Legal secretary without experience- Jobs anywhere?

sanita

Hello all!
Thanks for reading this tread
At the moment I am a staying home mum, my son has just turned 2. And now i feel that it is time to go back to work.
Unfortunately we live in a small town but i consider moving to London if i get a job there.
While my son was little I managed to complete the Legal Secretary training and obtained a diploma. I taught myself touch typing and shorthand but unfortunately I have no experience in the field but I have a great interest in Legal Studies. I have sent my CV everywhere, but nearly all employers want at least 6 month experience in the field. I fill that I am stuck at the dead end.
I know that it is not really good time to look for a job right now, but I don’t want just to sit at home and do nothing. If there are Legal Secretaries on this forum, could you please advise me how you found your first job? All advice would be greatly appreciated
Thank you

Maxjessdru

Hi Sanita

I am a legal secretary in London. My career path was a secretarial course at 16, following by two years in a retail bank. I then moved to administration (via a temp contract) at the Law Society (not technically legal secretary work but general secretarial/admin). I then applied for a legal secretary job via an open evening in the press (11 years ago now!) and have had my job since. I would, however, say that it may not be so easy at the minute to get a legal job - a lot of law firms are cutting back at present, both fee earning and secretarial. I would not worry about shorthand if I were you - most firms don't really use it anymore, its all audio typing. The main criteria for most law firms is fast, accurate typing along with very good spelling and grammar. I would suggest your best way in would be via temp or contract work if you can get it - that's how I first start in London. That way, you can prove your worth. Good luck!

sanita

Thank you for such a quick reply. I have got some admin experience (I worked at reception desk in the restaurant and did some secretarial work for the travel agy), but it was ages ago (around 2 years ago).
Could you do audio typing when you first applied for legal secretary job?
Where can I learn this skill?
What my typing speed should be to satisfy the requirements?
Could you tell me more about the role?
Sorry for so many questions, but you are the first actual genuine legal secretary i have met.!!

PasturesNew

Yes, temping would be your best way in. Then you'd get to see lots of different ways of doing things too. See different ways things are done.

It might be worthwhile compiling a list of your closest 20 law companies and phoning them to ask which job agencies they use when they need temps. Then make sure you get on the books of those agencies; that'll take a bit of the hit and miss out of selecting which ones to contact first.

Audio typing is p155 easy if you've already got the typing skills. You just type what you hear, the rest you know! So you just need the standard layout skills, spelling and grammar - and the ability to know when to correct what they're saying and when to type it exactly as it's been said.

I've done legal typing over the years, as a temp. It's no different to any other really. Just a few different words and the layouts and criteria for different types of documents that people in a "normal office" wouldn't ever encounter.

I remember at secretarial college typing legal documents as part of the syllabus and it was a full six carbon copies - and having to type dashes to the end of the lines so nothing could be inserted (manual typewriters).

I have just the standard Typewriting RSA I, RSA II, RSA III. I also did shorthand at 180wpm and I type at 105wpm. But those speeds are unusual.

Good luck!

hardwick

Hi Sanita - I worked as a legal sec for many years in London and I have taught the Ilex Legal Sec course at college... now that you have your diploma I think in view of the cutbacks in law firms it would probably be best if you could get a temp job as a way in... be aware though that they really want their pound of flesh and it's mostly audio typing all day long and they would probably be asking for 65/70 wpm typing. If you work in a large London law firm there will be very little client contact (mostly just answering the phone for your boss and taking messages). You'll be typing letters, memos, loads of attendance notes, bills and emails and probably doing some filing too. I've never worked anywhere that uses shorthand (that is a more time consuming way of working and as I said above they want their monies worth out of you!). Hopefully you'll find something you like - London is definitely the best bet, good luck with it.

sanita

Thank you all for your answers.Now i don't feel like being left in the dark.
My typing speed at the moment is around 40wpm, it has dropped because i don't type much. but i try to do some typing every day to increase it.
And to learn audiotyping - i try to type when listening to the radio, but not really successful - people on radio tend to talk really fast:)
I looked around my town and surroundings but there are not many legal firms over there, just 4 or 5.
Another question: what is the best way to organise childcare whilst temping?
does anyone has any experience in that?

LinasPilibaitisisbatman

Tbh your english doesnt seem all that great.

