The Witch is Dead

I will never forgive myself for voting Tory in 1979. I was a callow 18 year old when Margaret Thatcher came to power. In her 3 terms she cast an appalling shadow over our country and sapped all hope for the future.

When I heard about her death today – I couldn’t help myself, a weight was lifted from me. I remember the day she quit as PM. On the bus there were people singing. In England. In public. It was cathartic. Here was a real cause for celebration. She had gone.

Her death should not be the cause for the same kind of celebration, of course, but I’m not going to judge those who do.

I was politically very active at university and beyond during a time when people cared about politics and ideology. Thatcher destroyed all that and spawned a generation of cynical money obsessed consumers living in a country that no longer made anything.

Thatcher destroyed hope and optimism. She belittled the idea of society and promoted selfishness, greed, division and prejudice.

She weakened the NHS, the education system, the transport infrastructure. She took power away from ordinary people. She destroyed British manufacturing, shipbuilding and mining. Privatisation was a slap in the face to every UK citizen. She sold off our assets and offered shares to us mugs as a paltry bribe.

Thatcher sowed the seeds for the social and economic ills we are suffering now, and will continue to suffer for many years to come.

Is there hope? Look around you, the present government are carrying Thatcher’s work on. Benefits stripped. No access to justice unless you are rich. A culture where those in need are branded as scroungers while the rich avoid tax illegally with impunity. This is her legacy. This is why I am glad she is gone.

Survival guide for a career changer

If you’re reading this then maybe you’ve already thought about becoming a lawyer after earning a living doing something else. No doubt you’ve already been told that you’re mad, that the professions are not what they were, that there are absolutely no opportunities and although they won’t say it out loud; they’ll be thinking that you are “too old”.

These are extremely challenging times for aspiring lawyers and even more so for the mature applicant, with competition for training contracts, pupillages and even paralegal roles more intense than ever before.

However, a career in law can still be very rewarding both financially and in terms of job satisfaction so if you’ve decided that this if what you want as a second, third or even fourth career then go for it. But beware, you will need to be prepared for a real challenge.

Tempus fugit

You may think that you have the luxury of planning your applications for training contracts or pupillage once all your exams are out of the way and you’ve at least completed your GDL or even LPC/BPTC. You could not be more wrong.

Very little latin is used by lawyers nowadays but one latin expression should be framed and placed above your desk: “Tempus fugit”. It is very important indeed to plan and start your campaign to ultimately get a training contract or pupillage as soon as possible, ideally yesterday. You will need to continue that campaign throughout your studies.

Firstly, you cannot afford to wait until you complete a LLB of GDL before deciding whether you want to be a solicitor or a barrister. You need to start your applications long before then if you don’t you will be at a massive disadvantage against undergraduates who have a clearer idea of where they are going and have already started the application process. As a more mature student you do not have time to deliberate.

Make a decision, read the legal press, speak to tutors and professionals, look at your skill set and decide where you would be best suited, but don’t neglect to make a cold hard economical decision based on your chances of success. Make a decision and make it early. Don’t rely on your law school careers service, even if they are good they will not be much help to you until you know where you’re going.

You will probably have a job and family commitments. Managing your time between study, applications, networking, your job, your family and your social life will be a real challenge. You will need to think long and hard about how you prioritise everything you need to do. It is tempting to put training contract and pupilage applications to one side especially when you look at your reading lists and assignments, but you simply can’t afford to. You will be up against undergraduates who started attending law fairs in their first year and started applying in their penultimate year at university. Many of them will have legal work experience on vacation schemes or mini-pupillages already and will have a head start.

Focus and a sense of urgency is essential if you want to start a legal career as a mature person. As an older applicant there are a number of questions that you should consider and re-consider regularly, including:

What am I doing?

Why am I doing it?

Where am I going?

Why do I want to get there?

And most importantly; how am I going to get there?

There is no way around it – you have to find the time for all those application forms. If you don’t start planning and applying right now you could easily miss out on some vital opportunities.

Survive your law studies

Law is a rigorous subject and studying law is hard, there’s no two ways about it. For the more mature student this is even more so. You will either have a degree in another discipline or you’ll have no degree at all and are starting from scratch with a LLB or exempting degree.

Mature students will often be studying part-time as they still need to earn a living and they often struggle to adapt to law after graduating in another discipline. You may be a graduate who has developed well honed skills of textual analysis in an English degree. You may have a Maths degree and have a very logical mind. It doesn’t really matter what kind of degree you have; if it isn’t law then you are in for a shock. Learning law, for a graduate from another discipline law is a real challenge. The basic reason for this is that lawyers do not think like normal people, and the quicker you cast away all your existing analytical skills and start again, the better.

