r/uklaw

For context, I'm 23 and have worked 2 years as a private client paralegal. I've passed SQE 1, and if I pass SQE 2 I hope to then qualify under the QWE route into private client as an NQ.

However, I'm becoming increasingly concerned about my long term job prospects with the advent of AI. I've got to make my career last for well, over 40 years (touch wood ofc). My concern is AI will become so advanced by the time I'm say 10 years PQE that it will do all the tax planning, will drafting and estate administration that my usefulness becomes null and void.

I'm considering whether any areas are more AI resistant than others, perhaps the CPS or family law? Things that are contentious and have scope for a bit of advocacy seem to be safer choices.

I understand that AI, if it hypothetically from this day never improves again, is absolutely not capable of doing the job of a private client solicitor. However, legislating for a 40 year career, it could get to the point where it does?

Am I trying to predict the unpredictable or are these valid concerns? What would you do in my position? (with the pov that you actually like private client and want to go into that area if viable)

Thanks!

As the title asks, how is everyone using AI to support their working? Recently gained access to Copilot and it’s been really useful as a tool to avoid trawling through emails and get through any mental blocks when starting up a new task.

Interested to see other experiences and how people are using it in their day to day.

Does anyone work in house in London and willing to share their salaries? I’ve heard anything from 60k to 120k for a junior so I assume this massively depends on industry and sector but will be great to learn more!

Hello! I need some salary advice
I have 4 years experience as a paralegal in litigation and investigations. I’ve worked at two big law firm so appreciate that my salary will not be as much as there (plus I’m happy to take a cut for interest levels)

I’ve been offered a new role which is £35k - it is a very small firm but I just want some advice on whether it is normal to push back considering experience or not?
Thank you in advance

Hi all,

Have posted here before the other day about the FRU. Unfortunately it appears I've missed the training deadline for this year.

Something that has been getting mulled over in my head is potentially applying to volunteer as a magistrate. I am 26 years old, and I get the impression that the magistrates court doesn't have many young magistrates.

I'm a BPC student, and I was just wondering if this is the type of thing that would 1) be helpful to me in future as an advocate; and 2) Make my application look just a bit more attractive to chambers in applying for pupillage. I know you have to do a minimum of 13 days a year for five years. If I was to do it I would have to consider how much I enjoyed it after 5 years if I was to continue with it.

On the face of it, it seemed to me like it would be really desirable for Chambers to see on a CV as having hands-on court experience and literally being in the position of someone making serious decisions about matters before you, but then on second thought I wasn't sure because it's a very different role to a barrister.

Thoughts would be welcome!

Hiya~

I am a first year law student struggling with cases. The sentence structures seem unnecessarily complicated and not all judges are as clear in expressing their judgments. The pages and pages of jargon also seem repetitive and I easily get lost in the middle.

Some of my peers only stick with case summaries while my professors believe everyone has to go through the process of actually reading the jargon if we want to succeed.

While I'm skeptical towards only reading case summaries, I am personally very tempted to read case summaries before reading the actual judgments. But I am worried that by doing so I will be taking away the training of identifying key-points in case judgments on my own.

May I ask what senior law students and practitioners usually do when dealing with cases?

Many thanks!!

TL;DR: 24 year old Bar Course graduate with a 69.5% average, GDL Commendation, overseas Law and Commerce degree, chambers experience, legal adviser experience, court marshalling, volunteering, Commercial Bar mentoring and upcoming mini pupillages. I’m interested in the commercial and chancery Bar but struggling to secure paralegal or legal assistant work. Am I being seen as overqualified or likely to leave for pupillage, and what alternative roles should I be targeting to build relevant UK experience?

I’m 24 and recently finished the Bar course, and I’m finding it surprisingly difficult to break into paralegal or legal assistant work in the UK. I’d really appreciate some honest advice from people working in the profession, particularly barristers, solicitors and people who have recruited paralegals.

For context, my academic and professional background is:

• Bar course: 69.5% average

• GDL: Commendation

• Undergraduate degree overseas: Law and Commerce, high 2:1 equivalent, GPA 3.56

• 3 months’ experience in chambers outside the UK

• 6 months as a legal adviser at an immigration clinic

• Legal internship in house outside the UK

• Court marshalling twice, once in the Criminal Court and once in the First tier Tribunal Property Chamber

• Court watcher volunteer

• Justice Now volunteer

• Commercial Bar mentee

• Two mini pupillages coming up

My long term interest is the commercial and chancery Bar.

