gratefully received. Thanks.

I'm a successful escapee from law into legal publishing - but I had only got part way through qualifying (while working as a paralegal) so it was a move upwards for me. I would never, ever go back - it was just not for me, although I picked it as a sensible career, but ultimately it is stressful work and the more I knew about law, the less I felt that I could practise it. Others I knew who escaped from private practice went in house for the police, to become a debt collector (!) and another who went first to the same publishers I did, but then became a PSL. There were quite a few escaped lawyers at the publishers I worked for - but you could tell they were all much better suited to publishing.

Insurance claims-related work maybe? Depending on area of expertise can use transferable skills in a less stressed environment but of course the entrance level jobs pay naff all so someone who's well qualified would need to finesse a specific position.

My issues with law are really to do with lack of flexibility and billing pressures. I love the clients and I like my colleagues. I don't really mind the work too much either, but I am just not interested in pushing myself to bill X chargeable hours a day in order to line someone else's pockets. I don't want partnership either as it is a huge life commitment and I wouldn't want that responsibility.

I have no problem working on my own business after DD has gone to bed and often potter along with it til the small hours, but the key is that most of the work I do on my own business can be done at any time - I hate being a slave to office hours. I hope by the time DD starts school that I will be able to drop her off and pick her up, and fit my own work into the evening and school time hours ((hopeful))...

There are a lot of us aren't there ?! In exactly the same position as the OP. I think a lot depends on how much money you need to make. There are interesting jobs out there, but the money is generally a lot less than being a solicitor. I currently work as a part time library assistant. I love it - but make very little money. The other problem I have found is that any job involves the child care issues that being a solicitor did. I am thinking about re training in employment law with a view to going in house or part time. But I don't know if I want to go back to timesheets stress etc.
One good thing is employers seem to like to see solicitor on a cv and think you must be clever.

Hmmm, is anyone else in the South West?

Grass can be greener ladies! Bloody hard work in most jobs out there at the moment due to collapse of posts into one etc etc - my work load massive now and I dont get paid the money of solicitors etc.

If you want out perhaps consider some part time posts - there may be different posts in schools if you look on county websites that will give you flexibility of school holidays and possibly some earlier finishes (16-17.00) - secondaries are often looking for data administrators etc and solicitors will demonstrate the attention to detail required for jobs like this.
Careers advice is on the internet now! - to be a florist go to the florist shop and ask if any vacancy/if you can help on Sats. You will need to be prepared to work for free probably for a while on a voluntary basis to demo commitment.

Obviously, if you have the capital you can go to the bank to loan money for you own florist shop!

Jobs without long hours that pay well ? - I think we all want one of those!

Not not SW, I'm in London (I am JintyMcGinty, have name changed)

I'm not massively bothered about being well paid JETS - I just want flexibility and to enjoy what I do. I personally don't believe there is such a job as no long hours, no hard work but well paid. If there was, I'd be doing it, believe me!

Anniemac - Agree about part time working not being easy. Same hours for less money from watching my friends who do it.

IME, flexible working in law means doing your billable hours target +++ and comes with Blackberry checking at all hours/on holiday and clients demanding conference calls at 10pm. I'd pass on flexibility for a legal, 9-5 (approx) job. The unpredictability of the hours, as well as the number of hours is the killer.

But my point goes back to the rubbish business model of law firms. The partners make £££ by getting the fewest people to work the most billable hours. Salaries are fixed costs and partners have no incentive to manage workloads when hammering staff into the ground with files is so profitable.

I love my job but it isn't compatible with children. I can't do out of hours work, I can't work late, or come in early, I am good when I am there! There is a culture of 'bums on seats' and only slackers work from home. I work for a small private firm so no childcare vouchers and so on. Trying to advise clients whilst hushing a baby who won't settle at night. Legal aid has gone to dogs, but what else is there, looking at government based positions but open to inspiration. I hate hate hate application forms. I can never remember in which year I got what qualification and so on.

I could have written your OP... But also just don't know what I would do instead! Am considering retraining as an interior designer. Nice to hear that so many have made it out, very inspirational.

Another family solicitor made redundant about three years ago - I'm a support worker now working 21 hours a week supporting domestic violence victims - crap pay but much much less stress than family law (which was badly paid anyway for the responsibility and the stress involved) and I don't take work home.

I will watch this thread with interest as I would like to something different but not sure what. I couldn't go back to having to struggle to meet targets, chargeable units etc etc.

Another family solicitor made redundant about three years ago - I'm a support worker now working 21 hours a week supporting domestic violence victims - crap pay but much much less stress than family law (which was badly paid anyway for the responsibility and the stress involved) and I don't take work home.

