Your pre-university checklist If you do decide that a career as a lawyer is for you, there are a few things you should be doing even before you start university. Here is a brief checklist to get you started and help focus your mind: Read the business pages of the newspapers to improve your commercial awareness. Talk to your careers adviser at school to go through your options. Research the different paths into law – university, Chartered Institute of Legal Executives, paralegal, apprenticeships… Get some practical work experience at a law firm, barristers’ chambers or legal advice centre; it will help you to decide what’s right for you and will also improve any applications you make later. Work hard at your academic studies. Good grades are essential! Talk to friends, parents, acquaintances – anyone with a connection to the legal profession; they may also be able to help you get some work experience. Think about the kinds of extracurricular things you can do to make yourself into a well-rounded candidate. Think sport, volunteering, music… Welcome If you think you might be interested in law as a future career, but have little (or no) idea what that really means, The Beginner’s Guide to a Career in Law is for you. The guide has been designed with people like you in mind – on the one hand, we’ve assumed no prior knowledge, while on the other, we’ve assumed you’ll have lots of questions. Within these pages you will find information about the job of a lawyer, the differences between the three main types of legal professional (solicitors, barristers and chartered legal executives), and the courses and training you need to complete in order to qualify. There is also a selection of key questions, a welcome reality check and – for those who want to find out more – ideas on some of the next steps to take. 01 The Beginner’s Guide is brought to you by LawCareers.Net, the number one resource for those interested in joining the legal profession. On the website you will find employer profiles; interviews with recruiters and trainees; advice from LC.N’s resident agony aunt, the Oracle; blogs from people at different stages of their legal career quest; information on law courses (undergraduate and postgraduate); and a searchable database of training contract and pupillage vacancies. Welcome to the first stage of your legal career! www.lawcareers.net What Solicitors Generally speaking, solicitors provide advice and assistance on matters of law. They are lawyers do the first point of contact for people and organisations (eg, companies and charities) seeking legal advice and representation. Most solicitors work together in solicitor- Everyone has their favourite scurrilous owned law firms, while others work in central lawyer joke, but on the whole it’s not a or local government, in a legal department profession made up of conniving ambulance within a company or organisation, or in an chasers and fat cats. Lawyers perform a alternative business structure (ABS) – an valuable role, especially as law is intertwined organisation which provides legal services, with every aspect of our society – from the but is funded and controlled by a company age at which you can take your driving test (eg, the Co-operative Group). to the speed at which you can drive when you pass it; from the minimum wage you While solicitors are found in a variety of areas of can expect to earn in a new job to the rights law, the fundamentals of the job remain largely you have should you lose it. the same. These include a mixture of advisory and contentious (dispute) work, such as: The first thing to know is that traditionally, • meeting clients, finding out their needs the profession has had two main branches – and establishing how to help; solicitors and barristers. However, in recent • researching relevant areas of law and years the legal landscape has become proposing courses of action to clients; much more complex, with chartered legal • drafting letters, contracts and other legal executives, paralegals, apprentices and documents; and more. This trend seems set to continue • acting on behalf of clients in negotiations 02 – read more about it in “A changing and occasionally representing them at profession”. For now, however, here is a tribunals or in court. broad introduction to what solicitors and barristers do. Being a solicitor is a tough, but rewarding job. Many of those entering the profession work their way up through the ranks from newly qualified solicitor to associate to partner. (NB Practice area snapshot Most of the above also describes the work of Below is just a small selection of the vast array a chartered legal executive.) of practice areas out there: Corporate/commercial Crime Employment Family Commercial and Criminal lawyers As a solicitor, you’ll be Family lawyers deal with corporate solicitors advise and represent working on disputes that all legal matters relating advise on complex their clients in court end up in employment to marriage, separation, transactions and act for on criminal charges tribunals or in the divorce, cohabitation businesses of all sizes, that can range from High Court, helping and legal issues relating from multinationals to minor motoring to draft contracts of to children. Family law small start-ups. Company misdemeanours to more employment or advising also encompasses law might involve serious crimes, including on working hours. Your financial negotiations, advising on company murder. Barristers may client could be the inheritance issues and directors’ responsibilities, be called on to act for employer or employee. prenuptial contracts. board meetings and either the defence or As a barrister, you will shareholders’ rights. the prosecution. be appearing on behalf Corporate work often of your client in either concerns mergers and a tribunal or court, often acquisitions, joint ventures in different parts of and share issues. the country. Barristers On the other side of the profession, barristers advise on specific legal issues and represent clients in court. They receive their information and instructions through a Areas of law solicitor (and occasionally directly from the The different types of law are as client), and are essentially self-employed. multitudinous as grains of sand. However, When not appearing in court, they work in at the broadest level, you can divide lawyers chambers where they prepare their court between those doing commercial work (ie, cases and arguments. Again, although work for companies) and those involved with barristers work in a wide variety of areas of individuals. On the one hand, you could be law, the fundamental elements of the job a banking lawyer scrutinising a major loan remain largely the same. These include: by a bank to a corporation; on the other, • advising clients on the law and the you could be a personal injury practitioner strength of their case; advising an individual who has had a fall. • holding ‘conferences’ with clients to Different practice areas are like different discuss their case; jobs: very little connects the everyday • representing clients in court, including professional life of a human rights solicitor presenting the case and cross- with that of a corporate one. See the box examining witnesses; and below for more detail. • negotiating settlements with the other side (when a legal dispute is resolved Further reading privately outside of court). Upon being called to the Bar, a barrister Solicitors is known formally as a ‘junior’. He or she www.lawcareers.net/solicitors remains a junior until such time as he or 03 she is made a Queen’s Counsel (QC), also Barristers known as ‘taking silk’. A QC is a senior www.lawcareers.net/barristers barrister with extensive experience who is regarded as having outstanding ability. The majority of barristers never become QCs. Human rights Intellectual property Private client Tax This practice area This involves protecting Private client lawyers Corporate tax involves is incredibly wide the exploitation of advise on all aspects of advising on the most ranging and includes intellectual ideas, the financial affairs of tax-efficient means of immigration and asylum normally by way of clients, including capital acquiring, relinquishing cases, privacy cases copyright, trademarks gains tax, inheritance or restructuring affecting celebrities and and patents. IP tax planning, setting assets, negotiating international law issues. lawyers advise on up lifetime trusts and and documenting Clients may range from issues ranging from preparing wills. Private the transaction. On low-income refugees commercial exploitation client lawyers also the contentious side, and prisoners through to to infringement disputes, handle a wide range of corporate tax lawyers large news organisations and agreements that charity work. advise on all aspects and government deal either exclusively of tax litigation and departments. with intellectual property investigations, negotiate or with IP rights as part with tax authorities and of larger commercial conduct litigation in the transactions. civil courts. Branches of the profession One of the key questions to address when considering a legal career is what type of lawyer you want to be. For many, that will mean deciding between becoming a solicitor or a barrister. For some, the option to ‘earn while you learn’ as a chartered legal executive will appeal. Simply put, a barrister appears in court, while a solicitor or chartered legal executive works in a law firm. The term ‘lawyer’ applies to all three. However, the differences are much more complex. Some say that it comes down to whether you are an individualist (barrister) or a team player (solicitor/legal executive). While it is true that a barrister is almost always self-employed and connected to other barristers only by convenience, and a solicitor/legal executive 04 may be just one worker in a law firm of thousands of people, in reality the situation is less black and white.