Not sure if I should pursue a career in Law.

In-house roles are more similar to every other job - i.e vaccancies will come onto the market (often with recruiters), and although places will possibly have vaccancies on their own websites, you'll have to know where it is.

One thing to note is that you could easily do a computer science degree and convert to law - it's very much about getting a degree, rather than what it's in (to a certain extent, and certainly encompassing computer science). With all the (in my view, overhyped) chatter about lawtech, I can't see it being seen badly.

Work-life balance is going to be difficult to determine for either of those. Certainly the lower down you go the more likely you are to get a better balance, but not always, and it will still be very very changeable. The main thing with law isn't necessarily just the work-life balance, but also the unpredictability of it. I don't know if various coding jobs are better for that.

The only other thing I can think of is that solicitors are client facing, so in terms of having emotional energy left at the end of the day to write a book, it may be more draining. But who knows; it may also give you some good plot points.

Yeah, it seems that coding can have the same unpredictability, but maybe not as bad as Law. As for in-house roles, does it matter which area of law or law firm I work at? So Maples Teesdale specialises in real estate and property law, would that limit the in-house roles I get?

So I'm currently on a gap year. Finished my A-levels in 2021. I've narrowed it down to Computer Science or being a Solicitor.

Work-life balance is the number one priority that could push me to the other side. As I have an ambition of pursuing writing in my free time.I don't hate or love coding, but I might enjoy it as I get better because I do find solving coding problems satisfying. But the work-life balance and career progression is one of the best, so this sounds like a safe option for a stable life.

For law, I find it interesting, and I get to study something more fun at undergrad (History & Politics) and then convert after. I've found it much harder to look for law firms that have good work-life balance. I'm also based in London and have been advised to stay away from silver or magic circle. Another person told me to stay away from the city all together, which sends me red flags.I've only found Maples Teesdale which specialises in real estate and property law (they claim to finish around 6pm on average), I have found Wiggin (specialises in media & tech they claim to finish before 7pm). And Farrer & Co claim to finish around 6:30 which isn't too bad either.

I've also heard of solicitors who spend time at a law firm and go to an in-house position for a normal 9-5. I don't know too much about in-house culture as I asked on LinkedIn, and apparently you actually have to ask if companies have an in-house legal team to take you as there isn't a central database for in-house roles for solicitors? So it seems like to me in-house roles are hard or rare to come by and who knows how good they'll be at that point.I just don't know if I'm going to be able to handle being a solicitor any more.

Also, please do not base your decision around working hours alone - there will be many instances when you will be expected to work late, and working hours can only go up as you get more senior. You will also cause yourself a lot of anxiety and grief if you use that as a metric. Every late finish will feel like an eternity and you will start to feel very resentful towards certain people. This may come out in the quality of your work product or your attitude to your managers.

I think you're mostly right but partly wrong. Right to not base a career decision around working hours. Working hours will rise and fall over a person's career in any profession that doesn't pay by the hour. The important thing to do is find a job you can withstand for long periods of time to get through the long days. Wrong in that hours will go up as you get more senior. In some fields, law and banking especially, it is well known trainees and junior analysts are put through punishing hours to prove their worth (and because they can, as they don't tend to have other commitments yet). As you get more senior and more respected, the hours will reduce, or you will at least have more control over where you work those hours.

I'm working long hours now but still nothing like what I was doing at 21.

Where are you getting these numbers from? I would be very surprised if solicitors at Wiggin and Farrers finished consistently at 7, especially in their commercial teams.

I think that you should focus on the subject matter - lawyers are called document monkeys and coders code moneys for a reason. Both disciplines have their ups and downs and neither has an especially high barrier to entry (at least outside of top-end coding jobs). You may think that 'writing is your vocation' but that is wishful thinking - your actual vocation will be spending 40 hours a week doing something and even more time commuting, so you need to nail that down to. I much prefer tending to my hobbies and hope to even start a 'side-hustle' of sorts in the next year or two but I'd be deluded if I decided that this was my vocation. In life, what we want is not what we get.

Also, please do not base your decision around working hours alone - there will be many instances when you will be expected to work late, and working hours can only go up as you get more senior. You will also cause yourself a lot of anxiety and grief if you use that as a metric. Every late finish will feel like an eternity and you will start to feel very resentful towards certain people. This may come out in the quality of your work product or your attitude to your managers.

You can get a sense of what in-house jobs pay by going on the usual jobs listing sites and following recruiters on Linkedin. I am not sure why you expect there to be a single jobs listing site that would solve all of your queries?

