Hello

[Shooty1976]

Hi all,
Been looking at the main website for a few days, have just started exploring the forum, thought I'd register and say hello.

I'm a qualified lawyer in an area of legal practice which has become a race to the bottom in terms of fees and professional self-respect. I've been qualified for 15 years now.
For the first 11 years, I was just a lawyer. For the last 4 years, I've become responsible for oversight of our data which we have to provide to clients on a regular basis, ensuring that the lawyers who populate the data on the system keep on top of it, error checking, system design to ensure that the correct data is captured quickly and easily, production of internal and external dashboards, and, recently, delivering lectures to our own clients on what their MI means (due to staff turnover, the people I was dealing with at the start have gone, and their replacements need bringing up to speed).

At the start, I knew little about MI. I was presented with a spreadsheet and told to get on with it.

Surprisingly, it turned out that I loved working with data. I see it as a puzzle that has to be solved each week/ month/ quarter, depending on which client it is. I take pride in accuracy above that of my competitors, even down to presentation of same (shallow, I know).

After a wee while, I thought "there has to be an easier way to do this" than manual filtering, etc. Which is when I discovered Visual Basic. Which lead me to SQL.

So... here I am now. Unhappy at work, not due to the nature of the job, but to the limits on how far I can take it within the current framework and, obviously, because I have to work with a load of lawyers.

I went to see a recruitment agent last week, with a view to a move focussing on my non-legal skills, such as they are. They floated contracting as a very real possibility. I hadn't thought about it before and, honestly, shied away from the idea of loss of secure income but, having discussed it with my wife, we think it's something to look seriously into.

That's all for now. I'm going to digest as much of the forum and site as I can, and then I'll probably still bug you all with questions that have been asked before

[northernladuk]

Welcome.. As a lawyer didn't that lot cost about £700 to write??

As a contractor you are taken on as an expert in your field. Someone that has proven skills and qualifications in the area the role is looking for so you can hit the ground running. No training, guidance and the link. Bang and you are in. Dabbling a little bit in something is NOT going to work in contracting I am afraid. Whatever you are looking to do there will be a couple of 100 guys on the bench as the market is poor at the moment and all of them will have years of experience contracting. You are not going to get a sniff I am afraid.

Be very careful with agents. They rarely know what we do, they are a resourcing middle man between client and us and deal with job specs. In the old days they were generally pretty good but now many of them are just sales people keyword matching CV's to jobspecs. Take everything they say with a pinch of salt. They aren't good at giving bad feedback and don't want you on the phone as you aren't earning them any commission. They will say yes, great, you'll do well, thank you goodbye... and on to the next poor sucker. They are not head hunters or career specialists. Sorry if I offend the odd few that are actually very good.

I'd do a lot more research and look around at what roles you are experienced and qualified for, which I think you will find are none. Don't get yourself thinking you 'could' do that role, or think that with a bit of training you would like to do that. Contracting does not work like that. You wouldn't employ an ex lawyer who has built the odd wall as a builder would you?

If you are serious about it you are probably better off finding a perm role to gain skills and qualifications before thinking of contracting. That said by the time you have them you'll be paid as much as a contractor will but that's another story.

HTH and sorry for the bad news.

[BrilloPad]

Personally I think you should combine your legal and IT skills. A "Jack of all trades. Master of all" goes down well - well it does for me in finance.

IT skills are easy to pick up. Business skills are much harder.

BTW do you know anything about divorce?

[moneymoney]

It's honestly not all doom and gloom. Depending on your industry, while it's obviously preferable if you have 20 years experience of contracting in that specific area, not having that doesn't mean you can't get a job as a contractor. I made the jump from perm to contractor with relative ease, just had a look around and wasn't overly picky about what I got, so long as it got me a foot in the door to the contracting world. I know plenty of others who have done this too.

Obviously if you have lots of responsibilities and outgoings (mortgages/kids etc) then make sure you have something solid lined up before you make the jump and once you do, start putting a nice chunk of that extra income away to build up the warchest/rainy day fund.

Whatever you decide, best of luck with it! (I'll leave the others to scare you off with talk of IR35, worst time to become a contractor etc)