So how do you cope? Don’t panic! At the start, things may fly by in a bit of a blur. In law, the concepts themselves are not difficult, it’s just the way that they are applied and it really does take some time to change the way you think and use legal analysis. For most of you who are prepared to persevere it will click into place. If you’ve ever lived in Germany or France for a number of months armed only with a GCSE in the language you will have understood most of what people were saying but rarely been able think of a way to reply. After about six months or so you may find that you can discuss all kinds of issues in the language with native speakers. Sometimes beer helps but eventually you will get to the stage where you start to think in the language, and law is a bit like that.

Once you start to think like a lawyer it suddenly becomes much easier to know how to approach a legal problem, but like anything it will require perseverance. Practice answering exam questions. The more you practice writing answers to legal problems, the faster you will develop, and a really good idea is to make the most of opportunities to meet tutors one on one and go over answers to legal problems you have written. Eventually the coin will drop, and you will start to make real progress.

Why is getting a training contract or pupilage harder for the more mature?

It shouldn’t be, should it? This is a bit of a thorny issue, but the brutal truth is that it is harder and some applicants are certainly at a disadvantage due to their age, despite the protection offered by anti-discrimination legislation.Let’s be clear – law firms and chambers do not as a rule deliberately discriminate on the grounds of age. In fact the majority of firms and chambers would appear to have robust recruitment policies in place to encourage diversity and counter discrimination through their recruitment.

The problem is often the application process itself. There’s no getting away from the fact that most graduate recruitment application processes are not designed with the mature applicant in mind. If you have 10, 20 or 30 years of work experience, just try distilling examples of when you have shown leadership qualities into 50 or 100 words!

Essentially, and I’m talking primarily about law firms here, there is a certain graduate route set out that is tailored specifically to undergraduates and if you graduated some time ago you will not fit easily into it. For all the talk about encouraging applicants from a diverse background, it seems that many firms and sets do seem to recruit very similar types and you may notice that they are all at least 10 or 20 years younger than you.

Another concern for law firms when it comes to mature applicants is whether or not you have time to make partner. The way that a law firm works is that succession planning needs to be in place to generate partners for the future, so where do you fit in if you are in your 40s or even 50s?

Some smaller firms will not entertain your application at all and this may well be because you are older. What can you do? Not a lot. You will never know for certain that this is the reason and do you really want to take a law firm to tribunal on a discrimination claim?

It can be very discouraging when every single training contract or pupilage application comes back as a rejection or is simply not acknowledged. Often hours of research and preparation and time spent drafting answers to bizarre questions on application forms can feel like it’s been wasted. Meeting all the criteria, and more, for the role you are applying for and still not getting a reply is irksome. You may find yourself asking “Why is nobody interested?”

In many instances this may be due to discrimination on the grounds of age. But this is no time for sour grapes. A pile of rejection letters on the mat when you get home is dispiriting but you need to keep a positive attitude and move on.

Get legal work experience

As we’ve said before, most of you will be employed and may have families. It would be a mistake to consider that this means you should not apply for vacation schemes or mini-pupilages. A growing number of trainees are recruited straight out of vacation schemes. Vacation schemes and mini-pupilages are the ideal way to showcase yourself to potential firms and chambers. Therefore it would be foolish not to try to get this kind of work experience, and there are no two ways about it, if it’s a choice between a family holiday in the sun or a vacation scheme or mini-pupilage then the latter should always be your choice.

Getting onto vacation schemes and mini-pupilages or onto graduate recruitment pathways leading to a training contract or pupilage is spectacularly hard for most aspiring lawyers and it will be even more so for you. This should not stop you from applying. It can certainly be true that a more mature applicant will perform better on a vacation scheme or mini-pupilage, for the simple reason that you already have real-life work experience. This is an excellent chance to showcase your skills and get an invaluable insight into the legal world. To not even apply for them is frankly suicidal to your chances.

If you can’t get a formal vacation scheme or mini-pupilage what do you do? You have probably knocked around a bit in your professional life to date and you may well know solicitors, partners, barristers, magistrates, judges or anyone connected to a firm, chambers or the Courts. If not you may have an acquaintance who is in a legal role. Use any contacts you have and ask them if you can do informal work experience or shadowing. Now is not the time to be shy. You never know when you may be interviewed by someone who knows this person and you will be able to talk knowledgeably about what they do.

