Not enjoying my law Training Contract...

Just started my TC at a city law firm and I'm hating it. Anyone feeling the same way about their TC? Do you enjoy the work or just the money?

I have also started my TC at a city firm recently and dread logging in every day. Would love to leave after the TC but have no clue what I would do.

I am also a first year trainee in the same situation. Not enjoying my TC at all and feel like I have made a terrible mistake and will have wasted 4 years of my life by the time I have qualified, but I have no idea what else to do. I can't apply to graduate schemes because I'm too far removed from university, but I don't have non-legal experience that would allow me to apply to other roles. I wish I had chosen a career path that allowed more flexibility. The only "alternative" path is to go in house, and that wouldn't even be possible until a few years post qualification and there's no guarantee that it would even be more enjoyable/interesting. I feel trapped. I feel so sick and anxious whenever I think about my future.


This is interesting. What do you think about Real Estate? I am considering it as at least it apparently offers a decent work life balance, but I've heard that it gets boring and repetitive and makes potentially going in house harder down the line because companies want corporate lawyers.

I am also a first year trainee in the same situation. Not enjoying my TC at all and feel like I have made a terrible mistake and will have wasted 4 years of my life by the time I have qualified, but I have no idea what else to do. I can't apply to graduate schemes because I'm too far removed from university, but I don't have non-legal experience that would allow me to apply to other roles. I wish I had chosen a career path that allowed more flexibility. The only "alternative" path is to go in house, and that wouldn't even be possible until a few years post qualification and there's no guarantee that it would even be more enjoyable/interesting. I feel trapped. I feel so sick and anxious whenever I think about my future.


This is interesting. What do you think about Real Estate? I am considering it as at least it apparently offers a decent work life balance, but I've heard that it gets boring and repetitive and makes potentially going in house harder down the line because companies want corporate lawyers.

Probably less aggressively horrifying than corporate but pretty tedious. Look at this document (called the certificate of title - the standard form of property reporting required on all transactions) - imagine filling these in day and night for the rest of your working life.

https://www.citysolicitors.org.uk/storage/2016/12/CLLS-Land-Law-Committee-Certificate-of-Title-and-Notes-to-users-Seventh-Edition-2016-update.pdf

Looking at forms like that just reminds me how behind the government and law firms are when it comes to technology. In this day and age, forms should be online and it should be possible to autopopulate/use drop downs etc to speed things up.

The incentives are not there for them to invest in this - the partnership model of annual profit extraction does not encourage research and development nor does the billable hour model.