help, plagued by indecision (courses, law, work, what?!)

[geekgrrl]

sorry - utterly boring and self-centred, I know, but I can't make up my mind and dh is too ba-humbug about higher education to be of any use...

I have a (stale) law degree and work as a freelance legal translator at the moment. I quite like the work - it fits in with life perfectly, is done from home and the pay is good, no complaints there. It doesn't really thrill and excite me though...

Anyway, I've just been accepted onto an LLM by distance learning, I'd applied thinking I would extend my knowledge of some of the areas that come up frequently in translations - intellectual property etc. I'm now hesistant as to whether to accept the offer as I'd pretty much close the door to ever practising law, because of time mainly but also money - the LLM costs 6K, which I could spend on a GDL instead. I really don't think I actually want to practise law - I quite like how work fits in with everything else at the moment rather than the other way round, plus it would mean a paycut - at least for the first 5 years or so.

I could imagine myself doing academic work of some sort or another, so I suppose the LLM would quite useful for that option, too?

I don't know what to do. The thought of doing translations for the next 35 years does not thrill me.

My daughter's doing the GDL. Do you need to do that for law if you have a law degree already? Surely not?

xenia, thanks for replying - my law degree is stale now (8 years old) so I'd have to do the whole thing again.

Is that because there's a rule saying that or just because you feel it's out of date?

it's a Law Society and Bar Council rule.

So you missed it by a year - 8 not 7. May be they might make an exception if you could appeal. Might be worth trying because you might save yourself a year of doing a course and the expense of that.

unfortunately they're very firm on this, plus by the time I'd start an LPC or whatever my degree would 9 years old.

Anyway, I'm not sure that's a route I'd want to go down - the competition for training contracts seems immense, I don't actually fancy joining the bunfight. I live in quite a remote area and am pretty 'stuck' here for numerous reasons. My dh is an IT contractor so I'm the one who has to be flexible if one of the children is sick or whatever, and we can't do much forward planning because he might be working at the other end of the country a few months down the line - OTOH really don't want him to become a permie as the pay and flexibility (long holidays etc.) is too good.

I a way I feel that I should just be grateful for the fact that I can work from home and that it's well paid. And it's not too bad really, some work is really interesting - but the thought of translating my millionth distribution contract at the age of 60 is somewhat depressing.

You'd only be competing with my 22 year old....
I suppose decide how you'd like to spend your life and go for it.