A day in the life of the average solicitor/barrister

EdgarAllenPoo

Would anyone be able to contribute to this? I remember one of my lecturers telling a class what their prospects would be career wise and it depressed the hell out of a lot of people.
I remember him saying something along the lines of get used to living like a vampire, ie. you'll leave home before sunrise, it'll be dark by the time you get back and if you have time for a holiday or kids you're not working hard.

I know especially around CAO time that people go to the legal and medical threads for advice on things like this so maybe if anyone would like to share their experieinces they could do it here.

hada

being 2 years into my undergraduate law degree and I this still puzzles me, what the feck will I even be doing.

it's all fine and dandy learning tort, criminal, labour laws, etc etc, but what the hell am I going to be doing??

EdgarAllenPoo

That's my point, will you spend most of your time in court or shuffling papers in an office. Will you do 12 hour days or nine to five?

dats_right

I am an aprentice solicitor, and I have many friends who are working in a variety of solicitors' firms ranging from sole practitioner, big corporate, medium sized and rural. There is no simple answer to your question to be honest. There are way too many variables. Everything depends entirely on the firm that you work for.

The answer as regards the barrister side of things is a lot easier to answer. You will work 9.30 ish-4.30 ish whilst a devil and possibly later if you have to research/draft something for your master. After your 1 year devilling period you will be hanging around the law library day in day out with very little to do indeed, hoping that solicitors instruct you (which they probably won't in the first few years) a better bet would be to try get some applications, motions etc from a barrister who has a busy practice. You will hang off such barristers like a fly around sh**e. If you are lucky you might even get tutoring in one of the colleges that at least will mean you won't starve..

Time Magazine

10:30am - float into the office
11:00am - discuss issue with client
12:00pm - get paid €300 for last hour's work
12:01pm - rev up somewhere and lie on a leather couch for a nap - you've to be up for 10:30am tomorrow morning.

Our man in Havana

Roffle