Market your brand

It’s true that the competition is stiffer than it used to be and in times like these we’re all looking for an edge, an angle, something that sets us apart from the rest of the herd. Even in the current climate where training contracts and pupillages are as rare as hen’s teeth you will have an edge over many of your contemporaries. There are law firms and chambers out there who are looking for people with the skills that you possess.

So, sit down with a cup of tea and dredge through your past experiences for anything that could be useful. Identify the skills and experience you already possess from your working life to date that would make you a good lawyer. You may be surprised by just how many you think of.

Here are just a few thoughts to get you going:

COMMUNICATION SKILLS: Being a mature applicant can be a massive advantage for some firms or chambers because the breadth of your experience means that you can be put in front of clients, both individuals and businesses and communicate with them effectively. Once you become a mature trainee or pupil you will find that often clients take you more seriously and probably assume that you know more than you actually do. You will have used communication skills. There will have been times where you have had to get ideas across effectively, be persuasive, and be clear and unambiguous. These skill is an absolute must for a solicitor, and are very highly prized.

NEGOTIATION: What solicitor will not have to negotiate effectively on behalf of their client at some point? Barristers are always sounding out opposing counsel in order to settle before the trial or hearing, for instance. You will have been in situations where you have had to sound out a client or potential client, make a deal, or communicate in a commercial context. In short, you will have negotiation skills that are transferable.

COMMERCIAL AWARENESS: Maybe you have run your own business. That involves marketing, negotiating contracts, accounts, forward planning, identifying alternative work, diversifying and constant appraisal of the market among so many other things. Maybe you’ve been employed but you’ve had involvement in management, recruitment, marketing or accounts. No matter what business you’ve been in you will have become aware of the risks to that business and what the key issues are. Commercial awareness for a lawyer is simply understanding what the risks to your client’s business are and how best to manage them.

TEAM WORK: This is an area where you should have a huge advantage over an undergraduate. It’s all very good being captain of a hockey team, but that is nothing compared to working with others in a commercial environment where there has been an impossible deadline or target to meet and you have played an integral part within a team to achieve it while also integrating yourself successfully and recognising your strengths and weaknesses and those of others. You will have done this. Write down two examples now!

NETWORKING: Law firms and chambers are looking for people who can generate and develop useful contacts in order to bring in work. Maybe you’ve been self-employed and had to make contacts and build relationships? Perhaps you’ve worked in sales or marketing or for a company where you have had to network and work on maintaining good client and customer relationships. Write down what you have done and you may come to realise that over time you’ve developed some real networking skills.

PROBLEM SOLVING: You will have the experience and the maturity to know what you can and cannot do and will be able to deal effectively with matters as they arise, knowing when help is needed. It doesn’t matter what kind of work you have done, you will have had to solve problems.

TIME MANAGEMENT: Something that you will be able to bring to any legal role very early on is your experience of time and file management and the ability to proactively deal with matters. Compare and contrast this with an undergraduate who struggles to get essays in on time. There’s only one winner isn’t there?

Essentially, it doesn’t matter what your past experience is. There are skills that you will have acquired that will put you in good stead in getting a training contract or pupilage. And furthermore the breadth and range of experiences you have will be far superior to any callow undergraduate! So make yourself a cup of tea, put your thinking cap on and see what you can come up with. I’m expecting you to breeze though any competency based interviews that come your way!

Network

You need to understand the market and how law firms and chambers operate. A GDL followed by the LPC or BPTC will teach you next to nothing about the legal market place and all its idiosyncrasies.

You need to devote all the time you can to learn about how the legal market place works and how firms and chambers are run. You will not “pick this up” on a GDL or the LPC/BPTC so make sure that you devour the legal press every week. Interrogate anyone and everyone you know who works in any kind of legal role.

Attend all the free law seminars and meetings on offer and introduce yourself to people. Ask lots of questions and note down names afterwards if you don’t get a business card.

Use linkedIn, and any other professional networking tool you can find.

A thorough understanding of how law firms and chambers make money is absolutely invaluable when you get to interviews.

Have a Plan B, and C and D…..

You may have so much work experience that editing your CV down to two pages is a real challenge. You may have done pro bono, been involved in the JLD, have a 2:1 or a first, and great marks on the LPC/BPTC. You may still be getting next to nowhere.

