I'm a (nearly) NQ - AMA

Has your experience of being a trainee been (at least on the whole) a positive one?

Has there been anything that wasn't as you expected?

Hi Iron Bowl,

Thanks for doing this!
My questions are:

1. Do you get on well with your fellow trainees? Was there a strong sense of competition or politics (other than seat allocation)?

2. You mentioned some partners really push you - do you mean with the quality and/or quantity of work?

3. Working outside of London, do you feel satisfied with your salary?

Many thanks.

Yes, I've enjoyed the work and found that generally legal practice is something I enjoy as much as I did academic law, thankfully. There's plenty of bibling/bundling obviously, but you know that going in, and I enjoyed the advice and drafting work enough to make it worthwhile. Some partners really push you, but that's just how the profession works and it's bearable so long as you know it's necessary. One or two did it just to test you, but I figured I wasn't going to give them the satisfaction of knowing they were annoying me.

I didn't fully anticipate the amount of my time which would be taken up by the business side of things, such as time recording, billing, dealing with financial admin (eg. tidying WiP, chasing late bills etc.) and so on, but found that alright. I also wasn't expecting just how bitter seat politics can get, but that does seem to vary by year group and ours had all calmed down by the time it came to NQ jobs.

No, we generally got on well. People would be going out for lunch with potential supervisors etc., nothing major. It's essentially the first stab you take at building the internal networking skills you'll need to get to partnership, but it's all slightly clumsy and can cause some short term ructions.

I have heard of much greater skullduggery at firms more like the one I'm moving to, particularly over applications for secondments, but have no personal experience of that.



Good ones, both, and to strict, but necessary, deadlines. As a trainee, though anything you are given which is urgent shouldn't be massively complex, so it's a case of ensuring you don't make silly mistakes. If you have more complex drafting to do, it's likely to be given when there will be plenty of time for them to check it over before it goes out.

Not so good ones, quantity and very tight, late night/weekend deadlines for clearly non-urgent work.



Yes, my NQ salary is 40k, which is more than adequate to live on where I am, and my lifestyle is better I think. I live 5 mins walk from the office, don't spend a huge amount on rent and will be able to buy a place in a year or two. Saying that, I do sometimes wish I was able to do the really big ticket work that you only get in London and I know mates in London with very similar CVs on the education front get paid double what I do, which will probably be more galling when I move and work on the same type of cases as them more often.

Where it really pays off is for partners. Costs are reputed to be half those in London, but hourly rates are not, so regional partners in national firms and partners in some regional firms are living the high life mortgage free, whilst London partners work to tighter profit margins (on a higher turnover of course) and often see vast amounts of their profits vanish into chunky mortgages.

which specific aspects of your work have you enjoyed?

what made you choose law (and specifically the branch of litigation that you are moving into) over other alternatives that were open to you?

many thanks!

Did you find it difficult to get a place at a national firm after working at a regional firm? Do you think that's uncommon?

Why are you moving firms?