Last week a reader wrote in to Career Clinic asking whether 27 is too old to start a career in law. The overwhelming response from Legal Week readers was: "Of course not!"
"It is absolutely not too old," wrote someone who had started their training contract at 28.
"Go for it - I was 37 when I started my training contract, and you certainly won't be the oldest on a GDL course," added another.
And a partner chipped in with: "Certainly not too old. My current trainee is 30. Languages and degrees are very attractive differentiating characteristics."
All very nice and encouraging. But, as someone who attempted to start a legal career aged around 27 myself, I can't help thinking that these well meaning posts are glossing over some major downsides of going into law when you're a bit older (not that 27 is exactly ancient).
The first one is that you're suddenly financially dependant on your parents again - or worse, in large amounts of debt. Even if you get funding to do the Graduate Diploma in Law (GDL) from a law firm, you're going to need some pretty significant additional help with money. That may mean, alongside the handouts, moving back into the family home, as I did. Which is fine, just not an idyllic way to live when you're 27-29 - and can come as quite a culture shock when you've been living independently for nearly a decade. Of course, if law is the career for you, it's a sacrifice worth making. But it is a sacrifice. And it's for two years.
You'll also be going back to square one in career terms; obvious, I know, but a lot of people don't properly think through what this really means - the first thing being that you have to do work experience. And, unfortunately, work experience involves temporarily reassuming teenager status, however old you are when you do it. I did five mini-pupillages and a week-long stint at a law firm and, each time, being the 'work experience guy' led people (with a few exceptions) to treat me as if I was 16.
But then most work experience only lasts for a week or so, self-esteem can be rebuilt and at the end of the process is the holy grail: a career in law.
The problem with this line of thought, though, is that a career in law begins with a training contract. And from what I've seen trainees get treated pretty similarly to work experience students. Okay, you may be earning good money by this stage, but as a mature entrant to the profession (completing your training contract aged 31 if you begin the GDL at 27) there'll still be occasions when you find yourself taking orders from people to whom you could have been offering babysitting services not all that long ago. As you progress your career that situation may well change, but during your training contract it won't. Law firms, it's worth bearing in mind, are very hierarchical places.
And finally there's the question of whether life as a lawyer would really be better than your current life. I can't comment on this, having not become a lawyer, but a quick scan through the reader comment sections on this website would suggest that law is not the professional utopia outsiders sometimes assume it to be.
Maybe the brittleness of my ego meant the trauma I encountered during my postgraduate legal studies was atypically acute. But even if your sense of self is highly robust, it's worth having a sit-down and being really honest with yourself about your motivations before embarking on the journey to become a lawyer at an older age. Is it because law really is the career for you? Or is it because you fancy reliving your student days and are attracted by vague notions of status and glamour? Because if it's the latter, you could find yourself disappointed.
For more, see Career Clinic: Is 27 too old to start a career in law?
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COMMENTS (TOTAL 8 COMMENTS)
Having just completed my training contract aged 33 I can assure you I was treated with the utmost respect by everyone I worked with. Age really has never been a factor.
Anonymous -02 Nov 2009 | 13:09
Not my experience
I am 38 and qualified a couple of months ago. I have to say the article does not chime with my experience.
Firstly, financially I paid for everything myself without resorting to my parents (why should they pay?). I did the GDL part-time whilst working full-time, and then did the LPC full-time funded by some fairly lucrative consultancies using the expertise from my previous career.
Secondly, I never felt like I was being treated like the 'work experience kid' during my training contract - with very limited exceptions, I was always accorded a level of respect which was appropriate to (i) my general skills and life experience, and (ii) my lack of experience as a lawyer.
I was generally treated well by partners and senior associates who were confident in their own ability. If there was a problem (and I think this was rare), it was with the more junior lawyers who felt intimidated by someone much older than them.
Thirdly, I also got a lot of respect from, and was trusted by clients who probably assumed I was far more experienced than I was, but who were also conscious that I handled myself in a mature way.
If there is a disadvantage (and my father once asked me whether I regretted not going straight into law after university), it is perhaps that I would have been partner by now if I had started at 22.
However, I have absolutely no regrets about the route I took. I have spent more than a decade doing things many of my colleagues can only dream of doing whilst they were running in the rat race. I am happy at work. I am happy at home. And I don't feel old... at all!
Long in the tooth... -02 Nov 2009 | 14:01
Yes
Enter law late and you realise two things:
1. It IS really painful to have to start from the bottom rung once again; and
2. Lawyers are paid ridiculous amounts of money for doing very simple things.
If point no.2 counterbalances point no.1 then go for it!
Tom -02 Nov 2009 | 14:56
I just completed my training contract aged 31 and, as a poster above has mentioned, have never been treated as a junior or work experience student (none of my fellow trainees did either, whatever their age). Yes you will do admin and mundane tasks occasionally but that's because first, in many cases you are the most junior in the department and secondly, you have to start somewhere!
Oldie -02 Nov 2009 | 17:03
The ego has landed
Alex is right to flag the "starting at the bottom" you have to do and considering whether your ego can take it. I went straight into law from university and in the decade or so since then I've come across many excellent slightly older (late 20s, early-mid-late 30s) trainees. However I've also come across a few who have chosen to switch to law from other careers later who clearly had a big problem with taking their instructions from associates (and occasionally partners) younger than them - this really damages their prospects in the medium term, particularly when the stay-on rate for NQs isn't as high as it used to be. So if a friend my age was looking to switch to law I'd tell them to think carefully about how they'd deal with this.
anon -02 Nov 2009 | 17:54
I guess it depends on what the proposed "better way to spend your twenties" actually is - the author never tells us.
Sure, if you've already made significant in-roads in another profession that you enjoy and are good at, that will be better than being a trainee - but were that to be the case, you wouldn't be asking about joining the legal market. The person who posted the question was fresh out of uni (having done several (?!) masters degrees); the bottom line is that s/he would have to start at the bottom rung whatever career s/he chose. The idea that s/he would immediately land a top role in banking/advertising/PR without any experience is a little naive.
So, as so often, grumpy (and perhaps a little bitter) lawyers and ex-lawyers pretending that our life is really much worse and harder than others'. The reality is that it is not.
SicTransitGloriaLegis -03 Nov 2009 | 15:38
If I hadn't become a lawyer I would still be a secretary... a career which I found totally unfulfilling.
I did both my law degree and LPC part-time via evening classes and therefore had no debt and no need to return to live with my parents. I was 32 when I finally started my TC. I never felt out of place and had no concerns about taking instructions from people younger than me. I wanted to be a lawyer and was delighted to have obtained the TC. If my colleagues viewed me as being old/odd then they did a good job of hiding their feelings.
I'm now nine years qualified. I would agree that my career as a lawyer has not always lived up to my expectations. There have been many occasions when I have considered doing "something" else, although I've never quite worked out what that something is. So, would I prefer to have continued working as a secretary? Hell no.
ABC -05 Nov 2009 | 16:45
If the end goal is worthwhile enough to you, you'll take whatever pain is posed to you by starting over. If not, not.
Mutton Jeff -09 Nov 2009 | 11:38
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