Fate and Destiny

Was it chance or destiny? Was it predetermined or a cruel twist of circumstance that lead me to qualify in to the legal profession at the particular time that I have?

I find myself trying to make a living in a time that is arguably worse than any other. 

The collapse of the housing market and the credit crunch lead to a large number of conveyancing firms (and firms in general) closing their doors. No lending meant that there were no first time buyers. No first time buyers lead to the whole market stagnating as no one was able to move "up the ladder".

True, there were still quality clients to be found but even investor clients able to buy in cash were put off by the volatility of property prices and sensibly shied away until the market looked to be bottoming out.

This was not good news for a newly qualified solicitor such as I who spent half of his training contract doing residential conveyancing work.

The second piece of dumb luck was the fact that many conveyancing specialists who found themselves redundant retrained in to private client work. This was partly co-ordinated by the Law Society who rather than push for an end of one firm acting for both a lender and borrower in a purchase which would have saved a number of firms sought to attract more solicitors in to the relatively unscathed practice area of Wills and Probate; and partly because Private Client practice was a neat fit for many conveyancers due to the fact that usually any contentious business would be handled by the firms' civil litigation department. So if you were not of a litigious persuasion Wills and Probate was the area for the you.

The flood of new Private Client solicitors on to the market meant that for me my second (and preferred) area of practice was now so diluted that any NQ jobs were very few and far between and when they did come up competition was often fierce with recruiters quite rightly being brutal with applicants.

It's a topic of conversation that comes up quite often after a few drinks with my lawyer friends. We all feel that we got in to the profession at the wrong time. Five years earlier and we would be making a decent living as we would have circa seven years post qualification experience and would, in some cases, be looking at the prospect of partnership either at an established firm or our own new start up. 

Five years later and knowing what we know of the future of the legal market (ABS, Jackson review implementation, increased PII costs, calls for a ban on referral fees) it's no exaggeration to say that at least three quarters of my immediate peers would think long and hard about a career in law.

However, having invested so much time; five years at university, two years working as a paralegal gaining experience, two years as a trainee and now (almost) two years as a qualified solicitor - energy and money in to my chosen career path this is the hand that fate has dealt me and I'm not looking to fold my cards just yet.