I will watch this thread with interest as I would like to something different but not sure what. I couldn't go back to having to struggle to meet targets, chargeable units etc etc.

oops

Really interesting. I'm heading back to my job in a City firm pretty soon. I've agreed what I hope will be a good flexible working arrangement and the partners within my department are very supportive, but I'm conscious that I'm quite fortunate that my circumstances lend themselves fairly well to flexible working. It does still amaze me that law firms have working practices which they blame on client demands but are quite often partner-driven and light years behind those of their clients. I feel pretty depressed that so many of those posting on this thread clearly feel that the working culture can't be changed - if that's the case then it's a pretty grim prospect for the 50+% of newly qualified solicitors who are female.

It seems to me that the main problems are:

1. Total lack of imagination as to how to implement flexible working practices, coupled with the belief that if the partners can't see you, you're not working. This seems to be particularly prevalent in transactional departments like corporate, banking and real estate and in litigation, where collective suffering (ie "if I'm in the office at 2am, so should you be") seems to be the norm.

1. A feeling that young lawyers (and increasingly, senior associates/junior partners) have to sweat for a few years in order to get to the next level. You work for 10 years as an associate and if you're lucky, you end up back at the bottom of the ladder as a junior partner, being beasted again.

1. A suspicion of alternative job titles or career paths that prevent partners from being able to dangle the partnership carrot in front of senior associates to keep them hard at work.

1. A feeling that in order to be a partner, you have to indulge in an insane amount of client entertaining, a large amount of which is after hours and involves activities which are more geared to male tastes than female.

I've seen all of this during my time in practice, but I still think that there are some firms and individual partners who are very honourable exceptions to the general rules. I also think that through weight of numbers, female associates are bringing more pressure to bear on partners to try to address these issues. And personally, I believe that as a female lawyer with a child, there is an obligation on me to try to demonstrate that in some shape or form, the arrangement can work. Don't get me wrong - I definitely believe that anyone unhappy in their job should look for a change, and I think that it's a very brave thing to do, especially given how many years lawyers put into qualifying and training - but I do feel a bit sad that every time a female lawyer stops work because she doesn't consider the job compatible with her family commitments, or moves into another sector, that's one more capable lawyer who's not there to be an example to others.

Hgirl - you are so right. Great post.

1. Presentee-ism is a killer. The attitude that if you are not "there" you are not working. But a client would soon kick up a fuss if he couldn't get you or was disatisfied. Most of the flexible workers and part-timers I know work their bloody arses off at home.

1. Partnership used to tempt associates to work hard, achive the kudos of the "P" word after their name, in 6 years, and then count the full equity money. Not so now; salaried partnership, stratispheric revenue targets and 10 year slogs to reach the bottom of the partnership ladder. And most partners, IMHO, are utterly miserable as they battle office politics, horrendous hours and jostle to retain clients. I look at that and simply don't think partnership is worth it. Goes back again to my point that partnership is a crap business model for women.

1. Alternative career paths are unpopular because it competes with the "up or out policy" that keeps staff turnover high and people on their toes. Senior people working efficiently "bed block" promotion hungry juniors who work longer hours to do the same job, but bill more hours and cost less. Law firms make money by beasting juniors when they are young and keen - they do not want to retain many experienced staff.

1. Oh, don't get me started on client entertaining! Being marked down in an appraisal because I didn't show sufficient enthusiasm for taking three property developer clients to Venus in Clerkenwell still sticks in my throat. And feeling that I had absolutely no choice but to go and then having a drunk partner tell me that he had a thing "for hot black women, don't tell my wife" before going off for a private dance, then finding that all the men had clubbed together to buy ME a private dance "for a laugh" (politely declined, to hoots of derision about my lack of sense of humour, failure to be game for a laugh)

I'd also add that many female lawyers give up because of high achieving DPs. Two people working mad hours with no GPs locally means many families can't manage. Stress, DCs suffer the uncertainty and the economics don't add up, even on City salaries. Women think it's not worth it and that's why many women give up on law, because there seems to be no alternative to horrendous hours and their DPs probably earn enough that the lure of legal salaries isn't a good enough reason.

Agree with everything that HGirl and Yoko have said.

Though possibly not the "up or out" part. I think my firm would be happy if I stayed as a senior associate forever. I work long hours, my charge out rate to pay ratio (so, my profitability) is the highest it's ever been, I need fairly minimal supervision, and I don't eat into PEP like a partner would. It's a great deal for them. Just not for me...

HGirl can I ask, is your arrangement part time, or just flexible (i.e same amount of work but you can do it at different hours)?

