Service Leavers.

 Careers in the Legal Sector

The legal sector offers a range of career opportunities – whether you are interested in being sponsored to re-train to be a lawyer or would prefer one of a wide range of career opportunities across Business Services functions, which play a critical role in the delivery of legal services across the sector.

It is widely accepted across the legal sector that having teams made up of individuals with different qualifications, experiences and perspectives, helps provide better legal advice and more innovative solutions to clients.

Routes to training to be a lawyer

Many individuals chose to qualify as lawyers having had a previous career, included a number of veterans. Most firms will pay for your law school fees and will pay a maintenance grant to cover living expenses for the duration of your course. Most will expect an undergraduate degree, but you do not need to have studied law before. The courses will tend to last between 12 and 24 months, depending on whether you are a law or non-law graduate, but there are more varied routes due to a recent change in the way you can qualify. Some useful links regarding the process to qualify are set out here:

https://www.thelawyerportal.com/free-guides/the-solicitors-qualifying-examination-sqe/

https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/career-advice/becoming-a-solicitor

Lots of firms offer virtual work experience designed to give you more insight in to what to expect from a legal career:

https://www.theforage.com/virtual-internships/Law

These programmes provide the insight, information, tools, support and guidance that you need if you are thinking about a career in law. You might never have considered becoming a commercial lawyer before, or you might have thought about it but not really known what it is all about. These internships often give the opportunity to experience solving legal issues, gaining a better understanding of what it is that lawyers do.

Do have a look at law firm graduate careers websites for more detailed information about salaries and interview processes.

Careers in Business Services

Business services roles often make up to half of the headcount within global law Firms. Here is snapshot of the areas that have non-legal careers:

• Innovation roles including continuous improvement, legal project management, resource managers, pricing experts and legal tech delivery advisors.

• Risk and compliance roles providing advice on a range of regulatory and compliance issues. Their expertise spans a variety of areas including internal audit, data protection, conflicts and clearance and Anti-Money Laundering.

• IT operations teams are critical, whilst new roles around emerging technologies and applications which are creating new opportunities for transforming client relationships.

• Cyber security and Infosec teams are strategically critical to law firms in relation to the security of their client data.

• Knowledge Management teams which deliver knowledge solutions that help achieve this objective by optimising the capture, organisation, distribution, retrieval and re-use of legal knowledge.

• Finance roles managing accounts, budgets and forecasts, providing trend and competitor analysis and other statistical support for partner presentations, as well as cash management, remuneration, internal audit, procurement and pricing, and ultimately ensuring that a firm is compliant, efficient and profitable.

• Human Resources roles are critical as firms navigate an evolving complex talent agenda to recruit, retain and develop talent.

• Practice support roles supporting fee-earners, ranging from providing administrative support to producing a variety of complex reports and documents alongside financial, matter management and project managing larger tasks.

The Interview Process

Typically, these roles involve interviews (either virtually and/or face to face). For some roles, candidates may need  to complete psychometric or skills-based assessments. Others might require you to consider a case study or prepare a presentation related to the role you are interviewing for.

For a list of current roles that are open in which ex-military skills/experience could be transferable, MiLNet member Firms all advertise roles in the same place here on the CTP : https://www.ctp.org.uk/job-finding (MiLNet page link once created).

Profile - Ed Whatling

I completed 15 and a half years of military service. This commenced with 3-years as a logistic soldier before attending the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and commissioning into the infantry, where I completed the remainder of my 12-years as an officer. I undertook a vast array of different roles and overseas exercises and operations in that time and found it to be very fulfilling as a career. However, I decided to re-focus my attentions on a career outside of the Army in my remaining 2-years. I had completed an in-service full-time master’s degree in strategy at the University of Exeter and really enjoyed the intellectual challenge of postgraduate study and the chance to re-engage with academic material. In the research of other careers, I found law, and in particular commercial law, to be a very attractive option. This is because it met my requirements for an intellectually challenging, engaging, and stable career, that would also suitably value and reward people for working hard.

Herbert Smith Freehills jumped out at me as an employee that is a market-leader in the legal sector in supporting veterans to re-qualify into a career in law. They have a gold award in the Employer Recognition Scheme under the Armed Forces Covenant. I have found all engagements with the firm on military related issues to be hugely supportive and this pro-military environment makes HSF an excellent choice for others looking to commence a career into law.

I attended a very enjoyable 2-week spring vacation scheme to earn a training contract with HSF. As a non-law graduate, I found the nature of the tasks that I was assessed on to have similar requirements, structurally, to what I was used to with my military background. This helped with confidence on the scheme and in demonstrating professional competence outside of a military environment.

I am currently 2-months into the full-time Law Conversion Course at BPP, sponsored by HSF. This is a post-graduate level course for those without an undergraduate law degree. I will then move onto the SQE programme for my second year prior to commencing the ‘in-house’ element of my training contract. All my course fees are paid for by the firm in addition to receiving a generous maintenance grant. This offers a huge opportunity for other service leavers willing to commit the time to re-qualifying into a career in law after military life.

For those considering a career in law as a veteran or service leaver, I would encourage them to engage with the Military In Law Network [MiLNet]. This network has proved invaluable to me and my understanding of the legal sector. I doubt I would have been successful in securing a training contract if it was not for the help and support I have received directly through the network.