Career Change

[The GMan]

I’m thinking of having a career change! I currently work as a Project/Bid Manager. I have developed and won several large bids of £50m+ using my own team and I have worked within in a team to win a couple of bids of £190m+. When working on all of these bids I did get involved in a lot of the contractual elements and change control of contracts that would be needed to achieve success for these projects.

I found this extremely interesting and I’m thinking of a change to Commercial Law. Have any of you ever made such a change? I appreciate I may need to sit additional qualifications, but I do find this work interesting.

Any advice would be much appreciated.

[mindgam3]

I'm no specialist in the law area but definately if you've got a good degree/experience in other areas then a few law firms will take you on from there and just train you to learn the ins and outs....

If you haven't a relative degree or experience i'd say it may be wise taking a 3 year law degree.... it all depends on your circumstances i suppose.... how old you are, what previous qualifications you have, what your job at the moment involves etc etc

[DanH]

If you don't have a law degree, you need to do 2 years at law college. Then depending on your intellect and previous education you will get a training contract for two years. If you make it to a city firm the rate will be decent, if you get in a 2 bit regional firm it may be 10k a year!

If you go into it, I suggest you make sure you are going to be at the top, the bottom isn't very nice. Especially if you want to do big deals and contract law. Its not insurmountable to get into a city firm with crap grades/non-oxbridge, but you may well have to work extrememly hard to get there and have some luck too.

If its something you are really drawn to then go for it imho. You have to be committed though.