Trainee City solicitor reveals crazy financial set-up, including £70k private pension, £20k crypto investment and access to parents’ credit card
‘I am undoubtedly extremely privileged’
A trainee solicitor earning over £50k-a-year has gone public with her eye-catching financial set-up.
The unnamed 20-something trainee lives alone in “a large, two-bedroom flat in a good location” in London which she rents from her parents for £850-a-month. The young rookie goes on to explain that she recently became single and has started an “intense” training contract at a London law firm.
The solicitor-to-be further reveals that her parents pay her phone bill and she still occasionally put things on her their credit card. Despite these financial comforts, when asked if she has any savings, the trainee tells the website Refinery 29: “£0 (lol)”. Fortunately, however, there’s the private pension set up for her by her parents, which has “about £70,000 in it”.
The City newbie reveals how her first job working for a retailer was “miserable” and that she had been forced to do it by her mum “as a way to learn the value of hard work etc”.
Characterising herself as “more of a spender”, she confesses that “one of the big regrets of my financial life” is using the £7,000 in bonds gifted to her by her parents on partying at university rather than on a car as they had intended. She also admits she was given about £20,000 by her grandma to invest in crypto – something she’d “rather not think about because it’s now worth less than half of that”.
Asked whether she is worried about money, she tells the website:
“I worry about money a lot despite being on a good salary and a good career path. Growing up reasonably wealthy, there are certain lifestyle non-negotiables I expect and I’m worried I won’t be able to provide them for my own family. I know I have terrible money skills and have absolutely zero self-control and it’s difficult trying to navigate being somewhat responsible alongside having the most amount of fun possible.”
“I am undoubtedly extremely privileged and I’m grateful every day for the life that I have,” she acknowledges. “I know my parents work extremely hard for us.”
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53 Comments
Ordinary Pay-War Enjoyer
Brilliant, I love reading about wealthy privileged people on a Monday morning. What a stupid article.
Dreamy Eyed Pessimist
This comment *made* my morning, though!
Yawns
The fact that her parents own a modest flat in London is simply a function of prudent middle class planning and investment, it is hardly evidence of someone being “wealthy” or “privileged”.
Moron
Those things are not mutually exclusive, you absolute moron.
(I suspect you’re a troll but wanted to point this out as deliberate idiocy wasn’t part of your trolling.)
Timber
What sort of mindless “logic” is this? The post pointed out that the evidence relied upon by the commenters bleating “privilege” is not of itself evidence of privilege. Your response says more about you than anything else.
Indeed the fact that they charge rent indicates they are not that wealthy really.
Oh, another moron. (Or the same one?)
Blimey. And you’re posting on a legal careers website? With that analysis? Good luck becoming a lawyer. Suspect you won’t even get past the Watson Glaser screening.
Timber
It seemed to cause no trouble at all. Though I never had to go near a screening test, such things are more for the mass market applications.
But do expand your analysis, it will be entertaining.
Robert Redmond
The fact that there are 850 million starving should remind Karen of her privileged life…
Anonymous
Still unhappy! The fact that there are 850 million starving should remind Karen of her privileged life…
wtf
How on earth is this newsworthy?
X
What the hell LegalCheek.
Tom
What the hell LegalCheek.
Anon
And she’s still unhappy after all that, says a lot…
Djed
Time to get out the world’s smallest violin for her and her struggles.
US 3PQE
The sad thing is that most City TC opportunities are GIFTED to these spoiled/privileged types, despite HR’s virtue signalling displays of “dIVeRsiTy & InCluSioN”… City law will always be about nepotism, politics and crusty old ways of status quo – rather than actual potential and merit.
Yawns
I would be tempted to black ball you just for the use of the word “actual”. It certainly would be uphill thereafter.
Boring
Who the fuck doesn’t pay their own phone bill after the age of 18? x
Anonymous
Why put this stupid article up? In a cost of living crisis and recession you have the audacity to publish garbage like this about a rich kid who merely happens to pursue a legal career as the offspring of very wealthy family! Real estate from parents, £20k from the gran, £50k salary.. I am a legal support staff earning £50k renting ‘in a good area in London’ and this salary certainly isn’t enough to get by in London where rent is 1/3 of one’s income.
US firm associate
Legal Cheek seriously struggling for clicks now they don’t have multiple salary raises a week to report on!
Timber
What is odd is the envious reaction too this story. This is not a person of massive privilege, just a basic middle class set up with a property in town for use and a modest contribution to a pension pot which no doubt was tax efficient for the parents at the time. If this story stirs you up you have no idea what privilege is.