Perhaps you’ve made it to the final stages of recruitment only to fall at the last hurdle. If so you may have to start again from scratch and look at all your options. Go through all your contacts again. Make another push.

Look at alternative pathways into law. Consider firms or sets that up to now have been under your radar. Consider moving to another part of the country.

Sometimes there is an element of timing involved. Doors that were once firmly shut may now be slightly ajar. Opportunities or openings may be there that weren’t there before. If you get invited in “for a chat” be ready to do your pitch. All the spadework that has gone in before will be crucial. Your referees may already have been approached, so whatever you do, make sure that when you do work experience that you work really hard and show plenty of initiative. If you do nothing else, make sure that whatever references you get will be great.

Is it worth doing some old fashioned leg work and putting yourself about? It can be. Don’t forget that networking is important. When you get to interview you will be able to show knowledge of the local legal market. Work experience enables you to talk about work you have done with solicitors or barristers that your interviewer knows. Sometimes, eventually, making contacts and knocking on doors can lead to an opportunity that makes all the difference.

Not all work

We’ve been stressing just how hard it can be to make the change to law, and that’s especially true for the mature career changer. But don’t neglect your family and social life. If you do, you’ll start to come across as a bit of a law automaton with nothing else to talk about. And nobody wants to work with one of those!

Top tips on successfully surviving the career change to law:

Be yourself. Know why you want to be a lawyer and be able to explain it to someone else; but don’t lose touch with who you are as a human being!

Be proactive – sometimes you’ll need to be creative when looking for openings and networking will help.

Don’t get bitter or discouraged. Graduate recruitment in chambers and at law firms is simply not designed with you in mind; just accept it, and keep going.

Get involved in the Junior Lawyers Division and any other organisation where there are support, advice and networking opportunities.

Do not be put off simply because you may be more mature than most other aspiring lawyers.

Play to your strengths. Identify what skills you already possess that would make you a great lawyer.

A lot of time and effort goes into applications for training contracts and pupilage. If you don’t them properly, you’ll end up in the rejection pile. Don’t wait for deadlines – do them early. Set a whole day aside for each one.

No response or a rejection? After the intense disappointment, just resolve to make the next application stronger, the next interview better and the next assessments absolutely perfect.

Remember, there are opportunities out there for more experienced applicants.

The legal landscape is changing and opportunities will arise for those with experience of retail, construction, leisure, healthcare, civil service, in fact all the areas the more mature applicant has knowledge of.

You have accumulated skills over many years that some lawyers never fully acquire. You will really understand customer care, know how to motivate yourself and others, understand the commercial world and how it works. You may have run your own successful businesses. You are offering your talents to the legal profession at just the same time as the legal profession is opening up to new structures, greater commercial focus and better client care.

Market your brand well and you could join the revolution.

Mark Pentecost is 51 years old and in the first year of his training contract.

A New Perspective

I was very privileged to be on one of the boats taking part in the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee River Pageant at the beginning of June and one of the things that occurred to me was that, despite having lived most of my life in and around London, I’d never been on the Thames before. I know London extremely well but seeing it from the viewpoint of the river itself, all the way from Hammersmith to Greenwich, as I did that day, really opened my eyes to a new aspect of that wonderful old city.
This has been a year of new perspectives for me. In January I started a training contract at a small high street firm of solicitors, and I’m now nearly six months into it doing general practice. However, I’m not a typical trainee, in that I turned 51 in February and I have over 30 years of work experience in a number of different fields, from the entertainment business to cancer research and from selling shirts and ties to managing a business.
It’s been a challenge adapting to working at a law firm but not necessarily in the way you might imagine. For instance, I’m older than both partners at my firm but this has not been an issue. I’ve taken a new direction in my professional life and after 4 years on the CPE and LPC I am quite used to learning new things on a daily basis. Therefore I have no problems being supervised by younger people because they have knowledge and experience that I am keen to acquire as quickly as possible. Working relationships with colleagues have been great.
I’ve had to be careful, though, not to get despondent when I don’t get a piece of drafting right first time. I’ve realised that although my bosses here are really good and supportive I’m much harder on myself and if I meet anyone that I used to manage in the past, then maybe I owe them an apology. I didn’t realise what a hard boss I was!
I think the main challenge I’ve faced is adapting to a different pace, having a much smaller work load than I’m used to, and picking up different ways of working. My firm have been introducing me to some very varied and interesting work but at a pace where I have not been overwhelmed and this has given me time to develop and reflect on my progress.
Being a mature applicant was seen as an advantage when I applied here because the breadth of my experience meant that I could be put in front of clients, both individuals and businesses and communicate with them effectively. Being a mature trainee has meant that clients take me seriously and probably assume that I know more than I do, but I have the experience and the maturity to know what I can and cannot do and am able to deal effectively with matters as they arise, knowing when I need help.
Something that I have brought to the role early on is my experience of time and file management and proactively dealing with matters. My billing and closing of file rate of some of the old matters of my predecessor has been, although I say it myself, impressive.
So, if you are looking to change careers, and you are looking at law then do not be put off simply because you may be more mature than most other aspiring lawyers. Even in the current climate where training contracts and pupilages are as rare as hen’s teeth you still have an edge over many of your contemporaries. There are firms out there who will be grateful that they would not need to constantly hold your hand and spoon feed you.
If the time is right for you then try it. Get off the streets and onto the river. It’ll change the way you see things.

