Count your blessings! You will have a name on your CV to conjure with. You can move on after your training contract, or give it a couple of years in the City and then move. Law isn't incompatible with family life in the regions - we have three heads of department and a managing partner who all work part-time so they can manage their family committments. You might find it dull at the moment but that might just be your current seat - give it time and you may find a type of law you enjoy. There's also the chance to go in-house.
Again, a training contract that could have gone to another more deserving candidate. How many times are we going to see this ? However, we are where we are. Make sure you get a commercial law seat and then go in-house or public sector upon qualification. You can then obtain a balance, use your legal skills and maybe even make a difference.
You have come this far so stick it out at least until the end of your training contract. I found my training contract far better than my LPC (which stressed me out). If you aim is to move out of London afterwards, don't choose something too specialised (e.g. some of the finance roles) but instead something with a broader appeal. And if ultimately working in-house somewhere suits you then Employment is definitely the area to get into!
I think you should stop quoting Giles Coren. Accept you're going to be a solicitor. Accept it's not going to be the most exciting job in the world. The GDL is tedious. The LPC is tedious. Imagine doing a one-year history course that just involved learning facts or an English course that just involved learning the names of authors of books - no context, no analysis, no opinion. That would be tedious as well.
The practice of law is as interesting and rewarding as you want it to be. Finish your LPC. Start your training contract. Keep your eyes open, talk to existing trainees and try and find out what seats are interesting, challenging, enjoyable.
Make some choices. And live with them. When you qualify you will have a huge number of career options open to you - in London, in the regions and internationally.
Get on with the drudge; accept it's not going to be a bed of roses and after a few years you might find that you enjoy it and you're doing something useful.
I confess I wasn't fond of the GDL, LPC or training contract for that matter. But I enjoy it as an associate. There are tedious elements to any job, remember... and anything customer-facing will usually involve an annoying customer at some point (have you ever worked in a bar for example?) And my hours are reasonable enough to have decent relationships outside of work (they were worse as a trainee). So chin up, give it a go and if you hate it, move on. But I think it is worth bearing in mind that if you go into it expecting to hate it, you probably will.
Stick it out and complete your TC. I found the LPC as dull as ditchwater as well - it's a lot more fun when you have real matters and real people to deal with. Even if you really hate your TC, you can always switch to a TC at a provincial firm who will snap you up!
Where are you doing your LPC at?
I second the 2nd person who posted a comment - yet another TC could have gone to a more dedicated and focused individual. Not only that - don't clog up the in-house market if you ever reach PQE, as no one wants to work with a lawyer with such a bad and uncommitted attitude to the profession. Get real and smell the coffee!
Just to be clear - it's not that I dislike the law, its that I am concerned about the kind of work a large law firm does.
Can anyone tell me how easy it would be to change direction entirely to, say, a high quality criminal firm (eg. Kingsley Napley) or indeed other areas of law having trained at MC and had no direct experience of potentially either crime or litigation.
Thanks
Before you throw the towel in, try taking a weeks placement at a regional commercial law firm, an in-house legal department and a government department. They are very different places to work, bring different demands and different rewards. If you still don't like it, it is time to look outside the law. You shouldn't pick a career you are not interested in. Work will be a big part of your life for the next 30 years.
Why on earth are you wasting the MC firm's (and your own) time if you want to do criminal law? There is nothing more irritating to people without TCs (or people who had to work hard to get one) than the 'good on paper' people who do no research before applying, then complain that life as a lawyer is nothing like Ally McBeal or the baseless idyllic fantasies that have (but which a little research would have solved immediately).
My advice would be to qualify. Any job can be tedious as well as interesting at the same time. A career in the law is no exception. Once you are qualified you are in a much more powerful position to make decisions about the direction of your career - either stay in private practice because you had a seat in an area you enjoyed, go in-house, relocate to the regions, or give up law altogether to go into, for example, marketing (which I know a former colleague did once he qualified).
