Family Law Solicitor - William Cowan

Careers in Law can be very different depending on the type you practice and the size of the firm you join. Solicitors tend to be the first port of call for legal matters whether personal or corporate and they liaise with clients to try and resolve their problems or provide a legal framework for something they want to achieve.

Barristers are called in by solicitors for their expertise in a particular area of the law or to argue a case in court. That said, the distinction between the two is narrowing slightly due to the increasing scope for solicitors to conduct their own litigation.

Like many of the professions, law offers a great deal of flexibility in terms of where you practice so you don’t have to be in the centre of a large city to have a successful career. You can practice in large firms servicing business, within the businesses themselves as an in-house lawyer or at a high street practice overseeing the matters of private individuals.

It’s worth bearing in mind that the type of firm and specialty of law you practice will have a huge impact on what your daily life is like. A private equity solicitor in a magic circle firm is going to be spending a lot more time in the office than a high street solicitor. Commercial barristers were one of the biggest shocks to us. We hadn’t quite grasped just how individual the job is and the huge hours it demands. A 6 day working week appears very standard.

Law is well known as a lucrative industry and many firms seem to have coped with the credit crunch well. As a guide, if you’re a solicitor in a top 50 city firm then on your first rotation expect a salary in the £35-40,000 range. Newly qualified's will be in the sixties and three year post qualified can be anywhere from £80-110K. Salaries in the smaller high-street firms are quite a bit lower. Barristers are self-employed so their income can vary hugely but the industry stars could give David Beckham a run for his money.

Who are you and what do you do?

My name’s William Cowan. I work in the firm of Collard Chamberlain Solicitors. I’m a solicitor and I do private client work which means work that relates to family matters but not in relation to divorces or child care but in relation to dealing with individuals affairs.

What attracted you to this career?

As a student I wanted to study and train for and get a qualification that would make me useful in the workplace and I thought that being a solicitor would provide that service in a number of different working environments. Initially I thought I would be a business solicitor, a solicitor working for businesses and I trained in a firm that was oriented towards serving the needs of medium sized and larger businesses but at the end of my training I moved on and moved firms to where I am now and developed what I call the private client practice. Perhaps that’s the good thing about being a solicitor – you can develop it in different directions.

What does your job involve?

It involves advising individuals about a variety of different matters. It involves drafting wills often which enables a person’s wishes to be carried out upon their death, the right persons to be dealing with their affairs and whatever they may have to be distributed to the people they may want to inherent. On the other side of that it will involve the administration of the estate of the deceased person either having the responsibility as the executor, sometimes the solicitor is the executor perhaps with another person, other times it means assisting an executor with winding up a person’s affairs and giving effect to their will. Various other sorts of advice and assistance can be involved to do with succession to do with a family’s assets passing from one generation to another. That may involve setting up trusts and administering those. An important legal tool can be a power of attorney whereby someone can appoint and authorise a family member or trusted friend or advisor to deal with their affairs and we advise with setting those up and using them and registering them. There are other associated things, something as simple as changing a name by deed poll or to do with advice in co-ownership of a property if different people are contributing to a purchase of a flat, house or land and associated drafting of paperwork.

What do you do on a typical day?

My working day is between about 9 and 5.30 and it does involve around seeing clients, understanding what their concerns are, what they want, how we can help, what would be useful to them and advising them on options on what they might do. Personally I do prefer clients to come into the office if at all possible, that’s the most efficient use of my time, but I do go out and visit clients from time to time at their home if that’s particularly helpful for them and it depends on who you are, how willing and eager you are to get out and see people but I would generally see one or two clients each day and I would discuss whatever is on the agenda. So that’s part of the day, but I need to keep a good portion of the day available for working on the appropriate advice, drafting the paperwork that is needed to carry out a clients wishes and intentions, researching a particular subject perhaps in the administration of an estate, pushing that forward by correspondence or by collating information that’s been gathered. It involves taking telephone calls, sometimes giving advice in that way and a mixture of correspondence by post or email and contacting people by telephone.