Poker Faced Regulators

On Tuesday, I was speaking at a seminar on access to the legal profession, and reforming legal education and training, hosted by Westminster Legal Policy Forum. The venue was the Hall of India and Pakistan at Over-Seas House near Piccadilly. The rather old fashioned setting harking back to a colonial past blended with all the trappings of a business conference in the 21st Century, seemed an appropriate setting for a discussion about how the deeply conservative legal professions will address the modern world post-Legal Services Act by tackling the issue of legal education and training.

Regulation diversity and competitiveness were the key themes throughout the morning, and proceedings started with an informative update from Professor Julian Webb on the Legal Education & Training Review (LETR). The LETR is a joint project of the Bar Standards Board (BSB), the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) and ILEX Professional Standards (IPS), who were all well represented at the seminar. It constitutes a fundamental, evidence-based review of education and training requirements across regulated and non-regulated legal services in England and Wales. The legal services sector is experiencing an unprecedented degree of change. LETR is required to ensure that the future system of legal education and training will be effective and efficient in preparing legal service providers to meet the needs of consumers. Final recommendations will be made in December 2012. It will be for each regulator subsequently to set out a process for addressing recommendations in the report, and to consult formally on any proposed changes

Professor Webb emphasised that the fundamental remit of the study is to determine how regulation of legal education and training can best be achieved while still remaining proportionate. The whole project is a huge undertaking in terms of scope and to date responses to it have been reflecting largely vested interests, as is only to be expected. He was clearly disappointed that to date there was little in the way of an alternative vision from any quarter. However, the second discussion paper is now published and an extensive programme of research is underway, eliciting responses from a full range of stakeholders. Consultation is being carried out extensively through the Consultation Steering Panel, and more widely via research and publications, with focus groups and an online survey feeding into the process, the team is now getting much busier.

So, as the academics and researchers working on the LETR are beavering away, how are the core regulators gearing up in preparation, what are their priorities? We were able to have the benefit of presentations from Dr Valerie Shrimplin head of Education Standards at the BSB, Samantha Barrass Executive Director (Education and Training, Supervision Risk and International Affairs) at the SRA and Ian Watson, Chief Executive Officer of IPS. To be completely honest I didn’t make many notes during these three presentations as there was not much in the way of real substance; cards being held fairly tightly to chests throughout.

All three indicated that they will give the LETR findings careful consideration. There was much talk of fitness for purpose, the needs of the “consumer” (what is wrong with “client”?) diversity and opportunity. One distinguished figure sitting next to me remarked that they were fed up with hearing the same platitudes over and over again.

The only time I paid much attention was when Samantha Barrass spent a significant amount of her allotted time trying to justify the SRA decision last week to abolish the minimum salary. Her assertion that keeping the minimum salary could actually result in barriers to entry and diversity in the profession raised a few eyebrows including my own. It seemed strange that she felt the need to talk about this issue now the decision had been made, when the SRA were so reluctant to discuss it beforehand.

How much weight will the SRA give to the findings of the LETR when making their decisions about regulation of legal training for solicitors in the future? A clue was in Barrass’ mention of more flexible degrees including Northumbria’s five-year degree incorporating the Qualifying Law Degree, LPC and Training Contract all in one. She was keen to trumpet the success of the SRA work based learning pilot scheme as a way to increase diversity and access to the profession. We were told that we’ll know more about the work based learning pilot findings after their Education and Training Committee meeting in June. I suspect that the SRA have already decided that work based learning is the future and if their approach when consulting on the minimum salary is anything to go by then this is the route they will be taking irrespective of what the LETR says.