The problem is that I’m struggling to get through the door for paralegal roles.

I understand why employers might be hesitant about someone with Bar training. I assume some recruiters see someone who has completed the Bar course and think, “They’re just going to leave as soon as they get pupillage.” And to be completely honest, pupillage is something I am interested in.

But at the same time, I genuinely want professional legal experience. I don’t think my career path is necessarily predetermined just because I completed the Bar course. I could end up becoming a solicitor, staying at the Bar, or taking a completely different route within the legal profession.

What I find frustrating is the catch 22.

I need relevant UK experience to become a stronger candidate, but many of the entry level roles seem to want experience I can only realistically get by being given the opportunity in the first place.

I also don’t think this is simply a CV tailoring issue. The experience is there, and I have tried to present it properly. I just don’t seem to be getting much traction.

So I’m wondering:

1. Does having completed the Bar course actually make me less attractive for paralegal roles?
2. Are recruiters genuinely concerned that Bar graduates will leave for pupillage?
3. If I’m struggling with traditional paralegal roles, what other roles should I realistically be applying for?
4. Would roles such as legal assistant, legal officer, compliance, regulatory, contracts, litigation support, legal research, judicial or tribunal roles be sensible alternatives?
5. For someone interested in the commercial and chancery Bar, what experience would actually make my CV stronger?
6. Am I missing something obvious about how I’m approaching the job search?

I’m not looking for reassurance that my CV is amazing. I’d genuinely prefer honest feedback on where the weaknesses are and what I should be doing differently.

Also, if anyone has taken a non linear route into the profession after doing the Bar or GDL, I’d be very interested to hear how you navigated it.

I started the BPP SQE 1 course last month and we are now reaching the half way point but I feel so behind not in terms of my prep for classes I usually answer the questions and do all the prep for my classes.

However I am so behind on underlying law I have only done 2 weeks worth of prep for land law that’s it. I have not touched professional conduct and only done the first week on Legal services it’s just so much reading too do and my mcq scores are so so low it’s embarrassing.

I just don’t know whether I have enough time to turn this around how do I get more serious than I currently am spend all day in the library just trying to do the prep for the classes.

Heard so many stories about this - am curious if it is actually a thing, or if people still do/would in 2026. Let’s just say I have an inside line to a TC that might make it possible so wondering…

I’ve been getting more and more emails clearly generated by AI because the client fed the documents I sent them into ChatGPT or whatever and told it to ask questions about it.

On principle, I really don’t want to be putting the effort into responding to questions that the client isn’t actually asking. But on the other hand, on the face of it they are asking the question, even if they don’t know what they’re asking or why.

I’m sometimes tempted to just get ChatGPT to respond but there are so many reasons why that’s a bad idea.

We’re all already overworked. Now we’re expected to answer long-winded questions that often don’t make sense for people who won’t read the answer anyway 😖

4+ years of generalist work in London start-ups and scale-ups / current salary 85k + bonus

Been trying to find what's the entry point to a London firm for someone who:

• qualified in an EU, non-common law jurisdiction;
• does not have a particular international niche or in demand skill/expertise;
• has no SQE (applied for SQE2 exemption, but need to sit SQE1 regardless);
• is 35yo;
• wants to become a qualified solicitor through an English firm and build a career in law, in London.

Lateral associate hiring for a generalist like me has been really hard. Had some interesting conversations with a few Top 50 law firms, interviews with two of them, but never reached an offer stage.

I've reached a point where I wonder what's the right way for me to enter private practice (if any):

a) apply for a Training Contract and start from scratch, or
b) persist with lateral hiring efforts.

LLMs and old threads do not provide a definitive answer so thought I should get a fresh snapshot.

Hi everyone!

I’m currently applying for a few mini-pupillages because I’m planning to apply for Inn of Court GDL scholarships in March, and I’m slightly worried about my lack of formal legal experience.

