Legal Career
Farrer & Co, Solicitor, sports/general commercial, London
New Career(s)
Career Change Story
I left to become Compliance Officer at Save the Children, a large international charity based in London.
I have now secured a 12-month secondment to their strategy team which is a totally non-legal job.
I scoured internet sites and jobs pages of all the major charities.
I wanted to make the move straight into non-legal jobs but found this difficult as people find it difficult to see beyond your legal background.
I, therefore, took an in-house job to make the transition easier.
Once at Save the Children, I got involved in as many non-legal/compliance projects as possible which allowed me to make the move across to the strategy team.
I also joined the organisation's emergency response standby team and am currently in Kenya.
My main motivation was to try to 'save the world'!
I have always been interested in voluntary/charity work and really wanted to spend my full-time job on the same.
Career Change Reflections
Totally brilliant.
Working in-house as a lawyer is much more interesting and stimulating than working in practice.
And the move away from legal completely is even better!
I would thoroughly recommend taking an in house job first, even if it is not entirely what you want to do, as it can be difficult to make the jump from law to non-law in one step.
Working in-house lets you see how normal organisations work and allows you to consider what kind of job you might want to do outside of law.