How did you decide between becoming a solicitor or barrister?

Yes, one needs to make that choice. I never entertained for long the option of being a barrister. I preferred the idea of being a solicitor. Positively it involves more sustained contact with and assistance to a client. As a solicitor you are the port of call in terms of legal advice and a barrister may be someone to whom you refer a person’s affairs. Solicitors tend to work in teams, firms smaller or larger, as a barrister essentially one’s working on one’s own and I always thought that being a solicitor would be more appropriate for me.

What are the best bits about your job?

It's good to be able to finish a job to a clients satisfaction, providing a good service and it’s important to get an appropriate price for your service which a client knows represents good value for money. A certain amount of stress along the way is worth it if you’ve got that good outcome. In my role as a solicitor I am able to provide quite a direct delivery of services which are often very helpful and very important to the clients whom I meet. There are things that I can do by drawing an appropriate will or putting suitable arrangements in place which will avoid disputes in the future or will avoid confusion or uncertainty. When someone is in a difficult situation I am in a position often to provide advice so that they can see what their options are and decide on a particular course of action. With clients who are sometimes distressed and at a difficult time in their lives, perhaps when a loved one has died, or a loved one is losing the ability to manage their affairs, we can provide a pivotal service in helping sort out those matters or get matters attended to as smoothly as possible and with as little fuss as possible. If you’re able to provide an efficient service but that takes into account the needs of a client in their particular situation, that’s good, clients are often appreciative and grateful.

What are the worst bits about your job?

Sometimes we have stressful times, a particularly big matter might arise that needs a lot of time and it might be difficult to stay on top of all the things you want to be doing or there may be matters that are urgent. That’s not always the case with my type of work but sometimes and one needs to concentrate and devote time to that which can be stressful.

What has been your greatest achievement?

There have been one or two cases which have been drawn out – they have lasted for a longish period of time and I have been able to bring matters to a satisfactory conclusion and I think that’s a good thing to have been able to deal with. A person’s affairs following their death can be quite complicated for a number of different reasons, it can sometimes be difficult to get to the end of the process and to wind everything up but I’ve been pleased when I’ve been able to do that with a particularly complex case.

Any regrets?

I have mentioned that initially I thought I would be a solicitor involved with providing services for businesses. As it turns out I’ve ended up as a solicitor dealing with individuals, advising and assisting them and perhaps I might have realised earlier than I did that for me it was better, more appropriate to do this type of work. Possibly I might have, had I had that sense, I would have trained with a different type of firm from where I did train. It was good that experience in that I got the qualification and successfully trained as a solicitor but I might have developed my skills more quickly in a firm that was more geared towards what I ultimately have been doing. I think probably one thing to consider is whether in the particular firm you are going to train you are going to get the responsibility to develop as a would-be solicitor and perhaps that’s one thing to consider when choosing a firm to train at and that maybe something that sells in favour of a smaller firm than a bigger one.

What is the pay like and are there any perks?

The pay for a solicitor varies enormously. I believe that the there is a minimum salary for trainees which is currently a little over £15,000. If you’re in charge of a firm of whatever size, if you’re ambitious and single-minded enough to make it a commercial success in terms of profit, there are ample rewards to be had and the amount of remuneration available is wherever you find yourself on that scale.

How long is a working day and do you have to work out of hours?

I tend to work from 9 – 5.30 Monday to Friday. It’s hard to imagine when I may really be on call for a client but there are times when a matter is particularly urgent or when there is a heavy workload on because of a number of different matters needing attention. I’ve had times when I’ve had to work at home in the evenings or at the weekend, particularly when I was building up my skills as a solicitor and perhaps it took me longer to carry out tasks than it does now that I’m a little more experienced. I found myself working outside office hours and I’ve done some additional study since I’ve qualified as a solicitor to get an accreditation as a private client practitioner.

Is there much in the way of travel?