@Timber
It’s all relative…this person will easily be in the top 1% socioeconomic bracket (by birth) in the country, let alone globally. And you say that’s not privilege? You have no idea how “the other half” live (by which I mean the other 99%.)
No doubt you are pretty privileged yourself.
Timber
Top 1% in the UK? By having an investment flat and they need to charge their daughter rent on it? You are having a laugh. Look at the percentage of population that own more than property and come back to us once you have educated yourself a bit.
You again
They “need to” charge her? Do you think the mortgage & costs on a two-bed flat would be anywhere near £850/month? Or – to look at it another way – the potential income stream that they’re foregoing? They are massively subsidising their daughter’s lifestyle. I suspect that they charge this as a nominal amount to teach her life skills.
Good luck becoming a lawyer with your dire commercial awareness.
I’ve met a few privileged people in my time who exist in a complete bubble. Private schooled, every adult they’ve ever known in life has been wealthy and, yes, privileged (but may have talked about financial stressors nonetheless). Clearly, you are one of them. You have no idea at all about the standard of most people’s finances in this country – because you lived in a bubble and have no direct experience.
Were you private schooled? Do you have any childhood friends who went to a state comp (NB not grammar)? Do you have any working-class childhood friends? Were any of your friends’ parents growing up labourers or tradesmen? If the answer is yes, no, no and no: pause and reflect on whether you’re really informed enough to comment on privilege.
Timber
State school. Working class. Don’t spend my life going on about it or using it as an excuse.
So in answer to your questions. No. Yes. Yes. Yes.
You again, again
I think I recognise you from your poor writing style, your poor analysis and your masquerading as state schooled / working class when evidently you are not. We’ve spoken on LC before.
Do you not get discouraged by all the downvotes on your posts each time? Do the downvotes not indicate to you that you have a bad take?
Timber
Taking them in order, 7.45am:
You don’t.
We haven’t.
Not at all.
Not at all, being popular with the weak-minded online blob is not a sign of being right or being in the right.
Anonymous
Ridiculous piece of publication on a Monday morning. What use did I derive from reading that other than “oh no, I’ve got no chance as a career in City law now…”
Tom
Ashurst v Hsf? Which is the better firm?
Chambers Global Enjoyer
If you want to do public M&A or big disputes, HSF. If you want to do corporate finance (less public M&A, more PE, finance/cap markets and restructuring), Ashurst.
Concerned for the future
It’s obvious what this piece is – a deliberately provocative article to stir up controversy and get engagement. But there is quite an important point to take away from it.
This could happen to you if you don’t raise your children right. Partnership is lucrative (starting at Travers for a salaried partner is £600k for example) and equity can be even more lucrative.
It is your responsibility to raise your children with good values from an early age. The idea of making her work at Next was a good one, but has evidently come far too late because the rot has already set in. Teach your children young and teach them well so that they can build upon what you have given them rather than destroy it through selfish hedonism.
The desire to provide the best for your children is real, I get that, but equally if you have raised a child that ends up like this woman, you have failed.
Anonymous
Top tier comment
Ap Parent
Next? How is exposing a poor soul to people with terrible fashion sense good parenting?
Anon
Problem is most of these partners don’t have any time for their kids and so simply pay them off by buying nice things to keep them happy and make themselves feel less guilty about not being around and thus…
Anonymous
The workers, united, will never be defeated!
Realist
Though the “workers” in that sense are only capable of increasingly reduced economic output in a knowledge-led global economy, When they are gullible enough to blame it on the EU and immigration thereby making everything even worse for them and now they are angrier than ever.
LOL
Absolutely obnoxious and stuck up, perhaps her parents can buy her some decorum and modesty. This is no different from spongers that sit around doing nothing.
Toffie
Sad thing is in the city she won’t be considered privileged. She is just middle class.
Chewie
That is because the story is consistent with her being plain old middle class. Half the problem today is that Daily Mail readers somehow think they are middle class because they are ‘in the middle’.
Mmm
What an obnoxious gremlin you are.
Tittlertattler
Why is that obnoxious? It was an accurate comment. One only has to review sites such as the awful Daily Mail to see how deluded the punters are about social class. So many in the middle or upper working class think they are middle class because they are confused about the word “middle”. The working class makes up about 90% of the UK population.
The description of the woman in question appears to be classically middle class. Owning a 3 bed semi in a suburb in the provinces or Home Counties is not.
Tattler
Why is that obnoxious? It was an accurate comment. One only has to review sites such as the awful Daily Mail to see how deluded the punters are about social class. So many in the middle or upper working class think they are middle class because they are confused about the word “middle”. The working class makes up about 90% of the UK population.
The description of the woman in question appears to be classically middle class. Owning a 3 bed semi in a suburb in the provinces or Home Counties is not.