I don't actually love learning about law so much that I would want to work long hours just to have my job in it, I'd much rather be a software engineer and finish much earlier as I don't mind coding I actually find it satisfying. Also, I guess I am more interested to learn about law rather than practise it (even though I'd probably forget 90% of the information anyway & some areas of law aren't what I imagine it would be like to work in from movies etc). So I am definitely not trying to choose a profession by working hours alone, otherwise I would have become a part-time copy writer or something. However, work-life balance is a huge factor here because it does have its weight. Especially since I need that time to pursue my dream of becoming a writer, and tech is that industry that provides the most flexibility comparatively. So I just have more benefits if I choose tech over law.

As for in-house job listings, I was just confused by someone else who said that there wasn't one as a first reply which confused me because of the phrasing and whatnot lol.

If you don't love learning about the law, why on earth consider being a solicitor anyway? I got burned early in my career by trying to join a profession solely for, in my case, the money. I tried to train as a chartered accountant with a big 4 firm and I absolutely hated every minute of it. I'd decided that where I lived accountants earned more than solicitors (I know it's different in the UK; I lived in an offshore jurisdiction) and certainly earned more than solicitors in the kind of law I wanted to do. I also decided it was easier to do chartered accountancy qualifications than the GDL and LPC. Boy was I wrong! First of all, ICAEW exams are very hard of course. And they're exceptionally hard when you have little interest in the subject matter and no burning desire other than money to make it in the profession. Long story short, I was with a Big 4 firm for 2 miserable years during which time I only sat 2 exams and failed one of them (I had a weird arrangement where I joined them before my training agreement started). After that I was out and I spent years doing crappy back office finance jobs before I found a niche in compliance.

So, anyway, here I am still not qualified to do what I would really like to do and facing a tough decision at 39 as to whether to take the plunge and qualify as a solicitor or do what I've done every year for the past 17. Think about it a bit, stalk these forums and decide I can't afford the fees/pay cut right now.

You need to get a job in something you naturally enjoy. Unless you harbour a deep desire to empty bins or clean toilets for a living there's a fair chance you'll get at least a £50k outcome from this approach whether you start out as a teacher, a computer programmer, an accountant, a solicitor, a nurse, a supermarket management graduate etc. Most professions have a path to management that offer a decent income and how far you can go will partly be determined by how much you actually like doing it.

It is a tough decision because both industries are very appealing, but I think law is just too demanding of a lifestyle for me, but thanks for the help.

By the way, for accounting, what exit opportunities do people take when in the big 4? Is it similar to law as in make the most money and then move in house for a better work life balance? Just curious as my friend does accounting.

In accounting, unless you really fancy your chances of making partner, you are well advised to leave as soon as you are qualified. The reason is that no matter what area you qualify in, no one really labels you unless you choose to stay post training agreement. So for example, you can do audit for 3 years and then leave the Big 4 as a chartered accountant and go into all kinds of areas in industry. Hang around a bit after qualification and you'll leave as an auditor and the people who want to hire you will normally be people looking for auditors. That's what I was always told anyway.

Also, the pay at the Big 4 is crap unless you make partner. The great irony of me failing an exam and leaving is that I now earn more than those who did well enough to stay. There's normally more money in industry for the same level of responsibility, plus in industry chartered accountants are more rare and more highly valued than they are in places like Deloitte and PwC.

If you ever went back and could change it all, what would you tell yourself or what industries would you recommend going into or stay away from in general?

Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it.

If you ever went back and could change it all, what would you tell yourself or what industries would you recommend going into or stay away from in general?

Thanks for the insight, I appreciate it.

Just wondered if you’d considered studying something such as computer/digital forensics or cyber security? Very interesting fields, good job opportunities, plus you’d be studying some law and computer science within the same degree. Good luck with whatever you decide!

You can't look at it like that. Thousands of people have started lucrative careers with a Big 4 training agreement, I just didn't end up being one of them! Accounting wasn't for me (although something quite closely related has paid me well for the past decade luckily!)

What you really need to do is draw up a list of what genuinely interests you rather than what will pay well. The people who get paid well in "well paid" industries tend to be those who want to be there for reasons other than money. The rest tend to get bored and jaded in middle management (lawyers - apparently - often rank highly for unhappiness in surveys!).

Once you've made a list of the jobs that interest you, work out what you want your life to be like. Where you want to live is particularly important because some jobs are easier to come by in some places than others. For example, if you want to live in the Scottish Highlands, you're not going to be able to be a corporate solicitor working in a big team on FTSE 100 clients!

Once you've whittled it down, choose the best paid career that's left!

I think I've managed to narrow it down. I should go for a computer science degree because I can still go into law or accounting if I want to, but it will be harder to transition into tech if I don't do my Computer Science degree. Also, it has the best pay, work-life balance, and it doesn't have a chance of being automated like Accounting does. I also don't mind coding and find it relaxing and stimulating for the most part.

I think you're making the right choice. Add to that if you do go into law especially and to a lesser extent accounting you'll have a skill set that is quite rare in the sector.