Insights into a Career in Law from Old Sedberghian, William Kinread

From securing valuable work experience to choosing the right A-levels and university courses, there are numerous factors to consider when pupils think about a future in law. Old Sedberghian William Kinread kindly spoke to Sedbergh’s aspiring young lawyers to answer common questions and offer valuable insights to help pupils make informed decisions. William is now an in-house lawyer, with broad experience working with private clients and instructing lawyers internationally. During his engaging discussion he talked about the value of work experience, selecting A-level subjects, and the advantages of different university pathways.

You really need to do work experience…

One of the first things I think we ought to talk about is work experience because you really need go and get some work experience to see what it’s like being a lawyer. However, work experience is getting harder and harder to arrange for 16 – 17-year-old pupils. One of the reasons for that is that you are really asking for a favour and secondly it’s harder and harder for employers to accept people for work experience because the School needs to see a health and safety policy, employer’s liability insurance, all these sort of things.

However, you can get past it and your CV and extra-curricular activities are important. Recently, we received an application from a young girl and her CV was so outstanding that my colleagues and I decided that we can’t not give her work experience. The outstanding thing about it, more than her excellent GCSE results, was that she does charity work in her spare time, she’s also excellent at sports and excellent at music. She’s really a well-rounded person with lots of interests and I think that it’s important to show that.

Be conscious of what you post on your social media

I want you to be aware that when you go for interviews and so on, people will look your Facebook (Instagram, TikTok etc) and they’ll see what’s on there. So just be aware that your social media is going to be looked at. Your social media is a sort of unofficial CV; you’ve put things on there like contacts and events – things that people will have a quick look at to see what does this person do? So it is just important to bear that in mind.

What A Levels should you do?

You can do any A levels to be a lawyer. There are no A level requirements. So, I recommend that you do what you enjoy because if you do what you enjoy and what you are interested in, then you’ll get better results – and good results are what’s important. If you want to do Math, Physics and Chemistry or English, History and Geography or Biology, English and Music, do that. What’s important is that you get the results. However, be aware that you might need to do subjects that go together because not all subject combinations can be scheduled in the School’s Curriculum.

No particular A levels really help you in law. You need to be literate because you have to write lots, so it’s good to be good at English, but you don’t have to have done English A level. Similarly, it’s good to know a bit about history, but I didn’t do history – I just read a lot of history. I know people that are scientists that have then done law at university.

The only thing I think you shouldn’t do is a law A level because it’s a huge subject and you’re just doing ‘law in a nutshell’ – and you’ll have to relearn the whole thing again from scratch at university anyway. So it’s a waste.

What should I study at university? Should I do the conversion course?

I’m assuming you are all planning to go to university and then law school and all that sort of thing. Nowadays there are other options. For example, you can go to solicitors firms and do five years work experience. I have no experience with that although you can look it up; visit https://www.sra.org.uk/become-solicitor/admission/pathways-qualification/ and it will tell you all the requirements to become a solicitor and all the different routes.

If you are going to university, your choice is either to do law or do a different degree and then a conversion course. My opinion is that if you are uncertain about law, but you love – let’s say English – then do an English degree. It gives you three years to sort of think things through and you can do a law conversion if you do decide to go into law. What you’ll end up doing is making it a year longer before you qualify as a solicitor. I can remember being 18 and thinking, oh, six years to qualify. I can’t believe it’s so long. It goes like that. If you do a different degree first, followed by a law conversion, it’ll be seven years, but it’ll go like that. So, if you’ve got a love for a different subject and you’re not a hundred percent sure about the law, then it’s fine if you do the conversion course and then the part two exams.

With the conversion course you haven’t had quite the same foundation as if you did a law degree because in one year you’re learning a lot of what other students have taken three years to do. It’s more factual based than university law; university is a bit more academic and you’ll look at questions like, ‘Do judges make law?’ If you do the conversion course, there’s no time for that sort of thing. So, that’s the difference. Another example of that is that in the conversion course you don’t spend much time on the concept of joint property; you’ll learn in half an hour what we spent a month on at university. Sometimes you can then be practicing law and you just feel a slight disadvantage, but you can always go back to basics, as needed, yourself. So, that’s my viewpoint, however, conversely, I know an agricultural lawyer that did agriculture at university and then did a conversion course and he believes it’s the best thing to do. I’m sure he would say, don’t do law, go and do something else because he understands all about farming. There’s so much flexibility, so many options nowadays, I think if you’re not sure about being a lawyer, don’t saddle yourself with things too early.

