Solicitor - changing practice area

[53rds]

Hoping to hear from other solicitors who have changed practice area.

I specialise in family law with 7PQE. I’m finding the contentious nature of the work and the subject matter increasingly difficult since having DC. Happy to explain more if needed. I am good at my job but I no longer enjoy it. I want to think about a change but I don’t want to do anything rash.

Were you able to move department within your existing workplace? If not, how did you go about finding a new position, via a recruiter or personal contacts? Was it a significant salary step down?

If you’ve left the law entirely, what do you do now?

I changed area from Private Client to Pensions - moving from a regional firm to a City firm. I was not as long qualified as you though, only about 18 months PQE, and I got a pay rise rather than a reduction as I was moving to a different type of firm where pay is generally much higher. It helped that Pensions was a shortage area, and there was some crossover from the trusts aspect of my previous specialism. I think in general it can be quite tricky to transfer between practice areas, which is a shame.

You could consider trying family law at a different type of firm, perhaps where the work is purely financial settlements rather than involving children? The firm I trained at did family law work but it was all privately funded and all of it was financial, nothing on child custody at all. Alternatively, you could consider a move to a legal role in the Government Legal Service, where you'd get opportunity to work on various practice areas - not sure how easy it is to get in though?

I am now a civil servant, and really enjoy my job. I'm not a lawyer, but my role does involve legal interpretation etc so some similarities here and there.