Career advice required – Law – I have never got off the ground - Long post

Nicki

matttye wrote: »

Such a defeatist attitude on this forum... poor show.

You can do whatever you set your mind to.

Not as a lawyer. You can't just set up a business on your own with a law degree and LPC. You need a training contract with a firm and then to be employed by a firm for a minimum of I think a further 3 years, and even then the insurance premiums as a sole practitioner are huge. So unless the OP can find a way to get a law firm to employ her after all this time, a law career is out.

matttye

Nicki wrote: »

Not as a lawyer. You can't just set up a business on your own with a law degree and LPC. You need a training contract with a firm and then to be employed by a firm for a minimum of I think a further 3 years, and even then the insurance premiums as a sole practitioner are huge. So unless the OP can find a way to get a law firm to employ her after all this time, a law career is out.

The OP could repeat the degree and repeat the LPC, making them both current.

Not suggesting that's a good idea, just saying that it could be done.

Are you seriously suggesting it's impossible for the OP to become a lawyer?

sangie595

matttye wrote: »

The OP could repeat the degree and repeat the LPC, making them both current.

Not suggesting that's a good idea, just saying that it could be done.

Are you seriously suggesting it's impossible for the OP to become a lawyer?

And then they would get the opportunity to explain why they had to do the qualifications twice and how that would make them a first class candidate, compared to those hundreds of bright young things with better qualifications that they passed first time -- many of whom will also never get to be lawyers - who are forming a line around the block for the same opportunities.

Nothing at all wrong with dreaming. Sometimes you make it. Most of the time you get reality, and it isn't the dream. So you learn to accept that, move on and do something else well, or you spend your life regretting what should have been and end up missing what could have been.

Nicki

OP hasn't suggested that she even remotely has the money to do that! What are tuition fees these days? About 7k a year? For a three year degree and a one year LPC. So £28k even without living costs and the loss of income during that period and she will be at least mid forties by the time she has finished. The kind of training contract she would then get with her cv as stated would pay around £12k for 2 years and then she'd be on maybe £20k for the next few years as a newly qualified and very junior solicitor in a high street provincial firm. Would she even pay back the costs of redoing her qualifications over the whole of her remaining working years once you take living expenses into account?

matttye

I left school with no GCSE's (didn't like a classroom environment; prefer learning what I want to learn and at my own pace). Used to be really socially anxious and I actually turned down a job offer from a place where I did work experience for about 6 months because I was too scared to go on the telephone.

I'm now an accredited police station rep and trainee legal executive, having passed my first five units; two with distinction, one pass and two others that are simply provisional passes until get they remarked in January.

Not saying I'm the most successful person in the world but I'm just saying it's possible if you set your mind to it.

Telling someone they can't do something is rubbish.

sangie595

matttye wrote: »

I left school with no GCSE's (didn't like a classroom environment; prefer learning what I want to learn and at my own pace). Used to be really socially anxious and I actually turned down a job offer from a place where I did work experience for about 6 months because I was too scared to go on the telephone.

I'm now an accredited police station rep and trainee legal executive, having passed my first five units; two with distinction, one pass and two others that are simply provisional passes until get they remarked in January.

Not saying I'm the most successful person in the world but I'm just saying it's possible if you set your mind to it.

Telling someone they can't do something is rubbish.

And that is great. But I assume you didn't let 12 years go past between passing your exams and using them? It isn't about why 12 years passed or whether it was a good reason or a bad one. It's simply a fact.

And sometimes people are actually right when they tell you that you are highly unlikely to ever do something. Nobody is saying that the OP can't do anything - but the chances of them doing what they want, desperate to do it or not, are simply really really bad. But there are opportunities to do something else really really well - if they set their mind to it. So if they are, as in this case, entry level admin - how do they get the next rung up the ladder and the one after that? They can spend an entire life chasing what isn't going to happen at the expense of what they actually really could have. There are a lot of well paid jobs in "admin" if you apply yourself and prove yourself. But the OP won't see those opportunities passing them by because they are looking somewhere else as they pass.

matttye

sangie595 wrote: »

And that is great. But I assume you didn't let 12 years go past between passing your exams and using them? It isn't about why 12 years passed or whether it was a good reason or a bad one. It's simply a fact.