Judging from the responses above, looks like you picked the wrong profession to start having doubts about! Harsh though I think some of the comments above are (very supportive group of people, lawyers) it's not unusual to have doubts about a profession. But having got this far it would be a waste to throw in the towel at this point. As an ex-real person I can assure you there are always other options out there, but law is such a structured route that most people become very institionalised early on. Remember that there is more variety out there for experienced professionals than people with no experience. Give law a try - if it doesn't work out, move on. If it does, stick with it. As someone commented above, there are always areas of a job you don't like, but you have to get good at something to really appreciate it and that only comes with experience...
It's been said before but deserves to be said again - there are so many others who had researched their career who would jump at a chance to be in your position. There are far too many people studying law and walking into training contracts without having researched the industry...and then once they have taken the place of a more deserving candidate - and by this I mean someone who has made an informed, conscious decision - it seems this is when they start to ask the questions that should have been asked prior.
Very odd comments above - my life in the law is exactly like Ally McBeal, my inspiration for becoming a lawyer - we drink a lot of Starbucks, obsess about relationships all day, gossip to and about our colleagues, and generally hang out in one of two bars fairly close to the office after work on a Friday and whenever else there is something to celebrate. Our partners have a ton of personal quirks between them and there are a couple of stunners, and a secretary who gets the hots for every man who walks in! Plus we all have time to go home at the end of the day and have a life (which we can talk about endlessly once we get back to the office).
Don't listen to naysayers, law can be just as interesting as any other job. But it is that - a job. It is the quality of your colleagues and clients that make it enjoyable.
GDL and LPC are a waste of time - much like GCSEs - you need them, but they're no fun and once you have them no-one will ever ask about them again.
Get them under your belt and then you can get on with life.
MC firms are not all factories, some can even be fun - and with a credit crunch coming up the chances are you trainees won't be beasted as much as usual - make the most of your last year at college!
I definitely think that your question has highlighted a huge problem with the LPC and training contracts. I do not think that posters here should be criticising you for wondering whether you are making the right decision, I think that you should be commended for thinking this over seriously before you become private practice property. It is so easy for graduates to move straight to studying the LPC at a £5,000+ cost at lightning speed and without a second thought to reality. They then are criticised for finding themselves disillusioned with the practicalities of legal work. Let's face it, there is a huge dichotomy between giggling over racy criminal cases at university and filling out five hundred property searches in a pristine shining magic circle prison cell!
I think part of the solution would be to make vacation placements mandatory, at least then law school students could get some sort of idea as to what day-to-day legal work is like. I think you need to think really carefully about the person that you are and whether you want a career in law. In-house is an option for a better work/life balance, but if you don't like legal work then dressing it up in in-house finery will not change that fact. I speak from experience....
Good luck
Many unhelpful comments above.
I think it is totally unfair to label me as not having done my research. I did several vac schemes (though I admit they don't give a particularly ideal impression) and spoke to several lawyers in the City.
It's just now that my position has changed; I have recently married and no longer see the appeal of the City life and its hours.
And I did not suggest criminal litigation was what I actually wanted to do, I used it as an example merely to ask the question: quite how wide can you go if you decide to diversify your legal career?
The funny thing is, when I say i don't like the LPC, it's not so much the content (in fact I find the Companies Act stimulating academically) it's more the insight into seeing the lawyers job, ie filing out forms, that bothers me. The law itself is interesting, but since a lawyers job is one of utility, I fail to see how the academic interest will transfer over.
And it's unfair to simply say there are more deserving candidates out there; half the reason I was recruited into the MC - along with my friends - is that we are interesting, varied people as well as having excellent academic backgrounds. Therefore, with all our outside interests and interest in the world generally, where is the appeal to be taught how to essentially do one thing, over and over again, in the over-specialised private practice? What this has taught me is that the MC and everyone else should be employing hard workers with a leather arse and no interest in life, since they are the only types of people I see as being compatible with the kind of work they offer.
