Career change at 51-am I dreaming?

[ThunderRoads]

Thinking of studying probate law gaining CLC qualification and eventually getting a practitioner license to have my own business- am I dreaming?
I am 51, worked and still am working as commercial contracts manager, also managing bids and tenders for the majority of my career, worked in clinical research which I loved then made redundant from last role and couldn’t land a job for 6 months- now found myself in the same line of job but in the defense industry which I am not really sure about
I am looking for my exit strategy from corporate world and have been thinking of studying law for some time- I have BA in Business Administration, looking to retrain as probate practitioner and build my own small business!
what are your thoughts on wills and probate practitioner?
TIA

The Mature Study and Retraining board may be of use and interest:

https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/mature_students

Thanks I put in there no response I thought maybe it wasn’t the right place so came here

I would start with the National Careers Service it has tools to help
you evaluate future careers regardless of your age.
https://nationalcareers.service.gov.uk

At 51 (depending how you feel and your financial position) you potentially have c15 years to retirement. No one would think anything of you were 22 and fresh out of uni and said I want to do xyz for 15 years.

These days I expect many people will have 2 or 3 careers in a 40 year+ working life.

Take 3 years to study and you still have 10+ years to work.

@Harassedevicteethank you so much - will check

I used to be a solicitor, and I spent a couple of years at the start of my career doing wills and probate. It's a really interesting area. I am not familiar with the CLC qualification route, but a quick google suggests you have to do some sort of practical work experience as part of it - have you considered how easy/difficult it would be to secure this? May be worth asking around local law firms.

Wills and probate work can vary hugely in complexity, and may involve giving advice on tax affairs. If you are charging people to administer an estate, it is more likely to be a complex/large estate than a simple one, as people can do the simple ones themselves. That's not to say nobody would pay to get this work done for a simple estate, just that you need to think about who your clients are likely to be. I worked as a qualified solicitor in a Private Client team for about 2.5 years, and I was still very junior at that point. I was perfectly competent for someone of that level of experience, I had done STEP, and I did see clients on my own, take instructions, administer estates etc - but I still needed to have some supervision, someone checking the more difficult bits of my work, a second pair of eyes on my drafting, advice and input on more complex issues (particularly tax planning). I would not have been brave (or stupid) enough to set up as a sole practitioner doing probate work at that time - I'd have wanted a good few years of experience first.

I wonder how quickly you could realistically go from zero to self-employed working in this area? I am a fairly cautious person, and I would say getting to a point where you know enough to be able to confidently deal with whatever comes through the door (without risk of a negligence claim) is likely to take some time. It's not a quick re-train and off you go - in my opinion. That said, it is a really interesting area to work in, and I enjoyed it. I would do some more research and try to find out what people with the CLC qualification end up doing after they complete it. You could try posting on the Legal Issues board to see if anyone has any experience of it?

@emsyj37thank you so much for your detailed reply, much appreciate it! I totally agree, I am also a super cautious person that’s why I haven’t yet taken any action on my long lasting wish to pursue this! Yes it requires 1200 hours of practical experience which is around 6 months full time job! I have a good enough salary now so I am weighing up the ideas on how to go about with this. I also would be very cautious about managing people’s wills, estates planning at the end of the day they will trust my expertise and I will need to deliver! I have been looking again! So I am thinking to go ahead and do the CLC qualification and get STEP qualified too, as it is also good to have and find a freelance role under a legal firm- i keep seeing Taylor Rose advertising for freelance conveyancing, probate work on self employed basis they also offer working under experienced lawyers who are specialised in this field to work under their supervision. I find this area super interesting, maybe having my own practice not ideal at least at the moment