Any advice on how to change career to law?

[JustAnotherManicMummy]

I am seriously considering training as an employment lawyer. Since graduating 5 years ago I have worked as an manager with an additional HR remit.

I was considering moving into HR management but I'm now considering doing extra training and training as an employment lawyer.

Has anyone changed career to the law?

What would you advise regarding training, traineeships and qualifications? I know I'll have to do an LPC/GDL but am I better to get a training contract with a firm first or get a qualification and then apply?

I have a 2:1 in English from an OK university and I live near London for courses.

All views very welcome

Thanks for replying smallwhitecat

I currently work for a monster PLC who due to incompentence at managing HR in general is regularly employing the services of an employment lawyer!

I used to work in Holborn and be active in my union and their firm of employment lawyers was based just around the corner in Brownlow Street. However, the new Union is poor and I doubt they use the same firm.

My company was swallowed up by a larger one during the banking crisis (is a high street bank). I used to know lots of people in the old company, the new one's a multi-national so I only have contacts in localised pockets of the business.

I'm happy to start at the bottom, side-ways whatever but you're right the long hours do not appeal, although as a means to an end I could tolerate it for a period of time.

Have you looked into other employment / HR professional services jobs? The pay can be similar but you would not have to get different qualifications first (assuming you are already CIPD). The hours are usually a little better, too.

All the "Big 4" accountancy firms have HR consulting teams which specialise in advising on executive compensation, compensation and benefits, HR issues resulting from mergers and acquisitions etc. There are also smaller HR consultancy firms which do similar things.

Also worth bearing in mind that:

1. There are rather a lot of unemployed solicitors at the moment looking to respecialise in employment law (which is an active area in recession unlike e.g. corporate or property law) so they might be more attractive to employers than you, sorry!
2. The legal market is going to change soon and be mixed up more with other professional services, and different ways of training (e.g. more part-time or modular training availabile) are going to become available, so it is possible you might spend a lot of money retraining, gain your prize and then find out that if you'd waited it might have been easier or cheaper to do.

Sorry don't mean to be off-putting, just trying to help you to have a balanced picture.

There are very few training contracts out there at the moment so if you have any contacts or favours to call in, now's the time!

Thank you doingthelambethwalk and Babbit that's very useful.

I'm not fully CIPD qualified yet. I'm applying for funding from my current employer - but they are quite poor at doing the basics of HR (IME) so I'm not holding my breath.

As everything is so up in the air at the moment I'm trying to look at all the options in the field before I'm too far down any one road yet.

This is the sort of thing I was wondering if you'd be interested in :job advert

I would think very hard before retraining in employment law in a large firm.

Firstly, as others have said, trainees are very much cannon fodder in the larger firms. You will also get to spend a maxium of six months in employment out of the two years and few firms will guarantee you a seat, as it's very popular. You could end up doing the whole two years in other areas.

Even if you get a seat in employment, there is normally stiff competition for the NQ positions (if there are any) and external vacancies for NQ positions are rarer than hen's teeth.

Once you're qualifed, bear in mind that you're dealing with people at a moment of crisis a lot of the time. That means that their "this is a disaster, must stay late all week and sort it" is your everyday life. You just jump from person to person's crisis! There is massive pressure on hours in a grinding day-in day-out kind of way (as opposed to coroprate, say, where you might work til 4am a few nights, but then have a lull before the next deal).

If you're really set on this area, I'd suggest going for training contracts at niche firms. They may or may not pay PgDL and LPC fees. Also, think about whether you want to work for individuals or companies, as niche firms tend to slant one way or another.

To be honest,I'd probably think more broadly and perhaps try to become more specialised/senior in HR itself. As an employment lawyer, we are under massive pressure from in-house teams and HR consultants, who can do work at much lower fees. I think that you could do similarly interesting work (unless transactions/deals are your thing) at a large PLC in HR. There is a great deal of overlap and good HR directors can handle many of the same pieces of work that I can. To be brutally honest, I toy with making the leap the other way.

Sorry. Don't mean to sound negative or bitter. Having a bad week!

doingthelambethwalk that's the kind of thing I've been looking at previously.

I'm currently in a middle/senior role with a good salary and sales bonuses (I have lots of responsibilities, sales, management, risk management plus the HR bit with training and development and HR support which I do for the region and don't get paid for but does help bump my grade up at appraisal) but taking a more junior position and training is a good thing to do at the moment as we can afford it in the short term. Also my current substantive role (which I'll go back to after maternity leave) has much less freedom and autonomy now my company has been bought by a large PLC.

I'm fed up of doing a bit of everything and feeling like I'm not doing anything really well and I enjoy my people management and HR work. Even when it's horrible stuff like redundancies and disciplinaries - making sure people get the best advice and that things are done fairly is really important to me.

Ribenaberry that you for your honesty. I currently have the "you must have no life outside work" expectation in my current role(without any real need IMO) and I resent doing it when there is no real point, but accepted business as usual.

I am really torn because I've always been a give it 90% to work and 10% to home and being on maternity leave has thrown me because I'm not sure I still want that. I'm quite confused so really appreciate all these different opinions. Taking some time out to retrain seems a good compromise - I get my career later and don't feel like I'm copping out by being a SAHM and studying or working P/T.

