Legal careers engineered by building on varied experience

Charles Hartley, conveyancing and business law consultant with Yorkshire firm Ware & Kay, left school with the intention of becoming a solicitor, but only got round to qualifying in 1979 after spending 15 years running the family building business.

He says that although it was tough changing careers in the 1970s - it meant studying for eight years while working in the evening - it was worth it.

'When I started with the firm, I had an immediate understanding of how it should run like a business,' he explains.

'I knew about files and accounts and I knew about man management, which does not just help the way you work with people in the firm, it gives you an instant understanding of how clients tick.'

In fact, Mr Hartley says it should be compulsory - 'like national service' - for solicitors to gain experience of a different working environment.

'Lots of young solicitors these days are lightweights; they have tunnel vision because they sit in their offices until ten o'clock at night and hardly see a client - that is not the real world,' he argues.

Mr Hartley intends to retire in a couple of years but says he has no regrets about his career choices: 'It is an extremely civilised job, although I do miss creating and making things and running a business.

I have to say you do not always get the same buzz out of practising law because it has become all about profit and costs, hours clocked on and budgets.'

Chartered engineer Stephen Rockhill, who graduated in 1974, had his own consultancy advising the building industry until City firm Charles Russell took him on as a trainee this year in its construction department.

His interest was aroused when he took a master's degree in costs arbitration, and he now says that he is in a better position to help his former industry solve its disputes than when he was actually in the middle of it.

'Building professionals tend not to think outside their own experiences a lot of the time, so the same problems recur, with no-one actually learning anything,' he explains.

'I think that because I have been there and seen it myself, I can bring my experience in construction and offer the client a far better understanding of the situation.'

However, it was not always easy.

'I think the hardest part about requalifying was the evening lectures for the CPE and the work at weekends - and suddenly remembering after 20 years how much I hated exams.'

Mr Rockhill says swapping careers is much easier if you can secure a training contract before starting the CPE, preferably with a firm that can draw on your specialist experience.

Accepting that you are still the new boy or girl is also a factor.

'I think it is important to win the respect of your fellow trainees,' he says.

'Therefore, it is important that you are willing to start from the bottom and that you don't expect any special treatment due to your past experience.'