Anyone with a bit of spark - I like to think of me in this category - will move on once they realise the reality. And my defence is that there is only so much research you can do, and only so much you can predict you will feel in the future.
Mind you, there's also a huge dichotomy between giggling over racy criminal cases and getting shouted at by some ungrateful recidivist because you haven't brought any cigarettes to the holding cell. Just my view (with experience), but I think it's fair comment that working life at any law firm is quite hard to assess till you're actually there - so I go with the advice to stick it out and finish your TC.
With support like this, no wonder the profession has such a bad name.
This problem has a very simple solution. Quit. Allow this MC TC that is such a burden to you go to someone who'd kill to be in your position. Problem solved. Otherwise, suck it up and finish your TC. I'm not writing this to be mean, and I am certainly not bitter. (I also have an MC TC.) It's just that there are literally thousands of bright, capable people either losing their jobs or about to (including some of my friends) and other bright capable people still labouring without a TC.
I completely agree with you. I am a month into a TC with a certain criminal firm that you mentioned above. I enjoyed learning about the law on the GDL and LPC but I am bored to tears here and think that what I am doing is not worthwhile, interesting or inspirational. Life is too short - if you want more, look for more. That's what I plan to do.
What it all this talk about "deserving" TC candidates? The large commercial firms depend on people like the poster who are intelligent, will work hard for a few years and then quit the profession. It is (relatively) cheap labour. Exactly the same happens in accountancy and management consultancy - you get bright people to do mundane tasks, most leave after a few years and a dedicated minority make it their lifetime career. Imagine how much competition there would be for partnership if EVERYONE wanted to stay on!
Dear oh dear, if ever someone with doubts about their career choice needed evidence that they were about to enter a world of jumped-up, precious and holier-than-thou fop-doodles, some of the advice given above would confirm their worst fears of the profession. There's absolutely nothing wrong with having second thoughts and absolutely nothing wrong with getting a MC TC whilst having them. Hard cheese to those "more deserving" candidates who fell down in the recruitment process.
The good advice is here, but hidden. Do the seats which give you broad choice later - company commerical, real estate, employment, litigation of many small cases not one great big one. The law is a varied career and I wonder if you are giving up on it too soon? I have a friend from the LPC who does environmental law acting for the Bhopal polluters, and one from uni who does environmental law acting for Swampy and his fellow protesters. It might take more than one step from the MC to get where you want to be, but if you know what you want and can plan accordingly, you should get there. The other great advice was to make the best of your training contract. It's only two years, seize the opportunities and be cheerful about it. Quite apart from anything else this will help networking your MC firm from Real Life later on.
Truly unbelievable article and comments above! There are scores of hard-working qualified solicitors who would work for a fraction of the NQ salaries on offer in magic circle firms and produce far better quality work and generate far more revenue than the drip-nosed middle-class preference magic circle firms go for.
Thanks so much for some of the useful advice. I too am suprised by some of the responses.
The fact that I am not 'sold' on the glamour of the MC, the City and the money is probably WHY I was recruited, since I have independence of mind that many of my naive and blindly enthusiastic colleagues do not. Instead of complaining about it, I am asking for advice - which is the right choice that will eventually lead to happiness!
Ignore those who moan that your job could have gone to someone "deserving". You got it - you deserve it. You're likely to be extremely well-educated, personable and interesting (interestingly characteristics which many lawyers seem to lose).
The GDL and LPC are a complete waste of time - so just do the absolute bare minimum of work possible to scrape through the exams without retakes (which is very, very little indeed), and enjoy your student lifestyle for the last time. I loved my two years at law school, but I didn't give a toss about the courses.
And now I'm a few years qualified. And I still can"t abide the work (it's stultifyingly, mind-numbingly pointless), but enjoy the money and the company of some of the people I work with. That's almost enough. I have no interest in the economy, keeping up with legal developments, or the business of my clients. Why should I? This is a job I do of my own free will, and I really don't care if I'm no good at it. It's the most tiny, insignificant part of my life. Time to see the light - to be defined by your career is miserable and horribly old-fashioned.
