‘Should I work as a paralegal, or self-fund the SQE?’

Do what the hell you want, but please, please, don’t come back to these pages moaning if you fail the SQE. It isn’t a mere formality.

There’s some people in this comment section giving their opinion instead of advice, and you’re about as useful as a chocolate teapot in the Sahara.

There’s benefits to self-funding in the sense you can choose where you study and have the ability to study part-time alongside a job (32 weeks instead of the 21 weeks full-time). It gives you more time to prepare and revise without additional pressure from a firm of doing it on their time. You can also have the ability to earn as you learn, but if you fail then you have to eat the cost of the next exams.

Having the SQE paid for is great – it’s not cheap and you don’t need to think about taking out loans for it! However, when you have your TC and do the SQE, the problem could be that, if you don’t pass, then there’s a high likelihood you’d lose your TC and have to restart the process/explain why you didn’t retain the TC to other firms, etc. It’s becoming more apparent that, with the state of the SQE1, it’s going to be a continual thing that pops up.

Firms don’t consider you better than others for having completed the LPC/SQE already – if you’ve done it, great, but they care more about your application, grades, experience, etc. and it’s not a deciding factor.

If you think you can self-fund and work, then go for it. Use it as experience and include that you did the SQE alongside whatever role you take up to show skills like multitasking.

If you think getting a TC first is best, do it, but there’s no guarantee you’ll get one next year or even the year after – you could be risking wasting years on trying to get a TC when you could have done the brunt of the work (the exams) alongside.

If you are seriously committed to a career in commercial law and are open to alternative pathways such as qualifying in-house, or at a smaller firm, I would look to self-fund the SQE, or LPC if you have that option. But I would only do this if you intend to go down the paralegal route since self-studying at least gives you the ability to qualify through qualifying work experience so that you don’t fritter the years away with nothing to show.

I am qualifying through this route at an asset manager and whilst they are paying for my exams, I have to self fund the prep course. My life would be much easier if I had already done this straight out of university and didn’t have to now balance a demanding job and studying. Once you start your career, it is infinitely harder to go back and self-study should you fail to obtain a training contract.

Many smaller firms, and in house organisations such as hedge funds, offering training contracts will also not offer you any financial support and instead look to hire candidates that have already self studied. Since I had not done this, these opportunities weren’t open to me.

But, in all honesty, I do not recommend the paralegal route unless law is your true passion. You will quickly discover that it is a truly unglamorous profession where you will be treated as nothing more than a resource. I can confidently say that having worked at top city firms, chambers, and a a few in-house corporates. It IS possible to earn good money as a paralegal, certainly high 5 (or low 6) figures with a few years experience, potentially more off-shore in the right area. But these roles are few and far between.

Ask yourself is this your passion or are you chasing money and success? Unless you obtain a TC at a top firm, or are willing to slog through an alternative route to qualify and then try monkey branch your way up, you’ll find both of those things in far more abundance in other careers such as tech, or front office finance roles.