In my type of work as a solicitor I wouldn’t expect to be travelling. We are serving the local community and from time to time I would go to Birmingham or London for a seminar or a conference to discuss and train up on particular matters but we are based here serving the clients round about.

Do you have to be based anywhere in particular?

No, there is a lot of choice in this profession. In the town where I work in Oxfordshire, there are 4 or 5 solicitor firms and providing legal services as a solicitor is something that is done locally all around the country. Of course in London there are a whole collection of bigger firms and in the regional centres there are large firms where it may be helpful to train or to start off but it’s certainly a qualification that you can transfer to any part of the country. I’ve been located in this area for quite a large part of my life. I looked into it and had some interviews with firms in Birmingham and London but it turns out that this is the environment which suits me. We have a variety of clients from relatively ordinary clients in terms of financial status to some better off clients and there’s a lot to be said for that diversity of clientele.

What is the working environment like?

I think that clients tend to be quite comfortable with a solicitor who is formally quite conservatively attired. In the sort of work that I am doing, private client work, wills, probate, powers of attorney, many of the clients I see are in the older age bracket. They are the people for whom these things carry more weight in their minds, so I see a variety of ages in my clients, they are often the children of older parents who have passed away and they need assistance in winding up their affairs.

How did you get into your job?

Generally a degree is a prerequisite. If you choose to take a law degree that will enable you to go straight onto a vocational year of study. If you were going to be a barrister you would go to bar school for a year. If you want to be a solicitor you take a legal practice course which lasts a year and it’s a vocational course about the practical matters involved with being a solicitor. If you haven’t done a law degree as I didn’t you need to do a one year law course, that will give you the academic legal qualification then to go on and do a legal practice course. Then once you’ve got those years of study successfully completed, you need a training contract with a firm which generally lasts two years and it’s important early on, even when you begin your studying in those years that I mentioned, to have in mind a firm that will take you on and train you and ideally have a training contract already arranged so that you know once you finish that studying you can go straight on to go through those two years of training and at the end of those two years you will be a qualified solicitor and you can practice as such. I was lucky enough at an early stage when I began the academic year of law to have a training contract in place.

What's the application process like?

It will mean applying to the firm in whatever way they ask you to. Some bigger firms will offer a vacation programme for a week or two, perhaps in Easter or the summer when they will let you come along and do a placement and there will be an application process for that. Otherwise you need to be looking out for the firms which are offering training contracts. Not all firms will offer training contracts although of course the medium sized and bigger firms will invariably have a training contract programme so you will need to go to the website or get in touch with the firm, get a pack and find out how you can submit your application. As a smaller firm we would find it difficult. The responsibilities of a trainer are rightly quite onerous, appropriate supervision needs to be given, it means a financial investment and so in recent years this firm hasn’t had a trainee and that would be the case with many of the smaller firms.

What are the key skills required for your job?

There’s an academic element, as a solicitor you need to have the ability to get on top of technical content so you need some academic record which indicates you will be able to handle any field of law you go into expertly. It is important to be able to communicate and to get on with clients. Where I am it’s important to be able to discuss matters and advise quite a diverse range of clients. In the field of probate you need to be prepared to deal with people at a very sad time in their lives if you’re assisting them following the death of a loved one. It’s important to be aware of that. Communication by word of mouth, as one speaks is important and in writing, as when one sets out advice in a letter or email you need to be diligent and persistent. In this field, the administration of an estate may take work over quite a number of months and may even stretch into years and you need to be willing to stick at it and bring it to an end.

What's your top tip for breaking into your industry?

It is competitive; the number of solicitors in recent years has gone up very considerably and one wonders how sustainable that is. If you can as a student get onto one of those vacation placements that will put you in a good position and I was lucky enough when I was coming to the end of my non-legal studies to get a placement for the firm who subsequently offered me a training contract – that’s probably the key – and then whether or not you’ve got one of those placements, to be assiduous about applying for training contracts for when you finished your study.