Reading these comments I am so disappointed by some posters - just for clarity, a 'deserving' TC candidate actually gets a TC. 'Undeserving' TC candidates don't - it is that simple.
If you are applying and applying and getting nowhere - don't blame others for taking 'your' spot - you're not entitled to one. Rethink your applications, and career choice, suck it up and get on with becoming a better candidate.
If you cannot accept that you won't be right for the majority of firms you apply to you should not be bothering at all - and you are indeed deserving: of a reality check and a slap.
It was comforting to read your post, as I too am in exactly the same position (and I think there are quite a few more out there). I start my MC training contract in March, and I was completely disillusioned after the dullest year of my life at LPC. It would be really easy for people to blame you for the position you are in, and I do take quite a bit of the blame for myself for not fully realising what I was getting myself into, but I also blame the recruitment process of the firms I applied to. During LPC I felt I had been slightly hoodwinked as to what was involved, as during recruitment and vac schemes the firms tried their damned hardest to keep the reality of being a lawyer away from me. It's a hard decision to make because to be honest, if quitting the training contract now didn't involve paying back £17,000 in maintenance grants and fees, then I would do it in a flash. People tell me a MC TC will look great on my CV and open many doors, but surely that is only true if I want to stay in the same field, when I too feel I may be best suited doing something completely different? The only comfort I can bring you is to say that I have decided that I will see through my TC until qualification. Even if I do hate it, at least it will be a good experience that I can look back on and be proud that I completed something that I didn't particularly want to do it. I like to think future employers, no matter what field, will respect that. Therefore I would advise that you do the same, and comfort yourself with the fact that you are not the only one.
US Associate - what kind of work do you do? ie, what department?
If you're more interested in the law than filling in forms, aim for the more research-based legal-heavy seats (like tax and regulatory seats). Also consider looking into a career at the Bar rather than a firm. Perhaps also look at working for the GLS for breadth of work and a better work/life balance.
Don't let the LPC put you off - it is a necessary evil, boring and tedious but relatively easy to pass. Legal practice can be boring, but so can lots of jobs. A magic circle training contract will stand you in good stead for what you want to do next - whether that be remaining in practice, going in-house etc, or leaving the law. The GLS could be an option for you - or academia, if you're not obsessed with earning lots of money?
It's not all filling in forms or mechanically doing the same things over and over you know - most of what I do is challenging, intellectually stimulating and never the same two days in a row. Take the job, keep your mind and options open, don't necessarily go for the glamorous-sounding options like corporate or finance(which can be a real drudge) but for the more esoteric stuff like IT/IP, employment, tax, pensions, or commercial litigation.
Very interesting thread of comments. I believe I am one of those 'deserving' a TC but didn't get one. I can appreciate the reaction of the potential trainee who does sound intelligent but why was his lack of certainty and focus not picked up on by the rigourous psychometric testing that we all have to undergo now. It just demonstrates that these procedures don't work! I hope this person manages to turn his/her experiences in law into something useful in their career!
I have to comment on this as I am so outraged on behalf of the questioner by the judgemental and protectionist comments of those from the "should have gone to someone more 'deserving' camp". Deserving? the attitude people have to the 'hallowed cup' of a training contract is as out of proportion as people's attitude towards being a 'lawyer'. It is a caling - we aren't the 'chosen' ones. If this graduate has done their degree, completed their exams and passed through the interviews - he/she is as 'deserving' as the next. Just because they choose not to play the utterly false game of pretending they think becoming a lawyer is the answer to their life's prayer - is to their credit. And to the detractors discredit for shaming him/her for expressing that. I've been a lawyer for five years in at least two of the biggest firms internationally - I have yet to meet one person who wouldn't rather be doing something else if a magic wand were to be waved over their life. Stop replying like a self-satisfied lawyer and try getting in touch with your humanity.
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