Career change to law, realistic?

[VRSphil]

Through school I always wanted to become a solicitor or barrister. I started A levels including Law, but for circumstancial family reasons I dropped out.

I've since had a successful career for the last 7 years In manufacturing, but I still wish I'd have made a bit more of my working life and did something where I have to engage the brain, what I do now Is quite dull and repetitive, but it pays well.

If I do a law degree with the OU, try and get some work experience under my belt, I get the feeling I may still struggle to get a training contract to train as a solicitor afterwards. I suppose I may have the USP of having some life experience vs fresh uni graduates but that's about it.

I've heard training contracts are very competitive, and some graduates find themselves unable to become a fully fledged solicitor due to not being able to secure a trainee job afterwards.

Does anyone have any insight in to this at all?

If not I will have to find something else to aspire to, as I definitely want a career change, but obviously the job prospects have to be realistic. I'm told accountancy is the way to go but I've always been more comfortable reading, writing and talking than I have using numbers!

Current earning potential is £30-45,000, so I'd like to eventually be back to the same level with scope to earn more with progression and experience.

Thanks in advance

Phil

[VRSphil]

TopGear7 said:

Obtaining a training contract is very competitive and demand is outstripping supply by some considerable margin which has made it a very tough environment for graduates. However it has put law firms in a position to exploit graduates with lots of false promises of training contracts if they work at the firm for X a amount of time doing admin jobs and then suddenly they'll say there's no funding and they'll lure someone else with false promises.

Your earning potential will depend on what field of law you go in, geographical location and size of firm. If you choose a lucrative sector in London for a big firm there's £££ to be made. If you end up in high street firm up North doing Family Law you will be hard pressed to match anywhere near what you're currently on.

I think it comes down to this, if it's something you've always wanted to do and not doing it will mean in 10 years time you'll regret it and always think 'what if' - go for it. But just be aware it is incredibly tough and there's no guarantees.

Re Accounting. It's true, it does seem to be more promising field. I have 4 friends who are accountants in the making and the opportunities / positions out there are plentiful. They are doing there accounting exams while working and their companies are paying for them. Once qualified they're pretty much walking in to 35-40k jobs straight away and have recruiters on the phone to them headhunting and these are just 25 year old guys who haven't done anything above and beyond the norm.

It seems like what I've been told matches up with what you've said, super competitive and smaller potential for a decent salary, which sadly is pretty much as important to me as job satisfaction.

I won't be devastated if I don't pursue this, it's more a case of needing a career change and that was naturally what I'd investigate first as I started a Law at A level and it's what I always saw myself doing I suppose.

I've also heard this about accountancy. My brother in law got his chartered accreditation and became a management accountant on 35k, then took a move after two years to be a junior financial controller on similar money, and is now on 60. The business side of accountancy interests me a lot more than the tax and audit side, but I'm still not entirely convinced it would be the right move for me personally.

[VRSphil]

98elise said:

It always surprises me how little a lawyer earns (at least initially). It's one of those jobs you expect to pay well from the off.

I work in IT and you can earn a good wage without years of training.

I did look in to working in IT at great length when I was a bit younger. I sought some 'professional' careers advice on it from connexions because I didn't know anyone in IT. They said either do computing/computer science at uni and find a grad trainee job in a specific field, or do some smaller qualifications and get a job on a support desk and work up.

Having browsed the IT career threads on here out of curiosity, it seems like there are some conflicting opinions. Some people say they can't break out of the low down poorly paid jobs, some say you need lots of qualifications, others don't. It leaves me a bit confused really. But it's definitely something I would enjoy learning, I was always messing about fixing the household computers when I was a kid but all that knowledge has drained away with time as I don't have to use a PC for work, so this would be starting very much from scratch!