What's the career progress and how quickly can you move up the career ladder?

Up to the time of qualification it is structure, you need to have those academic qualifications, you need to have successfully completed those two years of training. After that it depends on the firm within which you’re working. You’ll be an assistant solicitor; a particular firm will have gradings where you go up to be an associate solicitor. Most solicitor firms are run as partnerships; traditionally they’re just ordinary partnership, more recently firms have become limited liability partnerships which are more like companies but they have a number of members who are equivalent to partners. As I say, it depends on the firm environment you’re in. It would be a natural aspiration to become a partner, to become someone who shares in the profits of the firm but of course that also means sharing in the responsibility and liabilities of the firm but that’s a matter for who you’ve got in your particular firm whether they’re looking to increase the number of partners, whether partners are stepping down, it will depend on where you are.

How does the role change over time?

You should be developing your expertise that you can use for the benefit of the client as the years go by and you should be building up experience which you can bring to bear to serve the best interests of the client and so solicitors should remain very much client orientated. But, as you become a partner or closer to being a partner there will be management responsibilities in terms of running the firm as a business, you may be involved in trying to grow the firm’s business, marketing the firm’s services so that you bring in new clients. So there will be other things that come in as time goes by, you may have the job of managing a department with solicitors and other staff working in a team and working to your direction with you supervising them.

Where do you see the industry going?

Legal services is a competitive field and it is likely to become more competitive. There are probably rivals to solicitors firms who are looking to get into the market of providing different legal services, perhaps bank, perhaps other bigger companies or corporations, accountancy firms. As solicitors I think we can build on a position of being experts who can provide appropriate service that’s delivered to the needs of the clients. It may be that we need to work with other professions. There are solicitors who have developed estate agency practices – that’s one way of building up more than simply the legal service and providing a different type of service. It may become possible over the coming years for solicitors to join up with accountants and there may be a lot to be said for a firm or a practice to be created that provides clients with legal and accountancy under one roof or one organisation.

Is there scope for movement during or after this career?

In terms of taking a career break, there is no reason why one shouldn’t. The law keeps changing in any particular field and one needs to keep up with the developments and in a smaller firm, there your absence may be more missed if you were to take a career break. So there are concerns that one ought to bear in mind. But of course it should be possible to work out a way of stepping out for a time. As a solicitor you do have a qualification which is portable around the country and many solicitors for one reason or another do shift from specialising in one field of law to another. I trained in a more business oriented environment and I’ve developed a practice of advising private clients/individuals. I know solicitors who have been involved with what’s called civil litigation where you’re involved in court proceedings; you’re representing one party in a case or dispute, perhaps to do with personal injury and they’ve moved from that area and they’ve shifted to dealing with private client work.

What are the industry resources that someone interested in joining must know about?

There are any number of bodies which it may be good to join; there are publications, websites, discussion forums that in each case would relate to a particular field that you were engaged in practicing. Realistically it may be that you join those bodies and start reading those publications when you are involved in a particular field of law but it’s quite easy to get hold of publications like the Solicitors Journal or the New Law Journal or even the Law Society Gazette. Those are journals which will have pieces of legal interest on a range of matters; they will give you an idea of what’s going on in the business of law. They will also have advertisements for vacancies and so by looking at those you can get an idea of what’s happening. I subscribe to the Trust’s Discussion Forum by email whereby subscribers to the forum discuss different matters of interest. I am a member of the Law Society as one has to be as a practicing solicitor, I am a member of the probate section of the Law Society and I am a member of the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners.

If you weren't in this career, what would you be doing?

I think probably this is the career I am best suited to because it combines contact with people, serving a variety of people, trying to provide the advice and assistance that they need for their legal affairs, but I’m not overwhelmed by the people. I get some telephone calls, a client might come into the office, might email for demanding immediate attention but if I’m careful I’m able to keep time where I’m able to get on with the paperwork and the research, the documentation that I need to be dealing with.