Skip to main content

Part Time and flexible Legal Jobs

15.05.07 Flexible working hours and the legal profession

I often have conversations with senior partners of law firms who ask me for lawyers willing to work hard, be committed to their firm, and show entrepreneurial flair and determination, but no-one lightweight or wanting to work part time. Usually the requirement is for someone who wants to work full time and in the office from 9-5pm. This, in the partner's eyes, is someone who is committed and hard working.

I have to say that I often find that if I work flexible hours, which I often do, my work benefits as a result. If I want to go and have a game of golf one afternoon, but then work the evening to make up for it, this means I get to relax during the day, and get some exercise, and then in the evening condense 3-4 hours of office time into 2 1/2, and not have to deal with the telephone calls or other distractions.

I would estimate that for a lot of part time workers, they do the same, if not more hours than a full time worker, as when they are in the office, they usually have a lot more work to do. Full timers can afford to spend a morning Ocado shopping, or arranging car insurance quotes, but part timers have to be focussed for the whole time they are in the office in order to complete their work in a set time for that day.

So when a partner thinks that someone is hard working because they are in the office from 9-5, he or she is probably wrong. Someone who is hard working is someone generating fees, and this can be done in shorter time frames or on a different time scale than just the normal office hours. Offices on the continent open very early in the morning and close early in the afternoon to enable their workers to enjoy other things in life, such as exercise etc.. Not quite there yet in the UK..

Jonathan Fagan, MD of Ten-Percent Legal Recruitment (http://www.ten-percent.co.uk) - no.1 online UK legal recruitment agency - save time, skip the legal job boards and let us do the work - register online for our recruitment services 

Comments

Anonymous said…
Hi. I am a senior arts entrepreneurship major and older, returning student in the U.S. I want to be a working artist and an attorney and work flexible hours. Some people are telling me the law profession does not work that way - that you have to be fixed in anoffice building or you can't be an attorney. Is this true?

Popular posts from this blog

Overpaid Charity CEOs - top 40 of high paid employees - updated 2022

In 2014, we wrote an article about high pay in the charity sector after the Charity Commission started to require all charities to disclose pay of senior executives earning more than £60,000.    We have updated the list for 2022, with a comparison chart so you can see the difference between 2014 and 2022. We have included the source of the most recent salary levels and the year refers to the accounts year we extracted the salary information from.   2022 Top 40 Chart of High Paying Charities Charity Highest salary Year Consumers’ Association £390k-£400k 2020 MSI Reproductive Choices £240k-£250k 2020 Save the Children International £285k-£300k 2020 Cancer Research UK £240k-£250k 2020 The British Red Cross Society £170k-£180k 2020 Age UK £180k-£190k 202...

Is it possible to work as a Paralegal when you are a Qualified Solicitor

  This question comes up all the time and is quite a common query that we imagine the Solicitors Regulation Authority (SRA) are getting better at answering due to the sheer number of people asking the question. Many years ago the advice seemed a bit varied at times, but we have recently had a candidate who wanted to work in a locum role in the short term and waiting to go back on the Roll and get a practising certificate after some time spent outside the profession. She has been given fairly concise advice on whether she could work as a paralegal whilst waiting to be readmitted which we are repeating here. This article is written as a discussion point and is not intended to be advice in any shape or form. For full advice on your particular set of circumstances please speak to the SRA (or whoever else you like, but please do not depend on the information in this article!). The SRA have a simple online test to determine if you need a practising certificate and th...

Is Loyalty a Commendable Trait for a Locum Solicitor?

If you locum through Interim Lawyers and Ten Percent Legal Recruitment, we value your commitment to us immensely. If you take on an assignment and see it through, and consistently do this, then inevitably you will get continued attention from us and be offered repeat assignments. If you decide half-way through an assignment or during an ongoing assignment that you plan to go elsewhere because the money is higher, or the conditions are better, then chances are we will bear this in mind for future assignments and be very wary about putting you forward in advance of other locums with whom we enjoy a more trusting relationship. This may sound somewhat controversial and over simplifies what tends to be a very complicated situation.  For example, the firm you are with may have been extremely vague as to the length of the assignment and you may have been offered a 3 to 4 month assignment elsewhere with specified dates. Similarly, the firm you were with may be utterly dre...