‘Moving from a high street firm to the City – what are my chances?’

If you wish to continue to practice conveyancing or property transactions, but move into central London, that is achievable. To go from a high street practice immediately to a leading city law firm is more unlikely.

There are 100s of firms in central London, many of them have large property teams. I’d suggest applying to work at one of those firms first, spend a few years there, then start applying for roles at slightly bigger firms. I’ve worked with many lawyers in small/medium sized firms in central London that came from high street firms outside of central London, and some of them now work for large City firms. It is absolutely achievable, you just need to go about it the right way.

p.s. you may need to accept that you may not receive a pay rise moving into central London at first, but once you are in central London, the game changes.

Better to wait year or two until you have a big client or two who would be willing to say you are exceptional.

I’ve moved from high street practice to BigLaw. It wasnt a straight move, but based on a number of strategic moves.

I made my first move as NQ, but even as 1 PQE its possible. You’ve got to consider the mid tier regional hitters in your area first, apply to them get a year or two under your belt. Then go for a large national practice but in a regional office ideally close to where you’re based. You’re then well placed to make a jump straight into the City at a decent national outfit, or make a move to a regional office of an international practice (Wombles, Addleshaws, Eversheds etc). If you have international practice experience under your belt, then the smaller BigLaw practices (not on Cravath) will consider you.

I trained at a high street firm in the regions doing residential conveyancing. On qualification I was able to secure a commercial property to a national firm in the regions but doing niche public sector work. However, it was a way into a national practice moving away from residential conveyancing with access to other commercial property sectors. I then moved to an international firm in the regions and eventually moved to London ending up as a senior associate at 8pqe for an international top 25 UK firm.

It is possible, but it can take a few strategic moves, hard work in every role to pick up the skills others would already have picked up at the same level of PQE and a bit of luck. I honestly still have a bit of imposter syndrome as everyone around me has trained in the city but if you do the hard yards, it can happen for you.

Good luck!

Advice from anon 15/5/26 @ 11:04 (and others echoing similar) is spot on.

Assuming you are talking about eventually practicing for a top-of-market UK (MC/SC/comparable) or US outfit doing top-end commercial real estate, you’ll not make that move in one jump. It’s probably going to take you at least 2 moves, so 4-5 years, to get from A to B.

Those firms will sometimes take people from the regional offices of notable firms. I would probably suggest starting there first, looking at a Liverpool/Manchester/Birmingham or similar office of a national or international firm with a practice that interests you. I say that for a couple of reasons – it gives you a more gradual step up in pace of work/expectations/complexity of work and also (probably) gives you a bit of a salary bump and the chance to save some money before you come to London (where you can leave your house, take three paces out your front door and somehow be £50 lighter).

From there, you could look to either move to the London office of the firm you are at and see what that’s like before you look to take the leap into a top-of-market practice, or try to make the jump from there. If you do that, you will still struggle to access some practices which are more old school in their recruitment and want particular names on applicants’ CVs. You’d probably have more luck either at the lower end of the commercial market in London (for convenience’s sake, it’s okay to correlate associate salary with market ‘tier’ here), or at some of the US shops which are in growth mode and just constantly need bums in seats to churn and burn for a few years at a time.

It’s 100% doable, and you are not the first to walk the path, but you need to be both strategic and pragmatic otherwise you are on a hiding to nowhere.