What you all seem to be saying is that I can get the same satisfaction and challenges from an HR role, without the massive expense and precarious nature of switching to law. Interesting and reassuring

Thank you all

V good but (again sorry but trying to give you a balanced picture!) you do realise that most HR and employment law work is for the employer, not the employee? So, for redundancies, you'd be advising the employer what they can / should do rather than making sure the employee got the best advice?

If you like being nice to employees maybe developing a career in training and development (within HR) is the way to go?

I meant for the employer. Doing things properly has benefits for everyone (I've given support to managers mainly for managing disciplinaries and redundancies). I've seen some shocking things as a result of people cobbling together what they think is "the right thing for the business" which is often cutting corners and always ends badly for all concerned. I had one woman come from the company I used to work for apply to work for me. She had been awarded £30,000 at tribunal. I knew she had been involved in a multi-million pound fraud in her previous job and dismissed. They hadn't followed the legal process so she got one year's wages as compensation. Unfortunately that company has now bought mine and I'm back in HR hell

Training and development is not really for me as I like engaging with stakeholders and policy. I like a challenge and HR generalist/employment law seems to match my skills and preferences.

Hello

I started retraining as a solicitor when I was 29, in 2002. I did the GDL part-time over 2 years whilst working for Chambers & Partners (so in a related area, compiling directories of legal professionals) and it was also before children. I wanted funding to do the LPC full-time, so spoke to a number of city firms, who are really your best bet for doing that and was advised that I really really needed some law firm experience before applying for a training contract, so ended up doing vac placements with a number of uni students (rather odd, but good practice for being a solicitor!) - managed to get a training contract with one of these firms (was offered 3 - strong academics helped too, many have quite conventional views on this) so was funded through LPC and started training contract in 2005. Qualified in 2007, managed to qualify into the employment department.

I can second some of the advice already given here. Firstly, there are very few training contracts out there at the moment - my old firm hasn't taken any trainees this year, having taken 24 per year over the past few years. You have very little control over which departments you're in and employment law is very very popular amongst trainees - I think I only got in there thanks to making sure I was in a department that no one wanted to go into before and having a really really tough three months there. If you do manage to get a seat in employment, they may not have any jobs when you qualify - which then leaves you with the dilemma of either taking a job in another department or trying to find a job in another firm - friends of mine managed this but ended up taking a pay cut on qualifying which is not what you expect. Finally, hours for trainees are long and hours for NQs equally so - I didn't go back after mat leave purely because I'd had so many experiences when things landed on my desk at 5.30 and I had to ditch all plans and stay to get them done. If you have family support, that might not be a problem, but with DH working fairly long hours and no family nearby in case of problems, I just couldn't do that.

Sorry to sound negative but just thought I'd put my experience down - on the plus side, I loved the job and was gutted to leave - I was on the employer's side most of the time and more than happy to be there as, contrary to popular opinion, there are far too many employees out there trying to pull a fast one, in my opinion! I guess I'm just trying to flag up that whilst it can be done, it's quite a slog and will mean a very full on 4+ years. Also on the positive, more firms seem increasingly open to taking on 'older' trainees with relevant experience, so you might strike lucky with a firm who specialise in employment law. Your other option, if you're near London but not in it, is to look at strong regional firms who are often more open minded.

Good luck!

Thanks Lacking I've just turned 28 so doesn't feel too late to have a change of career

However, it sounds like the law might not be for me... which is not a bad thing to realise. Better to know now and evaluate my options then wonder later about might have beens.

HR manager/consultant is the way forward for me I think after a bit more training of course!

I would tend to agree with you! I think that most employment lawyers are people who wanted to be lawyers, then specialised in employment. If you know employment is your thing, I'd come at it from the other side and work in HR (unless, as I said, transactional deal work is your thing, where it won't really come along frequently enough to satisfy you in an HR role).

Thank you to everyone for all your help.

I feel much clearer in my mind about where I'm going - even if my route is not very clear cut (work is being crap at doing the basics with me whilst I'm off on maternity leave. Can't get my pay right, had a query ongoing since May regarding bank holidays(FFS!)and are incapable of arranging my keeping in touch days to do anything at the same skill level as my current job).

If anyone has some entry level HR jobs in/around London let me know . If there's flexible working and CIPD training I'll bite your hand off!

I have to agree with Ribena Berry and Lacking.
I retrained as a lawyer when I was mid-late 20's and it was a long hard struggle.
I did it whilst working p/t and with DCs 1 and 2.

At the same time, my ex DH who worked in HR studied employment law through ILEX, the Institute of Legal Executives. He studied by correspondance course a diploma in Employment Law as a specialist subject. It was a 1 year course and he then sat the exam and now has a law qualification in just that area and works in employment law, often attending employment tribunals. That might be an option for you.

Training contracts are, as DH would say, like rocking horse poo! My old firm used to take on two trainees every two years and would get hundreds of applicants. A friend of mine re-trained in her 30's and even after she completed the LPC it took her 3 years to find a training contract.

Good luck