Law degree - Getting into Compliance

[Fazerina]

DS is 13 months and I am currently working as self employed from home doing travel claims handling. It's a dead end job that I've been doing for various companies now for over 5 years, but for the moment it's perfect, as I can arrange my hours around DS.

Originally I started doing my current job aside my studies. I have a law degree (LLB). Besides this work I have some experience in legal research and publishing and various admin roles. Ultimately I would want to qualify as a solicitor, but as the competition for training contracts is reaching ridiculous levels and I cannot presently afford to self-finance the LPC-course, I am thinking of alternative career routes and have started to consider compliance.

I was wondering if anyone here currently works in compliance and could give me an idea of the field. I realise "compliance" in itself doesn't really mean much and there are many different areas. I haven't really narrowed it down yet as to where I would see myself.. Initially I was thinking to perhaps do this course:

www.int-comp.org/ica-international-diploma-compliance

Would it be of any use and more importantly, if I did do the diploma, would I stand any chance getting a job without any work experience in the field?

I know many law firms nowadays have compliance departments and I would of course be interested in this. However, I'm thinking that it would be difficult even getting an interview at the moment without any relevant work experience..

Any ideas are gratefully received!

Hi Fazerina,
As you say, compliance is a bit of a generic term and can mean many different things. For example, many law firms' compliance departments deal with financial services regulation, which is a specialised area of law. Other areas of law include 'compliance' work, such as environmental and competition law alongside other types of work such as corporate transactions and contracts. AFAIK all of this work in law firms is usually done by qualified solicitors.

Outside of law firms, many companies employ staff who deal with compliance matters, especially in regulated industries such as insurance, pharmaceuticals and energy. I have worked in such places and the staff were not qualified solicitors but came from different disciplinary backgrounds e.g. health and safety, clinical audit. In my view based on this (and I am a lawyer not a compliance professional) your first step might be to consider what field of work you might be interested in, and what obligations organisations in that field have to comply with. That might give you a better idea of how to narrow down your options. If you enjoyed the work on your LLB then compliance could be a good option for you as it uses similar skills, although bear in mind that the compliance team are not usually the most popular people in an organisation!

I can't comment on the course you linked to I'm afraid as I'm not familiar with it.

Good luck!

I'm in compliance.
I'd join a city finance agency (loads about) eg Robert half, crime corkill etc.
Start doing admin at a bank as try and transfer. I have and many others.
Temp or contract then apply internally when roles come up.
Do not do diploma. You don't need to until 5yr down the line. It'll just make you more unemployable. A firm will sponsor you once you're in right role X

Hello both and thank you very much for your replies and tips.

Yes, I have heard that working in compliance may not make you one of the popular people in the workplace:).. I have given it some thought as to which industry would interest me the most and the obvious choice at the moment would be aviation, although I suspect the work generally available would be more to do with the technical side of it. However, it is a highly regulated area, so I intend to look into it to see if there would be any suitable opportunities..

Another obvious area would be AML, and as you said CaringMum28, I had thought about trying to register with an agency to see if I would be able to at least do some temping. I suppose it's all about getting your foot through the door somewhere. Thank you, by the way, for giving your insight on the diploma. I discussed this with DH already and realised I would be better off probably trying to save up for the LPC and to do that part time aside working. Although I realise it is a rather worthless qualification without the training contract, I am not ready to discard my dream of qualifying one day and even in this market I am hoping to get some solid work experience under my belt and to complete the LPC and hope for the best. I was thinking that working in compliance might give me a good opportunity to go forward with this.