Anonymous
Those commenting saying that this isn’t a case of supreme privilege must be extremely privileged themselves. I know of many students and trainee’s who have to live off of instant pack food, commuting hours each way every day, and are in many tens of thousands of pounds of debt. That is the reality for a working class or lower middle class person entering the profession, especially when handouts from family are non existent.
Personally, I find myself at least 60k in debt with nearly all of my savings wiped out from working prior to going to university, my modest inheritance from my mother’s passing has been used up as a consequence of being disabled but unable to get anything other than the base disability payment from the government (which doesn’t even cover basic medications each month), and having to commute 3hrs each way each day (which is difficult enough for a healthy person to do). Furthermore, owing to my health, despite getting numerous distinctions during my Barrister Training Course and doing well with my Master’s, the second chambers (or law firms when I was previously going down the solicitor route) hear of my health, I often get blanked. No returned emails, no one picks up the phone calls, adjustments aren’t put in place. Sure, I made it to a few assessment centres and my tutors (who have seen what I’m actually capable of) have said that they would offer me pupillage straight away, were they in the position to, but those actually doing the recruiting don’t wanna hear about people who are underrepresented. Why do you think the vast majority of awards and scholarships go to those from the likes of Oxbridge, Harvard, Yale etc? It’s easy to make it when you’re in a fortunate position, when you have the opportunity to go to prestigious universities and have your parents put you up in fancy apartments in London. For the rest of us, however, it’s a struggle. Resilience, determination and a hunger to succeed are needed as the rejections come one after another. I personally do not want pity or anything of the kind, I don’t even like when organisations do recruitment drives specifically for disabled, BAME, LGBT etc people as it boils us down to being worth no more than a paper ticking exercise for their own ego. All that I would like, and I think many others would agree, is for those who are in a privileged position to recognise that, be humble, and don’t rub it in people’s faces. The fact is, if you’re spoilt beyond imagination (as it sounds this lady is), you may well lack a personality and any life skills. The majority of people I have met who come from wealthy families are, sadly, tone deaf when it comes to real world struggles. They can’t cook, do their own ironing, communicate with normal people, or even face having to fend for themselves for any appreciable period of time. Whilst I hope you are always in a comfortable position, I can say for certain that if you were to fall on hard times, you wouldn’t last a day. So be thankful, humble, and remember that there’s more to life than materialistic things.
Chewie
Stopped reading at “trainee’s”.
Realist
Might explain why the OP didn’t go to Oxbridge or the Ivy League.
Jane
Good luck. As you cannot get pupillage you might want to consider qualifying as a solicitor particularly now the SQE option is open with the new QWE route. If you could get a paralegal job for a year or two that might be a good route into convincing a law firm you will turn up all day every day no m atter what, that your health does not interfere with work and you are perfectly capable of a 100% attendance record and very good at the job.
However I don’t agree we should censor the internet in pointing out some people’s parents choose to help them as knowledge is power – if you know what others have then you can act accordingly (eg trying to ensure your own children get the same). I don’t think we should be protecting people who might get up set – we should be saying on’t be weak, don’t cry, just realise life is unfair and get on with it.
Anonymous
I’m not sure I can be bothered to think of a witty comment to make.
Wigmore
This is actually a really rather rubbish article. William Holmes, may I ask why on earth you are writing about some random girl who happens to have some decently wealthy parents?
I for one would prefer to read an article about someone like a fellow member of my chambers a few years more junior who came from a broken single parent home, dragged themselves through university on their own, spent several years looking for pupillage while a para-legal, and now, several years later, is earning over 300k a year at the commercial Bar. That is an inspirational story worth hearing.
However, I doubt they would want to give you the story, viewing it as all rather crass. Which is really saying something about this article considering they earned that success themselves.
Anonymous
This 👆
Stop giving idiots attention
I am the dislike button
Jeb
How is everyone not seeing that this is clearly satire
Jane
The fact she does not own where she lives means on some views she is not even quite so privileged as some.
The trainees in London in our family currently have no student debt and both own a small house outright (which they don’t live in as they live at home paying no rent), but they rent out their houses. I doubt they would ever mention any of that, as it would go down very badly if mentioned to anyone so best to keep quiet.
Anon
A lot of clearly very bitter people in the comments. Why *wouldn’t* any parent want to give their child the best of everything? I would be absolutely astonished if all these commenters didn’t do this for their kids, if they had the resources – but because they don’t, they feel entitled to moan about “privilege”.
Good for her, and good for her parents. Family are the only people we owe anything to in the end – not your employers, not society at large, but your direct relatives.
Crypto Bro
What was the crypto worth to start with? 😛
Comments are closed.