Big pay, long hours
Legal Cheek’s latest Trainee and Junior Lawyer Survey, based on more than 2,000 anonymous responses from trainees and junior lawyers across 110+ firms, revealed a strikingly varied picture of working life across the profession, from 12-hour-plus days at some firms to much earlier finishes elsewhere.
Legal Cheek writer Nadia Ismail sits down with founder Alex Aldridge to unpack the findings and discuss what the numbers actually mean for aspiring lawyers deciding where they might want to build their careers.
Is a bigger pay packet worth longer days and later nights? Are some people simply better suited to the intensity of life at the highest-paying firms? And, for those spending much of their twenties working long hours, what exactly is the bargain they are making?
The pair also look at the other side of the profession, where juniors report more predictable hours and a healthier work-life balance, and discuss why there is no single version of what life as a lawyer looks like.
The conversation looks beyond the most intense years, from using a stint at a top firm as a springboard into an in-house role to moving somewhere with a different pace of life.
You can listen to the podcast in full via the embed above, or on YouTube, Spotify or Apple Podcasts.
The Legal Cheek Podcast is proudly independent. Thanks to our sponsor Simpson Thacher, home of the private equity training contract, for making that possible