Getting to Grips

Three and a half months into the training contract and it’s been a well paced gentle introduction into various areas of high street practice with plenty of client contract. My firm is going through Lexcel accreditation at the moment which has helped me enormously.

What I’m beginning to appreciate more and more is that I have time to take stock and reflect on my training and development which is not a luxury I’ve ever enjoyed elsewhere.

Getting My Training Contract was ‘Easy’ says Northernmost trainee

Getting my training contract was easy? Let me qualify that. Getting onto vacation schemes or onto graduate recruitment pathways leading to a training contract is spectacularly hard for most aspiring lawyers and I was no exception. Despite having so much work experience that editing my CV down to two pages was a real challenge, having done pro bono, been involved in the JLD at national level, having a 2:1, and great marks on my LPC I was getting next to nowhere.
In 2010 I made it to the final stages at two major law firms, only to fall at the last hurdle. In 2011, I didn’t get anywhere at all. So in September last year I decided to start again from scratch and look at all my options. I had some contacts among the local high street firms but none of them had been recruiting for years. I decided to make another push.
I made a bit of a nuisance of myself but hopefully not too much as I started phoning around, being fobbed off, calling into reception and waiting to talk to the partner responsible for recruitment, and when it wasn’t possible sending emails. And here’s where my luck turned and where my persistence paid off.
One firm that I emailed (where I didn’t actually have any contacts) replied. “We don’t have anything for you”, they said, “but come in for a chat”. So in I went after having prepared myself to talk about all my unique selling points and skill set. I don’t think I’d ever been quite so prepared for interview.
And here is where the element of timing plays its part. My original email had arrived in the senior partner’s inbox in the same month that their assistant had announced he was leaving. When I pitched up, all ready to do my pitch, the carpet was rather pulled from under my feet at the very start. Even before I managed to park my behind on the chair I was asked why nobody had snapped me up already. I admitted that it was a bit of a mystery, but that these were competitive times. Then fairly early on the topics of notice periods and expected salary arose and it became clear that the hard sell would not be needed. Three days later I was offered a training contract, and I am now the most Northerly trainee in England and Wales.
So yes, getting my particular training contract was easy. An email with a CV attached and an easy interview that was more of an informal chat, and that was it. However it was all the spadework that went in before that was crucial. My referees had been approached and I later found out from them that they had both put in glowing references. I was really glad that, when I had worked with them, I worked really hard and showed plenty of initiative. If you do nothing else, make sure that whatever references you get will be great.
So, is it worth doing some old fashioned leg work and putting yourself about? It can be. Networking is important. When I got to interview I was able to talk about work I had done with solicitors that my interviewer knew, and I knew the local legal market. Sometimes, eventually, making contacts and knocking on doors can lead to an opportunity that makes all the difference.
Have you hit a brick wall? Step back and take a good look, there may be a few doors in the wall. Knock on them, what have you got to lose?

The Earth Shook: Week one on my training contract

The Earth Shook: Week one on my training contract
30 January 2012

There were tremors felt across the county causing our offices to shake violently during the first full week of my training contract. The British Geological Survey put it down to a “sonic event” and said it was not related to an earthquake. I’m not so sure.

This was probably the most exciting part the week for me but the rest of the week was pretty exciting too. In fact, it’s been a bit of a culture shock for me after the kind of work I’ve done before.

I feel very privileged to be training at a small high street firm in general practice. The work is very varied and always interesting. But after being used to working in an open plan environment, having my very own office feels weird. It’s odd working in a room on my own and not having the constant interaction with colleagues that you get with an open plan office. I feel strange being able to walk into other people’s offices even when the door is closed. I’ve been keeping mine open most of the time, as to be quite frank, I feel a bit lonely!

Previously, doing defended personal injury there has been a huge caseload and very high workloads from day one. Here, the volume of work is not very high yet but I’m sure it will start to creep upwards. This is reflected in the fact that the phone rarely rings yet. I’m making the most of this lull to learn about internal procedures in the office manual.

So far there’s been a great variety of work. I’ve been involved in: employment, debt, conveyancing, land disputes, separation agreements, personal injury and intellectual property. However there has also been a lot of reviewing of old files and chasing up outstanding bills.

Not exactly earth shattering but not bad for week one!

