Career paths in law: Why your early decisions are so important

Making the right decisions throughout your legal career is important, but can be challenging at times. It is vital to consider all of your options and make the right decision for your career aspirations. Although not everything will happen the way you expect, you should recognise what options are available and make steps towards your desired area of practice after you have qualified. 

The decisions that newly qualified professionals are faced with

As with most people when they have finished their studies or a placement, they are faced with some hard decisions as to what direction they are going to go in. NQs will often find that they are asking themselves the following questions:

1. Will I be retained at my current firm?
2. Will there be space for me in the team I want to qualify into?
3. How can I progress to a bigger and better law firm as well as increase my salary?
4. Can I qualify into a practice area that I have no experience in?

How to be retained at your current law firm

Being retained, or keeping NQs employed at your law firm, can come down to a number of aspects. However, from our experience, being retained comes down to five simple things:

• Hard workers are appreciated. Good behaviour won’t go unnoticed and will be a consideration when hiring for permanent positions.
• It is important to contribute. This will help you to build up a reputation and your experience. 
• Keep an open mind to every seat rotation you complete. Given most law firms will offer a four seat rotation, try to make the most out of every area you sit in, and keep learning throughout the entire process.
• Let your firm know that you want to stay with the organisation, and outline the reasons why. Don’t assume that they will work it out for themselves. 
• Ultimately, they will want to retain the people who want to be there, so acting passionate and making your career plans and goals clear throughout your time with them is crucial.

How your early decisions can affect your future

The most common difficulty that NQs face when they are looking for a permanent role is that there are a lack of positions available. Some practices are more appealing than others, such as Commercial Litigation, General Commercial, Employment, IP, Family, and General Corporate. 

It is common that bigger teams will usually have the capacity to take on two-three trainees in most intakes. However, there will be departments such as a Family or Private Client, where they do not have the work capacity to have two trainees join the team every year. This isn’t guaranteed, and it is important to remember the first instance isn’t always a hard no. Continuing to apply and keeping an eye on potential positions coming up in the market could land you your dream role. 

Advice for NQs about to make critical career decisions

Many aspiring lawyers want to work at US, magic, or silver circle firms, when they qualify and have a salary that matches their expectations. Unfortunately, unless you are already working at a firm like this, or you are looking to qualify into a niche area, it is a difficult jump. The reason for this is simple, whether it is a transaction or a case, top firms will usually only take someone on who is already trained to work on cases or transactions of a certain size or complexity.

Big changes in career aren’t common or easy to do quickly, and it is important to focus on progression. Salary is important, however, for anyone who is an NQ-2 PQE, the complexity of work and how much you are involved with this is key. It can be easier to move from smaller to bigger firms and work in a niche area. Larger firms seem to be looking for juniors in the following areas:

• Pensions
• Employee incentives and tax
• Sports law
• Betting and gaming
• Structured finance and derivatives 
• Restructuring and insolvency 

If an NQ vacancy is released, the firm will usually be inundated with CVs from candidates with relevant experience (six months seat at least). The only way you are going to be able to move into a role you have no experience with, is going the extra mile. This means:

• Doing your homework, whether it’s, reading articles, and networking, or going to classes. 
• Write a comprehensive and relevant covering letter. Your CV may not get the time you deserve if you don’t have the experience. Your covering letter will give them more reason to interview you for the position. 

How to move forward in your career

If there is only one area of law you are wanting to practice and this isn’t possible at your current firm, or any other firms you are interested in, take a step down or think about relocating. It is important to understand that the £60k+ salary you were hoping to get come qualification isn’t available at the stage you’re at in your career now. 

Aim to get at least one-two years post qualification experience, learn everything you can, and then decided how you are going to establish yourself in the industry. 

Making decisions when you are coming to the end of your training contract can be extremely stressful. Here is some advice to help you through this change:

• Speak to someone who has done it before. Whether this is someone who is 1 year PQE,  2 year PQE or a recruiter that specialises in working the junior end of the market. These people will tell you how to succeed.
• Your CV needs to be as technical as possible as a junior solicitor. Experienced recruiters are usually pretty good when it comes to giving you feedback on your CV.

Thinking about going in house?

NQ in house roles do exist and will tend to be general commercial in nature, perhaps with a focus on IP or IT. They don’t tend to exist in more specialist areas because if you are the only employment or property lawyer in a business then you are going to need the experience to work autonomously. 

If you are thinking of going in house later in your career then you do need to think about what you qualify into or the journey you need to make before you do. There are far more lawyers looking to move in house than there are jobs available, and as such, organisations are able to select candidates with directly relevant experience. If you go down a Civil route then suitable in house roles will be in the public sector and NFP space rather than a corporate. If your expertise is in Complex financing then you are more likely to go to FS than you are an FMCG. 

Finally, be aware that heavily contentious lawyers can struggle to make a move in house at all. With the exception of a few very large, high risk businesses, most do not need full time litigators on the payroll and there are plenty of non-contentious commercial lawyers for them to choose from. The same could be said of individuals at some of magic circle or US firms where their experience has been very high-level transactional and may put off a business looking for reassurance that this individual is willing to roll their sleeves up and draft an NDA when they need to.

If you want to learn more about opportunities available to you, create a MyPage account to explore roles. Alternatively, if you are looking to hire professionals in the legal sector, get in touch with one of our specialist recruitment consultants today.

Solomon Fletcher
Consultant, Michael Page Legal