Qualifications and Experience

To obtain a training contract from a legal employer, you need to have a law degree, or to have completed a law conversion course, known as the Common Professional Examination or Graduate Diploma in Law.

After this law graduates and conversion course graduates study the Legal Practice Course (LPC), which is a vocational course to help apply law to practical circumstances. You will then complete a trainee solicitor contract, before you become fully qualified.

Legal recruiters are likely to look for the following skills, as well as top grades, from potential trainee solicitors:

• Communication
• Attention to detail
• Commercial awareness
• Ability to learn quickly
• Teamwork

Working Conditions

Almost all legal professionals are required to work in an office environment. It is not uncommon for legal specialists to travel far and wide to attend meetings or court cases for example. In some cases legal experts have been known to hand-deliver important documents to places such as police stations, parliament, court houses, or other solicitors.

In most cases, working in the legal profession involves a typical 09.00-5.30 working pattern but it is not unusual for barristers or lawyers to do as much as 12 hours per day due to the amount of research that the job requires. Still, legal professionals are some of the highest paid workers in the United Kingdom so the rewards for these long hours are there.