Never Too Late For Law

I am 50 years old and started my training contract on 5th January 2012. Four years ago I would certainly have benefitted from an event like the recent Lawyer 2B’s ’Not Too Late For Law’ as I was about to start my CPE. I would like to tell you briefly about how have I got to where I am now and what were the obstacles that I have faced as a mature applicant.
Very briefly, my background is that I am an ex-professional actor who moved into insurance when I finally decided to settle down a bit. In recent times I have done 7 years of defended PI work and been a claims handler, auditor and manager. Following redundancy I did some work for a solicitor friend and quickly realised that law was what I really wanted to be involved in. It’s true, I’m a late developer.

Here are just some of the obstacles I have encountered:

The first obstacle was time. As a student in my mid-40s time was a critical factor, and I discovered quickly that if I wanted to achieve anything in a reasonable timeframe I needed to address early the decision about where I was going. At the half-way point of the 2 year CPE I hadn’t yet decided whether I wanted to be a solicitor or a barrister. As a result I hadn’t started applying for anything and I was to find later that this put me at a massive disadvantage against undergraduates who had a clearer idea of what they wanted and had already started the application process. I can’t stress enough that as an older student you do not have time to deliberate. Make a decision. Read the legal press, speak to tutors and professionals, look at your skill set and decide where you would be best suited, but don’t neglect to make a cold hard economical decision based on your chances of success. Make a decision and make it early. Don’t rely on your law school careers service, even if they are good they will not be much help to you until you know where you’re going.

The next obstacle was adapting to the law itself. Older applicants often study part-time as they still need to earn a living and I was no exception. I was not alone in struggling to adapt to law after graduating in another discipline. Despite what I’ve often been told, a drama and religious studies degree does not help at all if what you want to be is a lawyer. The change to law is a challenge. Lawyers do not think like normal people, and the quicker you cast away all your analytical skills and start again, the better. I made the most of opportunities to meet tutors one on one and go over answers to legal problems I had written. Eventually the coin dropped, and I progressed rapidly.

Understanding the market and how law firms operate was another obstacle. The CPE followed by a part-time LPC did give me 4 years in which to learn about the legal market place and all its idiosyncrasies. I needed all of that time. I realised very early on that I knew next to nothing about how the legal market place works or how law firms are run. This is not something you “pick up” on a GDL/ CPE or the LPC so I devoured the legal press every week and interrogated anyone and everyone I knew who worked at a law firm. A thorough understanding of how law firms make money was invaluable when I got to interviews.

The final obstacle that I will look at now is the application process itself. This is a bit of a thorny issue as some applicants are certainly at a disadvantage due to their age, despite the protection offered by anti-discrimination legislation. I have no doubt that some firms are unwilling to take older applicants. It would be very difficult to prove discrimination even if you could be sure you were being discriminated against. I’m confident that for the majority of firms, discrimination on the grounds of age is not an issue, but there’s no getting away from the fact that most graduate recruitment application processes are not designed with the mature applicant in mind. If you have 20 or 30 years of work experience, just try distilling examples of when you have shown leadership qualities into 50 or 100 words!

Finally I would say that focus and a sense of urgency is essential if you want to start a legal career as a mature person. As an older applicant there are a number of questions that you should consider and re-consider regularly, including:

· What am I doing?

· Why am I doing it?

· Where am I going?

· Why do I want to get there?

· And most importantly; how am I going to get there?

I start my training contract soon and I’ll be blogging again about how I get on.

Mark Pentecost is on the executive committee of the JLD and is the student representative.

Trainee solicitor

I am 50 years old and about to start my training contract in January 2012. I would certainly have benefitted from an event like Lawyer 2B’s ’Not Too Late For Law’ just over four years ago as I was about to start my CPE. I would like to tell you briefly about how have I got to where I am now and what were the obstacles that I have faced as a mature applicant.

Very briefly, my background is that I am an ex-professional actor who moved into insurance when I finally decided to settle down a bit. In recent times I have done 7 years of defended PI work and been a claims handler, auditor and manager. Following redundancy I did some work for a solicitor friend and quickly realised that law was what I really wanted to be involved in. It’s true, I’m a late developer.

Here are just some of the main obstacles that I have experienced as a mature applicant:

The first obstacle was time. As a student in my mid-40s time was a critical factor, and I discovered quickly that if I wanted to achieve anything in a reasonable timeframe I needed to address early the decision about where I was going. At the half-way point of the 2 year CPE I hadn’t yet decided whether I wanted to be a solicitor or a barrister. As a result I hadn’t started applying for anything and I was to find later that this put me at a massive disadvantage against undergraduates who had a clearer idea of what they wanted and had already started the application process. I can’t stress enough that as an older student you do not have time to deliberate. Make a decision. Read the legal press, speak to tutors and professionals, look at your skill set and decide where you would be best suited, but don’t neglect to make a cold hard economical decision based on your chances of success. Make a decision and make it early. Don’t rely on your law school careers service, even if they are good they will not be much help to you until you know where you’re going.

