Money – making it and being close enough to smell it – is what attracts many lawyers to working in the City. And despite the ups and downs in the markets, the big City law firms that deal with corporate and financial transactions are still hiring, according to Alex Wiseman, a recruitment consultant at Taylor Root, a legal recruitment firm.

“We haven’t seen recruitment slowing down and that’s at both the graduate and postqualification level,” Wiseman says. “Firms are more optimistic this time round than they were in the slowdown that happened in 2001-02.”

Taylor Wessing, a mid-sized law firm, receives thousands of applications from hopeful graduates so it’s “very, very competitive”, says Jayne Schnider, one of its partners. Those applying for a vacation placement or a trainee contract while still at university need to be able to demonstrate leadership and teamwork skills through holding a position on a social committee, for example. A degree such as technology or life sciences could also stand you in good stead because the complexity of these areas of law mean that it’s useful to have specialist inside knowledge, she says.

Those with an interest in less bankable areas such as human rights law or criminal law face tough choices, Wiseman says. Smaller firms very rarely fund the legal practice course or the necessary law-conversion course for nonlaw graduates, nor do they pay study grants or promise a starting salary of £35,000 to successful trainees. Pay at smaller firms is closer to £15,000 to £20,000 and you have to fund your own studies. But there are some perks, such as more responsibility at an early age and increased client contact. “And the feeling that you are making a difference,” he says. “That is why you get some incredibly bright graduates going down that route; but they are very much in the minority.”

After a few years at a respected City firm, some commercially minded lawyers jump ship to work in commerce and industry. Those seeking to escape a billable hours culture and who enjoy having a direct impact on decision-making can expect to be rewarded for their experience. Senior in-house lawyers earn £114,000 on average with an average bonus worth 31.4 per cent of their salary, according to a survey by Incomes Data Services, a research service.

Major Anastasia Roberts joined the Army Legal Services three years ago after a five-year stint at a regional law firm. She spent a month on a condensed officer training course at Sandhurst learning how to survive in a military environment before joining the Irish Guards for three months. She spent six months in Sierra Leone with a UK-led international military advisory and training team, working with local lawyers to establish a court-martial system. “You are never going to get an experience like that working in private practice,” she says.

Now a prosecuting officer in the Army Prosecuting Authority, Major Roberts’s role is anything but routine. “This week I am in the office considering cases. Next week I have a five-day court martial. The following week we have military training – out on the ranges trying to remember how to fire weapons. It’s an odd mix but that is what makes it fun and gives me the variety that I felt I was lacking in private practice.”

Back in civilian life, the number of barristers combining civil and criminal work has decreased and while general work still exists, many are now in specialist teams working within large chambers, says Stuart Sime, the director of the Bar vocational course at the City Law School, London. Mediation and arbitration are expanding areas of civil practice, he says, and barristers are also being briefed more frequently for disciplinary hearings and complaints, for example, partly as a result of the Human Rights Act. It may be far from the traditional image of the barrister in a horsehair wig and gown but “barristers perform a valuable service in these areas”, he says.

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