Its perfectly understandable but there are clear errors in places, think this will affect you I am afraid.

Solicitors will demand excellent grammar, and your posts suggest you can't deliver this

JoolzS

Hi Sanita,

I worked as a legal secretary for about twelve years before stopping about ten years ago. It does sound as though you will need to increase your typing speed. 40wpm is very slow for a legal secretary; you really need to be in the 60 to 70+ range. You will struggle to learn to audio type while listening to the radio because you can't stop it. Audio tapes that secretaries type from (and I believe there are now some digital options that have appeared since I last worked) are stopped and started via a foot-pedal.

As others have said, temping is probably going to be your best option. Unfortunately, you have picked a bad time to start looking for legal work as it appears that the work has really dried up. A year ago I was confident that if I needed to return to work I would get a job within a week or two, or temp work within a day or two. After looking at a few websites over the past few days, I realise it won't be so easy now even with my, admittedly out of date, experience.

So far as childcare is concerned, I have no experience with that. However, during the years that I worked I knew many, many temps who were able to work their job around their childcare. Some started at 8.30 a.m. and finished at 4.00 with half an hour for lunch. Others started at 9.30, worked through lunch, and then finished at 3.30. It may be different now, but usually the fee earners were just glad to get the work done and didn't really care when the temp was actually there. I used to like to start at 9.30 (it was easier for the bus) and then take a normal lunch, finish at the normal time, and claim fewer hours on my timesheet each week.

I have to also partially agree with the previous poster. If you do want to work in the legal field you will have to be a lot more precise with both your spelling and your grammar. Proofread everything you send, even if it's just a post to a message board. I realise by saying this that I will now have made at least one mistake in this post that I simply won't see before I hit "send" .

Good luck with your job search.

Julie

LittleVoice

Going to a temp agency is the best starting point. They are likely to pounce on the "legal secretary" content to your qualifications and happily send you to a legal firm or to work in the legal department of a company.

(I was once sent to a conveyancing job and the solicitor was told I had more than five years legal experience. The fact was I had two weeks' experience - in a temp position they had sent me to the previous month when I had no secretarial legal practice experience at all. To be honest I had related experience and high-level secretarial experience.)

A solicitors firm may be interested to know what your qualification is - some are better thought of than others.

What branch of the law are you interested in?

Best wishes

LV

Pitlanepiglet

I'm a fee earner in a law firm but I started as a temp secretary with no real experience. I had RSA I from school with a good typing speed (60 wpm plus) and 10 years of admin experience but no real secretarial experience. I went back to Uni to study law and got a temping job at the same time.

It is a bad time to be looking but some areas of a law firms will be busy and I'd imagine that agencies may be busier because firms don't want to hire permanent staff but will use temps.

Whereabouts are you in the country?

BTW I don't think your grammar etc. is too bad, I've seen a awful lot worse from our secretaries and especially from the youngsters. Spend some time revising basic grammar and word usage ie. their and there, principal and principle, affect and effect your and you're plus the plurals clients' etc. these are the obvious ones that catch people out.

You will need to work on your typing speed but speed comes with practice. Audio is very easy, I had NEVER done any audio when I first started but if you can hear, type and co-ordinate your feet then you'll be fine...blag your way through that one!

I really would think about talking to your local law firms, they will have an office manager or someone similar if you could get friendly with her she might be able to use you for holiday cover or just to cover short term peaks, it may be a good starting point. I'd do it in person rather than by letter though.

Good luck!

sanita

Hello! Thanks for response. I realise that sometimes I make mistakes it’s simply because English is not my first language.
Probably this job is a bit too difficult for the foreigner but I am willing to try. Also I have degree in law, but it is back from uni in my country and I can’t work here as a solicitor because legal systems are completely different. I live in Luton (Bedfordshire) and having looked at the local job advertisements for the last week there is nothing really interesting.
As I am to the profession I have no idea in what branch of law i am interested in. Criminal law seems interesting to me.
Also I would like to know – what is the fee earner?
What is bad with my English?- really want to know as i want to improve.


Now about childcare: Our local nursery is really good and is quite affordable but I still can’t afford to place my son there without having a job, I also found a crèche where I can put him for several hours a day- I use that in case I need to go to the interview.