The next obstacle was adapting to the law itself. Older applicants often study part-time as they still need to earn a living and I was no exception. I was not alone in struggling to adapt to law after graduating in another discipline. Despite what I’ve often been told, a drama and religious studies degree does not help at all if what you want to be is a lawyer. The change to law is a challenge. Lawyers do not think like normal people, and the quicker you realise that you must cast away all your analytical skills and start again, the better. I made the most of opportunities to meet tutors one on one and go over answers to legal problems I had written. Eventually the coin dropped, and I progressed rapidly.

Understanding the market and how law firms operate was another obstacle. The CPE followed by a part-time LPC did give me 4 years in which to learn about the legal market place and all its idiosyncrasies. I needed all of that time. I realised very early on that I knew next to nothing about how the legal market place works or how law firms are run. This is not something you “pick up” on a GDL/ CPE or the LPC so I devoured the legal press every week and interrogated anyone and everyone I knew who worked at a law firm. A thorough understanding of how law firms make money was invaluable when I got to interviews.

The final obstacle that I will look at now is the application process itself. This is a bit of a thorny issue as some applicants are certainly at a disadvantage due to their age, despite the protection offered by anti-discrimination legislation. I have no doubt that some firms are unwilling to take older applicants. It would be very difficult to prove discrimination even if you could be sure you were being discriminated against. I’m confident that for the majority of firms positive discrimination on the grounds of age is not an issue, but there’s no getting away from the fact that most graduate recruitment application processes are not designed with the mature applicant in mind. If you have 20 or 30 years of work experience, just try distilling examples of when you have shown leadership qualities into 50 or 100 words!

Finally I would say that focus and a sense of urgency is essential if you want to start a legal career as a mature person. As an older applicant there are a number of questions that you should consider and re-consider regularly, including:

· What am I doing?

· Why am I doing it?

· Where am I going?

· Why do I want to get there?

· And most importantly; how am I going to get there?

I start my training contract soon and I’ll be blogging again about how I get on.

Mark Pentecost is on the executive committee of the JLD and is the student representative.

Finally!

The last few months have been hell. Every single training contract application has either come back as a rejection or simply not been acknowledged. Admittedly the fact that I have confined my search to Newcastle upon Tyne and the North East has been a severely limiting factor. In a good year there are about 80 to 100 training contracts on offer in the area. This has not been a good year.

Hours of research and preparation and time wasted drafting answers to pointless questions on firms’ own application forms is galling. Meeting all the criteria, and more, for the firm you are applying for and still not getting a reply is irksome. I have work experience with 6 or 7 law firms in a range of practice areas, over 7 years’ PI experience, pro bono experience, involvement at the Law Society on the national committee of the JLD, not to mention a raft of commercial and business experience. Why is nobody interested?

I’m sorry to say that in many instances this is probably due to discrimination on the grounds of age. What else could it be when younger applicants with fewer skills, similar qualifications and less legal work experience than me get an interview and I don’t?

Anyway, this is not the time for sour grapes as I finally have a training contract to commence in January 2012 and I’m as happy as can be. Back in August I broke my ankle rather badly. At that time the number of applications that had not yet been rejected was down to zero. I was stuck at home and took stock. When I first started looking for a training contract about four years ago I started looking at local high street firms. I’ve been in contact with them since on and off but as is the nature of their businesses, hardly any TCs ever come up.

I decided to go back to the beginning and started to hawk myself around the local firms again and due to an astonishing piece of luck, contacted one of them just before their assistant solicitor announced he was leaving. The next thing I knew I was contacted to say that they didn’t have anything but would I come in for a chat? I did, and three days later was offered a training contract.

So now, instead of being at a large commercial firm being worked like a legal dog, I will now have my own office and will leave at 5.15 each day. Rather than doing six months in a seat and moving on just as I get the hang of things, I’ll be doing a number of areas of law at once and will be able to develop over time.

So everything works out for the best in the end. And as for all those firms who thought that my hours of effort did not warrant a reply I have this to say: “See ya, suckers, your loss!”