Career change to law / accounting / business

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I have just had my second child in two years. Planning on 1-2 more in next few years. Currently a funded Art PhD student, but since Covid and my experience of my department have second thoughts about academia. During this and any subsequent maternity leaves, I am hoping to re-skill in a more practical direction. I’m good with numbers and have long wondered about accounting or something business/finance or law related. Most of all, I want to find a career that is stimulating, lucrative, reliable. I want to set a good example for my children, while also getting to spend some time with them, so work life balance is important.

Ideally I would not study for more than a year without a training contract or at least some hands on experience. I could balance a part-time training contract or course with my degree, which would help me transition financially. Before my children fully grown, my ambition is to gain enough experience to establish my own firm or business and do some flexible working.

Is this a realistic ambition?

I do not personally know anyone in these professions, coming from a fairly unconventional arty background, so would be very grateful to hear first hand experience and advice from parents practicing accounting / law / business, especially mums and career switchers. Thank you for reading.

SoFP thanks so much for going to the trouble of creating an account and sharing your journey. It's very inspiring. True that more children adds pressure, but the fact that you did it your own way is encouraging for me to hear.

BrookNoRivals thanks for sharing the government scheme, I'll look into this.

alwayscrashinginthesamecar1 good point about personality. I'm sure part of the reason it has taken me this long to seek advice is that I don't have much experience of the kinds of people in these roles and I have didn't know if that would be a struggle for me. But since having kids I think this is less important to me, different priorities, and I already notice it in who I spend time with.

A lot of food for thought. I'm definitely aware of the risks and challenges. Still daunted by just how many different paths to accounting there are, all the acronyms, but I have until the end of the year to figure that out

Having known parents and non parents in both these professions, kindly, they’re not for the faint hearted!

I know a single mother who got her law degree but had to move to another city (not London) as after she completed her training contract the magic circle law firm wouldn’t take her on. Probably for the bed as her DD was about 8/9.

I know someone who retrained as an accountant and is fully qualified and now works locally but says she’s underpaid and has to juggle her job around childcare. I think she enjoys her job to a certain degree but don’t think it’s necessarily her first choice. Lots of hard work to study and she was working at a university when she decided to retrain.

if you really want the legal side why mot work for a lawyers and train to be a paralegal. Takes two years, lots of work in the sector, then you could decide if you wanted to train as a lawyer. There were too many lawyers in the past 10 years so therefore not many training contracts but I do know a few lawyers now who WFH. You still have the billing targets though and I know one who left law to be a teacher in his sons’ private school.

I can't speak for law but accountancy isn't necessarily that well paid. I was at one of the big firms so it was a good salary and I have friends who are equity partners and very well paid. (Ditto for corporate lawyers at magic circle firms). A few friends went on to become finance directors of large companies.

But I'm not sure the average accountant in a small practice or commercial company is paid all that much. My sister is an ACCA (there's a strange snobbishness about the different variants of the qualification):and her salary is fairly average.

As I mentioned earlier, most of us went into investment banking or private equity with our ACAs which has eye-watering salaries. But rubbish in terms of hours and I'd have struggled to do it with kids.

My training didn't cost me anything but it's worth considering whether the end salary justifies the cost of the training (if you're paying).

All the negatives above are why I became a Chartered IFA. I studied in the evenings around kids - had 2DD during that time. It took 5 years. I work for myself, earn very well, always worked around the kids.

To top it off, there aren’t enough IFA’s whereas there are arguably too many trained lawyers and accountants.

I’m just as well qualified as both those professions and deal with both regularly, but IFA’s tend to get a bad rap.

You mentioned a business degree too - unless there's a well paid arts admin career route where it would be helpful (eg I know a nurse who did a business degree in order to move into nursing home management) I wouldn't necessarily recommend it.

But I think accountancy and law are just top of mind well-paid roles. There are lots more professional in-house roles that pay well after progression (admittedly not partner money) and crucially allow PT and have less exams to study for and pass. Eg another friend went from arts MA to civil service outpost finance assistant and 15 years later they run the department - and did it all on a 4 day a week contract.

Despite having family friendly policies and flexible working, I'm not sure my firm (a big accountancy firm outside Big4) would hire a part-time trainee. In the first three years you are expected to take all your relevant exams, with blocks away for study, and I've never seen a part timer at a junior level.

One thing I would say is that your trainee years are likely to be boring, with other more interesting roles opening up once you qualify, as the trainee roles are mainly audit and crop rotate tax. You may get lucky and land a trainee role in a more advisory capacity (such as corporate finance) but they are much fewer in number.

For context, I'm a fully qualified CTA and am mid-senior at my firm. I earn decently, have autonomy over my diary (so I can block time out to do something during my working day, as long as I make up hours) and my work is interesting as I am in a pure advisory role (private client). I would be bored to tears remaining in a compliance role, but some people do enjoy the routine and familiarity of it. In my tax role, it's basically problem solving every day, using the law, and I love it.

My firm wouldn't be opposed to hiring a career switcher as we recently had someone in that used to be a lighting production assistant but wanted a traditional 9-5 job. There is also a big initiative for women, especially those who have taken time out for childcare responsibilities.

If you want shorter hours and less expectation for overtime, I would go into Corporate Tax with a view to moving to more advisory focussed roles after qualifying. Audit has better exit opportunities (industry, investment banking, M&A) but very long hours.

I’m a solicitor and I absolutely hate it. I would not recommend it to my worst enemy. Most women leave the law after having a family or, if they stick with it, it’s totally out of necessity and they hate it even more. Like most of my peers I am planning my escape and can’t wait to leave the legal profession behind.

