The high salaries and big time careers of law attract many applicants. The process to become a solicitor or barrister is rather complicated and extremely competitive. You first need to get good enough grades at school to study a Law degree, a four year course, then a further year in a Legal Practice Course (LPC) before finally obtaining and undertaking two years in a ‘training contract’ at a legal organisation which is no guarantee. The nature of legal education and recruitment is elitist and before you waste any time you should consider if you are definitely good enough.

The best legal jobs go to those who had the best a-levels in order to get into the best universities; they will have performed at the top of their class and taken on plenty of extra curricular activities. Legal recruiters are looking for the cream of the crop and being ‘perfect’ will help your chances. So will a criminal record stop you becoming a lawyer?

A criminal record can harm your chances of getting any job, depending on the severity so you could assume that the legal profession was no different. And you would be right! It can be difficult enough to get into university with a criminal record, let alone get a job so what do you need to do?

The answer is fairly simple, honesty! If you are up front and honest about your entire criminal record from the start it will help your chances, if you can prove you have changed and become a better person by providing evidence of personal development and possibly some authoritative character references might help too.

When in doubt, a university will do a background check and if you were lying all along, you will get you banned from all higher education applications. Employers are going to do a background check anyway so If you lie and when they discover you weren’t being honest, you’ll have no chance of getting a job.

As mentioned, it does depend on the severity of your offence(s) so don’t expect to become a lawyer if you did 25 years for murder. If you committed small offences/misdemeanours and served a small sentence you stand a much better chance, especially if it has been a long time since your offence. Many young offenders’ institutes actively encourage education and will help you pursue a career in Law if you wish. You may also find that ‘knowledge’ of the legal system can put you in a position to provide niche experience to a legal profession.

The best advice would be to be open about yourself and discuss your history with anyone who asks, showing you have changed could help define your character but if all you get is rejection, maybe Law is not the profession for you.

If you are looking for helpful legal recruitment then talk to Saccomann recruiters who recruit for the best lawyer’s jobs

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