Legal Secretary - any good?

[BinRaidingRaccoon]

Hi
I'm currently a SAHP after 10 years working in procurement within the civil service. For various reasons, I don't want to go back.

I'm considering retraining as a legal secretary - we have a lot of law firms in our area. I have experience preparing contract and tender documents, managing files and running tendering exercises. I'm MCIPS qualified but have let my registration lapse.
I'd also prefer to only work part time for health reasons.
No immediate financial pressure to start working, and I have money available to retrain.
Any legal secretaries around? Do you love it? Is a college course the best way in? Is being old (nearly 40) a problem?

I've been one for years. It's ok. In my area (north west) the pay is dire. It can be challenging and the firm
I work for always expect their pound of flesh.

If I had my time again I wouldn't be one.

Could you apply as an admin assistant to all the law firms in your area? I think it would be good to get your foot in the door first.

Mixed reviews there! This definitely needs more research, I think.

Tbh in my firm we’re movig away from legal secretaries and we have PAs who help lawyers with admin tasks, shared one between at least two or three lawyers and a legal document team who do the typing. The days of legal secretaries working for one lawyer and doing all of those jobs (admin, typing etc) are over.

Op, it really depends on where in the country you live I think. There are still plenty of legal secretaries in my area but as the last poster says you rarely get one secretary/pa working for one lawyer. I work within a small department of four which consists of me, a trainee solicitor, associate solicitor and partner. I do all the typing, deal with emails, time record, answer the department phone, prepare bills, answer queries, book counsel, deal with compliance, open files, manage diaries, prepare bundles, literally everything that needs mopping up, I deal with. It's full on and sometimes difficult to manage the workload in the time I'm there. Im sometimes on my own in the department for full days whilst colleagues are at court. I'm constantly being bombarded with work left right and centre and some days are very stressful. I don't mean to put you off, I do know some legal secretaries (said in the loosest possible terms) that just sit, type letters all day and answer the odd phone call and probably get paid more than me. They don't get as involved. It really depends what is expected of you by the firm you apply to.

In my experience we don't tend to take people on who have not got experience of working in a legal environment unless we don't get any applicants that have, then we would consider training if it was the right person.

To be honest, the variety of the jobs you're both describing appeals quite a lot - thank you! I don't mind peaks and troughs in work load. I guess just...pick your firm carefully.