For context, my academic background is:

BA History – First Class Honours (Russell Group university): 73% overall, 86% dissertation.

MPhil – Oxbridge: 67% overall. My compulsory courses in Michaelmas were 72%, although my thesis was 67% and compulsory language course 63%. I was quite unwell during the latter part of the degree and had an infection requiring an operation around my thesis deadline, so I was given a one-month extension. (I’m a little embarrassed about how low my grade was at the end 😔)

A significant amount of my academic work has actually involved legal history. For both my BA and MPhil, I spent a huge amount of time working with court proceedings, legislation and other legal/archival material, analysing evidence and using it to construct arguments in my dissertations.

Outside academia, I’ve also become the unofficial person friends/family ask for help when dealing with things like landlords. I’ve helped people research tenancy law and draft formal complaints challenging fines/claims, including cases where the landlord subsequently dropped the claim. Obviously, I’m very aware that this is not legal experience or legal advice, but I do think it reflects that I genuinely enjoy researching rules/evidence, constructing an argument and communicating it persuasively.

My problem is that I didn’t do mooting or law societies at university. I had always vaguely thought “maybe I’ll become a barrister”, but I didn’t seriously decide to pursue it until after graduating, so I’m now worried that my CV looks like someone who has suddenly decided to do law without having done anything legal!

I know several barristers through family/friends and Oxbridge (my college was like 90% lawyers haha), and a few have encouraged me to pursue the Bar. One of my family friends is meeting me soon to discuss the career; interestingly, he also came to the Bar in his 30s, so I’m hoping to get his perspective on entering it through a less conventional route.

I’ve also been looking at some of the mini pupilages and they mention the “Bridging the Bar” scheme which I think could work in my favour?

I’m a woman of Pakistani heritage and I went to a state school which was “under monitoring” while I attended (it was actually featured on one of those “Educating [city]” programmes 😭), and majority of my friends from school never went to uni let alone even thought about doing the bar so even though I have a bit of imposter syndrome I do hope this proves I could maybe make it?

My main questions are:

How much does a lack of formal legal experience hurt when applying for a first mini-pupillage?

Would you emphasise the legal-history/research side of my degrees, or does that risk sounding like I’m trying to make academic experience sound more “legal” than it is?

Is helping friends/family research tenancy law and draft complaints worth mentioning at all?

What would you put in a CV professional profile to explain the transition from history/academia into the Bar?

Are there any particular schemes, competitions, volunteering opportunities etc. I should be applying for now to strengthen my applications before the GDL scholarship deadline?

Any advice from barristers, pupils, GDL students or people who came to the Bar through a non-law route would be hugely appreciated!

Thank you all so much!

I am a fourth-seat trainee at a silver circle firm.

I’m curious to hear about other trainees’ experiences.

I have more often than not been quite bored during my TC. With the exception of my first seat (being the one I want to qualify into), I have most of the time not had that much work to do, with the odd intense week/fortnight every now and again.

This may be because I’m useless, but I’ve only received good feedback overall so far in my reviews.

Anyone else the same?

And associates - have you found the job more engaging with more involvement/responsibility?

Hello everyone,

​I’m a Canadian moving to the UK on a spouse visa, and I’m looking for some realistic advice on whether I can make the jump to becoming a barrister.

​A bit about my background:

​Basically, I graduated last year with a Civil Law degree (LL.B.) and a 74% average. I received an entrance scholarship when I started. While most of my degree focused on civil law, I did have a few common law classes like criminal, administrative, and constitutional law.

During uni, I spent nearly 4 months interning with a criminal lawyer. Since graduating, I’ve been working full-time as an admin. (I hate my job ! It's not stimulating me mentally at all. It's boring tbh. Anyway, I am doing this job temporarily, while waiting to move to UK.

While I was in uni, I really enjoyed reading case law—especially criminal law and civil liability/torts. I used to pull 9 to 12-hour study days almost regularly, so heavy workloads don't intimidate me at all.

​But, here is the glitch. My program didn't give us much chance to do mooting or mock trials, so practical oral advocacy is definitely something I need to build up from scratch. Our director wanted to form jurists instead of lawyers 💀 For her, case law were more important than anything else.