I often see people consider retraining in law and, while there are a few success stories, the fact is there are more people training to be lawyers than there are training contracts or pupillages. I think people often want to study law because they think it will prove they are intelligent and earn lots of money. There are easier, far less stressful or competitive ways to earn money than entering this godawful profession.

Sorry, I feel better now I’ve got that off my chest! Good luck with what you decide to do OP and if you do go down the legal route I hope you are the happy exception.

I really don't think junior accountancy/law roles will give you the worklife balance you're looking for. And you'll be junior to begin with.

Also, if you're planning to have 4 kids are you sure you're going to be able to work full time 9-5 logistically? Have you a supportive partner? Will you be able to manage holiday times? How will you manage child sickness? I had 3 and it was a nightmare (but I was a single parent from the youngest was 3).

I would avoid Law. It is highly competitive and there are very few training contracts.
Some trainees in local firms work for free.
The pay is usually terrible. The roles that pay well often are very stressful , which is not ideal for those who want children.
I would find a role in which you could use your skill set. You are obviously very intelligent and driven

Re the paralegal role - you want to think about how you will stand out compared to law school graduates, who have the next exams too (paid for by themselves) who have been spending 3 years networking and doing law society stuff and attending vacations schemes.

And being 22 and single:no kids happy to work all hours and do any old boring task to get notices to get that training contract role.

What extra advantages do you bring to the employer?

(I am also a qualified accountant and can't think many places would want an untrained part time accountant / if you wanted part time staff there are plenty of qualified people who would want that sort of role and need a ton less managing.)

Maybe hr as a career could interest you? There are qualifications to get but easier to work your way up.

I’m an accountant, CIMA qualified, have always worked in industry. I’m 41, have 1 DC and work PT (0.8 FTE) around nursery aged DC however I don’t think I could put the hard work in with overtime, studying etc, that I put in when I was younger, now. I know I’m capable of doing my managers role but equally she’s beholden to requests from the CFO or CEO at 5, 6pm which I’m not sure saying “sorry, I have to go but I’ll long on at 8pm if you’re still round then “ would really work for any of us.

If I had my time again, I’d consider sales. Our sales team usually earn 100% of their reasonable salary on top as commission, no additional studying necessary.

Wouldn’t recommend law - virtually all of my friends are accountants or solicitors, and the latter tend to have the least flexibility and very different demands on their time.

Ditto to all of this. Don’t try to get into law. It’ll leave you burnt out and regretful. I’ve been practising for 20 something years and I stick at it because my children have SEN and we need the money for their care.

I'd attempt to get into management consultancy. You need to be an excellent communicator, with good numerical skills etc. It's hard work and sometimes very long hours, more flexible than it used to be. You will be well paid and your salary will increase quickly without years of pretraining.

I moved from big 4 accountancy to IFA. Best thing I ever did for both myself and my family. My employer is good to me, flexible and it is well paid whilst still challenging and interesting. I work very standard 9 to 5 hours (four days, no Mondays) and there's a lot of working from home and ability to manage my own schedule/appointments. The training was nowhere near as tough as my accountancy training and definitely manageable with kids.

Speaking from experience, I wouldn't recommend law as a family friendly career at all. Local law firms might be more flexible, but are unlikely to be lucrative (which you mentioned was one of your goals).

Professional services firms largely work on a billable hours model so you have to commit so much of your personal time over and above the expected working hours in order to meet billing targets and urgent client deadlines, particularly at the more junior end. Time is the thing that most parents don't have (unless perhaps you have a partner at home who is able to be the main caregiver) so it is pretty miserable trying to fit it all into a day. I found that there is flexibility (e.g. flexible working arrangements, ability to leave early to pick up kids etc.) but ultimately you will be making the time up overnight or on your non-working days as the demands don't change even if you have a flexible arrangement. It comes at a huge personal cost, so you would have to decide whether it is worth it for you.

There is so much competition for training contracts these days - I certainly wouldn't commit to any legal training without having a TC lined up.

Management consultancy is one of the last places I'd suggest for someone with no experience and potentially 4 DC. At all levels, hours can be brutal and significant travel and/or working from home is expected, particularly if you want to progress. The client focus means that if the client wants you in Macclesfield at 6pm on Wed night, you will be there or there will be consequences. At junior/mid levels you may be expected to work away from home Mon-Thurs/Fri for months. Everyone is expected to 'do their time' working away. Senior people travel relentlessly. This is certainly the case in the big name consultancies I've worked for and I've seen it happen across the board when working with competitors.

I actually started my career in Big Four chartered accountancy. It's less brutal than management consultancy but the exams and studying make up for it😂 As others have said, I just don't see how someone starting out wanting a part time training contract and with childcare responsibilities is feasible, or indeed attractive to any of the firms.

The travel has been cut back significantly and they are improving the hours and the flexibility. I know a few women who have kids and do very well - have managed to work from home more and choose when to work - as long as the work gets done that's all that matters. Of course the better you are at your job the more inclined the client and the firm are to give you the hours you need. For the most part you won't get a well-paid job without busting your butt - despite quite a few people on Mumsnet suggesting they have £100k+jobs and feel they don't work very hard at all - I've never met anyone like that in the real world - all the men and women I know that have a well-paid job have had to work hard for it and continue to do so.

The OP's challenge is that starting out with kids, it will be brutal. She has no track record of performance so no-one is going to give her the hours she wants or minimise travel and her peers will all be killing themselves to succeed and stand out and the OP is quickly going to find herself at the bottom of the bell curve and quite possibly on her way to the exit.

I'm writing this from my own experience as the only female member of the UK management team for one of the big global consultancies. Accounting is a lot more child friendly than consulting.