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Career Crisis

Hello! So I'm a second-year English student and I've wanted to be a teacher for a few years now, and I've got a lot of experience working with kids and young people. I have my doubts though, about how tiring and unrewarding trying to enthuse a bunch of kids about Shakespeare would be, and the pay is not great. The alternative for me is to convert to law- the preferred option from my parents' perspective, but the work itself seems so dull and the research to try and convert to law has really been overwhelming me recently. I'm sure if I worked at it I would learn to love it but it's really scary. Does anybody have any insight because my head is spinning a bit lol

(edited 1 year ago)

Reply 1

MindMax2000

Universities Forum Helper

Original post by zazzy.r

I do not work in law and I don't intend to work in law. You would essentially have 2 career paths for degree level stuff in law:

Become a solicitor

Become a barrister

You can work in other areas of law (e.g. work in compliance, legal department, paralegal), but the 2 above tend to be the default.

To become a solicitor, you can either study an SQE or go for an LPC. SQE can be done so long you have a bachelor's in any subject (word on the street is, it's not going so well as a scheme). LPC will require a legal degree of some sort (since you don't have an LLB, it's cheaper and quicker to do a postgrad law conversion course that lasts for a year and costs about £9000, depending on where you study it). After your LPC or SQE, you usually need 2 years' experience on the job before you are fully recognised as a solicitor. Which areas of law you will specialise in will depend on the firm training you and where they need solicitors to work in (you don't usually get to choose; should you be able to influence the decision maker which area to work in, consider yourself extremely lucky).
To become a barrister, you would need a legal degree, so you would need to do the law conversion course (unless you want to spend another 3 years self funding a law degree unncessarily, because you won't get loans from Student Finance for your second bachelor's). After completing your legal course, you would need a training contract and pupilage from a barrister. This lasts 1 year. After qualifying, you would need to spend a number of years getting experience in your area of law.

Work in other areas of law such as compliance and paralegal work tend not to have strict entry requirements i.e. you can go in usually with very little qualifications, but having a degree and high grades are nice.

To my knowledge, work in law is either about doing paperwork, or talking about paperwork. You do get to advise clients once you have reached very senior levels, as far as I know, but that's usually a low way off. If you haven't spoken to a legal professional, shadow a legal professional, or done any work experience in law, I strongly recommend doing so before embarking on this endeavour. It's not an easy path, and it's ridiculously competitive.

Reply 2

AdB09

Hi!

If you decide to convert to law, you will most likely have to take the PgDL. It is not a requirement anymore now with the introduction of the SQE but law firms still prefer their trainees to take it. It also provides a good introduction to law for students who have not studied it so far. Law is quite competitive with a lot of law and non-law students applying for training contracts so if you want to get a training contract, you really need to stand out from the rest in terms of your application and your work experience.

It would be a good idea to start attending law firm events to have an understanding of what it would be like to work there and see if you like it. It's also a great spot to talk to trainees and find out about their experience and the law firm culture. Maybe you could start with this and see if you like the work of a commercial lawyer. If you are looking for a place where to research firms, Commercial Law Academy offers a good course "law firm profiles and research" which includes the profiles of 90+ firms.