And sometimes people are actually right when they tell you that you are highly unlikely to ever do something. Nobody is saying that the OP can't do anything - but the chances of them doing what they want, desperate to do it or not, are simply really really bad. But there are opportunities to do something else really really well - if they set their mind to it. So if they are, as in this case, entry level admin - how do they get the next rung up the ladder and the one after that? They can spend an entire life chasing what isn't going to happen at the expense of what they actually really could have. There are a lot of well paid jobs in "admin" if you apply yourself and prove yourself. But the OP won't see those opportunities passing them by because they are looking somewhere else as they pass.

I'd rather try to do what I want and fail than not bother trying. The OP still wants to be a lawyer so should strive to do that.

The OP could retrain as a legal executive which is significantly cheaper and can be done as part-time, distance learning study. Once a qualified legal executive, you can do extra units (and the LPC) and convert to be a solicitor if desired, but for the most part legal executives can do what solicitors can do these days so many don't bother.

The entire cost of training to be a legal executive is around £8k and that's spread over 4 years...easily affordable. I'm funding my own studies.

I actually think an employer would be impressed in a roundabout way with someone who has the grit and determination to qualify despite a few roadblocks along the way.

Nicki

matttye wrote: »

I'd rather try to do what I want and fail than not bother trying. The OP still wants to be a lawyer so should strive to do that.

The OP could retrain as a legal executive which is significantly cheaper and can be done as part-time, distance learning study. Once a qualified legal executive, you can do extra units (and the LPC) and convert to be a solicitor if desired, but for the most part legal executives can do what solicitors can do these days so many don't bother.

The entire cost of training to be a legal executive is around £8k and that's spread over 4 years...easily affordable. I'm funding my own studies.

I actually think an employer would be impressed in a roundabout way with someone who has the grit and determination to qualify despite a few roadblocks along the way.

OP has already investigated this and discovered she can't go down this route because she already has the LPC (see the end of post 9 which is quite long)

matttye

Nicki wrote: »

OP has already investigated this and discovered she can't go down this route because she already has the LPC (see the end of post 9 which is quite long)

The OP was badly advised:

Listed Exemptions

Approved list of Exemptions from 1 September 2014

If you have completed one of the qualifications listed in the CILEx Exemptions table below, you should use the Listed Exemption Form to apply for exemption. CILEx will confirm eligibility for an exemption listed on the Exemptions Table within 10 working days. Please note that these timescales are subject to receiving complete applications and may change according to the complexity of applications and the volume received at peak application times.

For those wishing to become a graduate member of CILEx or who wish to undertake the Graduate Fast Track Diploma please note the following:



Legal Practice Course (LPC)/Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC)

If you have completed a Legal Practice Course (LPC) or the Bar Professional Training Course (BPTC) (formerly the Bar Vocational Course BVC) you can apply for full exemption from CILEx qualifications and for CILEx graduate membership. For further details please contact our Membership Department:

http://www.cilex.org.uk/study/exemptions/listed_exemptions.aspx

Nothing in the qualification rules would prevent an LPC graduate from retraining entirely either.

FBaby

What it comes down to is how much effort and investment OP is prepared to put in for a small chance of success. Say she has 5% chance of getting where she wants to be but for that chance, she will need to put 95% efforts, is this something she is prepared to do.

In my mid 30's, I seriously consider going to medical school. It sounded mad, but I had researched and discovered that it wasn't impossible at all. However, when I looked at what it would mean financially, in regards to the sacrifices I would have had to make as a mum, the uncertainty of success, and, my biggest concern, that after everything I would discover that being a doctor wasn't what I really wanted to do (as a number of them end up realising), I just wasn't prepared to take the chance.

Maybe if I did, I would be a successful and happy doctor now, but I had to make a decision then and go with it. As it is, I am very happy with the turn my life took since then, so have no regrets.

OP, you need to make a decision now as to whether you want to pursue that dream and how much time you are giving yourself to succeed. If you decide to take the route of going for it, then you need to put 100% efforts into it every day. No point in wanting it badly, but then getting on with your life and only dedicating time and efforts to it there and then. The only way you'll get there is if you dedicate everything into it. Are you prepared to do that and accept that despite this, it might not get you there in the end?