Which university should I go to?

The best one; get the best grades you can and go to the best university you can. The only thing is you do need to look at the precise degrees that are on offer because at Oxford for instance, it’s not a law degree. It’s jurisprudence, or it was – which is more like the philosophy of law. Nottingham, for instance, was renowned for being really good at law. So it’s worth having a look around. I went to Leeds, which again, is good at law.

Should I be a barrister?

In the old days, barristers were the only ones that had rights in the higher courts. So, that’s why all the court case cases and films have barristers. Nowadays, solicitors have that audience as well. And barristers are used for other court cases, but solicitors could do it themselves. Now it’s a big firm. They have advocates there and legal opinions, but solicitors can do that as well. One day, in the not too distant future, the professions may merge like they have in America, and we’ll all just be lawyers.

When I was your age and I decided I wanted to be a lawyer, I wanted to be a barrister. You don’t need to decide solicitor or barrister until you get to university; you’ll do the same law degree whether you want to be a solicitor or barrister, but one year in, you need to make that decision. It’s not actually as hard academically. Barristers have a chamber, they’re a member of chambers and they work on their own. Solicitors are in a partnership. Barristers tend to do criminal law to start with and then hope that they build a reputation to maybe move on to commercial things. There are 10 times as many solicitors as barristers; there’s about 17,000 barristers in the country and 170,000 solicitors. Of the 17,000 barristers, probably 16,750 are earning minimum wage or not much more. It’s horrific. They’re all going on the strike because there’s no legal aid anymore except for really serious cases. They are paid by the government, and the government don’t want the cost of legal aid, whereas solicitors are paid by clients. So, it’s a really hard career path and it’s often very poorly paid.

If you absolutely have your heart set on it, then do it and be as good as you can, but you should go and get some work experience to see what it’s really like.

Why do your personal values matter?

Solicitors look after client money. Compare that to my accountant; he never gets any of my money – he does my work, sends me a bill at the end of the year and we pay him. However, if I’m buying a house, I sent my solicitor the money for the house and then a few days later he buys it. If you have a dishonest solicitor, the clients are at risk. Because of that, the solicitor’s profession is very highly regulated. So they’re going to check that you’ve been honest, you haven’t got a criminal record, etcetera, etcetera.

Do lawyers specialise?

Just like doctors specialise, lawyers also specialise. There is no sort of general practicing lawyers anymore; they all specialise in one subject really. All those subjects lead to different types of career, different types of firm and different ways of life. You don’t have to think about it now, but you’ll be thinking about this at university.

The firm I work with, when we act internationally, we instruct a firm of international lawyers. They have fantastic offices in Brussels and they charge £650 an hour. They work in teams, so when I instruct them, I don’t have one lawyer acting for me, I have a whole team and the bills are eye-watering. It’s very exciting work, but they require a lot from you. In Ireland, we use a different firm and in England we use a tier two firm, so £350 an hour. We only need a two-tier firm because we’ve got me. My career, when I was practicing law rather than being an in-house lawyer, I was doing private client work which is different again. That’s acting for people like your parents and has very different requirements in terms of working hours and culture.

Then there are niche firms that we use for different things, like when we register patents and trademarks and we use a firm in Birmingham. They’re really small, but all they do are these trademarks and patents. If you’ve got a real interest in that, that’s a way of being in a small and cozy firm but still able to make a living. That’s the difference between the guys in firms that make a million a year, and those in a small village where you will probably do a few wills and a bit of property work. It will be a very different way of life, a different income, different demands on you. You need to look at the sort of culture that all these different firms have, look at their websites and so on and thinking about what suits you.

Then there’s in-house lawyers like I am. In-house, lawyers are judged on a very different set of criteria to commercial lawyers.

Is a law degree helpful if you don’t become a lawyer?

You don’t have to be a lawyer if you’ve done a law degree. You need to make that decision at the end of university rather than going on and doing the law exams. It’s a good general degree, but it is a general degree. It’s not a specific degree like engineering. It’s not vocational for anything other than law. A lot of people say do law, it’s a good degree, but if you’re not going to be a lawyer, it doesn’t automatically lead to anything else.

Conclusion

In conclusion, embarking on a legal career entails careful consideration of various factors, from gaining work experience to selecting A-levels and university courses. While the path to becoming a solicitor or barrister offers flexibility, it demands dedication and awareness of the evolving legal landscape. Ultimately, personal values, interests, and long-term goals should guide your journey into the legal profession.