Mini - it's a bit of both. I'm going back 4 days a weeks but working from home on fixed hours (starting at 9.30 and stopping at 5.30) on one of those days. This makes a major difference to me because I have a long commute to work. All in all I reckon that I will split my non-sleeping time about 50:50 between work and home, which I can live with.

I'm aware that I'm lucky, though. I work in a specialist department where there's a strong vested interest in retaining experienced lawyers and frankly, I've put the hours in for over ten years to build up the goodwill which allows me to do this. I can't imagine how tough it would be to want to have a child when you are still junior and all your peers are hanging about the office till all hours. Ironically, I also think that my position has been helped by the fact that I have actively ducked being put forward for partnership and taken the alternative career path - some would say that I should have had the courage of my convictions, gone for partnership and then had the baby, but friends who have done that have found that their fellow partners are much more hard-nosed about flexible working for junior partners than they are for those who won't one day be asking for a share of the equity.

Interesting. Is yours a City firm can I ask? I'd be very interested in due course to know how you find the arrangement, especially the 5.30 finish time and the 5th day off - basically how often you end up having to work outside those times. I wonder if the same sort of arrangement could work for me (though I'm in lit ... so not sure the same vested interest applies).

Hgirl - I'd be really interested to know if you work substantially more hours than your contractual ones now your have 4 days a week, fixed hours. Your firm sounds pretty enlightened and if you are in a niche area, then.

I'm 10 PQE, ex Magic Circle. Friends who have managed to get fixed hours in my old firm (when granted - that seems to have dried up) end up working many, many more hours than their new contractual agreement. To the extent that, deals depending, they work close to the number of hours they did before in Corp/Real Estate/Banking but with approx 25% lower salary simply for 9-5, 5 days a week fixed hours or pro rata. Fixed hours seems to mean fixed hours in the office, so nobody worries about you leaving, but they have to do a lot of logging on from home, frantic Blackberry-ing and doing confernece calls on days off.

I'd bloomin' love to ditch deal work and be a PSL....(sigh!) Anyone want to hire me?

Mini - yes, I do work for a City firm. I also work in what you might call a transactional support role (although I hate the term) so I have historically worked some fairly mad hours. I love transactional work, though, and I couldn't really imagine moving into another area, so the big question is how the work will fit with the new hours.

Yoko - totally agree that the acid test will be how far the fixed hours arrangement will be respected. I suspect that the most challenging aspect of it will be having to be more robust about when I am/am not able to work. As you say, the thing is that firms are more than happy to reduce salaries for fixed hours or flexible working, but then the benefit of the arrangement can be completely cancelled out by the amount of after-hours work required. For that reason, I wouldn't ever have fixed my hours 5 days a week because I think that the salary reduction is ridiculous simply for the privilege of leaving the office at the end of normal contractual hours. I'm hoping that by having my fixed hours day immediately prior to my day off will mean that I can draw a clear(er) line as to when work finishes, because there will be a single block of time when I'm unavailable. The problem with working 5 days on fixed hours is that you aren't going to hand over your work to someone else at the end of the day, so it remains your problem, whereas I will have to hand my stuff over to someone else, so I can reasonably say that I can't do something, but a colleague can. Of course, there are going to be days when it all goes totally wrong, but I live in hope that it will be ok more often

Will let you know how it goes!

Ah ok, that's interesting that you will hand stuff over on your out of office day rather than asking clients to wait (as if that would ever be acceptable!).

How will that work - do you have a designated person who you'll always hand over to (almost like a job share)? Will the partners have to pick up any extra work as a result? Sorry about all the questions, I am very interested as I may be trying to negotiate something similar in the near future.

No worries Mini - again, I may be luckier than some because I'm getting a very capable mid-level assistant to work with me, who is at a stage where she wants to step up and take more responsibility and can handle a lot of the work when I'm not there (obviously subject to me doing my fair share on the days when I'm working) plus I work in a department where the partners are really decent and keep a good eye on the matters that they are supervising, so will step in if someone more senior is needed on my day off. To my mind, getting the arrangement to work relies on two things: a. Getting the people that you work with to commit to helping you and ensuring that they don't feel that they're being unfairly put upon and b. Absolute clarity about when you can and can't work - giving both clients and colleagues fair warning and continual reminders that you won't be there at a particular time and encouraging them to think about how they want to deal with it. My experience is that clients will generally live with this provided that they think that they're getting someone who's familiar with the deal in my absence - the bigger challenge is the partners in other departments who have a tendency to fix a meeting at a time cove nient to them and the client and then ask afterwards whether it's convenient for me, but to some extent, they'll have to learn the hard way that they need to check first. I'm sure that there are going to be days when it all goes totally pear-shaped, but as I say, if it works more often than not, I'll be pretty happy.