​here are my questions for you:

​1.With a foreign civil law degree, what does the pathway look like for me to become a barrister? Will I need a full conversion degree (GDL/LLM) or just specific modules?

​2. Is there anything you'd recommend doing before jumping into the Bar training process, like working as a paralegal or taking specific courses?

3. Are there any books, syllabi, legal website or key resources I should look at right now to get a feel for what I'm heading into?

​4.Realistically, what should I prepare myself for when making the switch from Canadian civil law to UK common law (competitiveness, workload, costs, etc.)?

(I know I can ask Gemini, but I feel like having a feedback from humans will somehow help me better)

Thank you again for your help ^^

I chose CILEX because I understood the route into legal practice to be flexible and something I could fit around my circumstances. When I first enquired by phone, I remember being told it was highly flexible and intended to work that way. The email I received before enrolling described open enrolment, the modules and the fees, but I did not understand from the information I relied on that buying several modules would start overlapping 12-month access periods, whether or not I was ready to study each one.

Be aware of the 12-month access limit. In my experience, the course was not as flexible as it was marketed to be. Check when the limit starts for each module and when access to the learning materials ends.

I paid over £3,000 across membership, registration, course materials and exam fees. I did study and passed both Ethics and Professional Responsibility modules. I had intended to complete the qualification, but I did not complete the other paid modules before losing access to the learning materials.

I also found the online systems confusing and difficult to navigate. I struggled to locate study materials and deadlines and to work out which tasks I had to complete. I needed clearer guidance about what to do next. That made it harder to make good use of the time I had.

I first understood that there was an expiry issue after my purchases, when I contacted customer service. CILEX later relied on that exchange when refusing my refund, including the fact that I thanked the person who replied. I was being polite; I don’t think that shows I knew about the access limit before paying.

CILEX has refused both a full and partial refund, while keeping open an offer of another 12 months’ access. I appreciate that offer, but by then I had moved on to another academic route. Restarting would mean substantial relearning and reorganising my commitments, so the extension does not solve the financial loss or give me the practical outcome I wanted.

I was then told I had the right to appeal and that the matter would go to Corporate Compliance. After I submitted a detailed appeal, Corporate Compliance explained that Stage 3 normally reviews how the complaint was handled and does not usually reconsider the refund decision unless serious handling failings are found. I have asked them to clarify how that fits with the appeal I was offered. My complaint is still under review, so I cannot yet comment on its final outcome.

I’m sharing this as my own experience. I wanted a flexible route into legal practice, but I found the systems hard to use, did not understand the access limits when I bought several modules, and have been left without the qualification I intended and without a refund.

Hi everyone,

I’m originally from Italy and I’ve been living and working in Scotland for the last year but been in England for 7.I’ve been working full-time in kitchens since I was 15. While I love the industry, I am ready for a complete career change. I don't have a university degree yet ,just my high school hospitality diploma from Italy

I really want to transition into the legal world as a paralegal or move into HR or find a path that bridges both. The specific areas that interest me most are employment law, corporate law, or estate/succession law.

Because I need to keep earning my plan is to keep working my full time chef job while studying. I want to start by taking a Central Law Training (CLT) Scotland paralegal course. After that my goal is to start a online BA in Business and Management in October 2027 whit openuniversity. This gives me a little over a year to focus entirely on the CLT course and get a head start before the degree .

In terms of my experience I'm a Chef de Partie but have undergone Sous Chef training, I have hands-on experience training staff, managing food costs, and handling supplier orders. However I’ve never done typical corporate tasks like organizing formal business meetings or managing office paperwork.

My English is currently around a B2/C1 level.

I’d love to get some realistic advice from people in Scotland who work in these fields

>Should I take an official English course or language test (like IELTS/Cambridge) for my CV?

>Which specialty has the best entry-level prospects? Given my interest in Employment, Corporate, and Estate law, which one pairs best with a future Business & Management BA or offers a smoother bridge into HR?

>How do employers view a senior hospitality background? I have transferable skills like leadership (training people) and commercial awareness (costs and ordering), but no traditional office experience. How hard is it to get your foot in the door at a Scottish law firm?

Any insights, brutal honesty, or tips on how to structure this transition over the next couple of years would be massively appreciated. Grazie