Simon Broomer Managing Director at CareerBalance Ltd advises how to get back into the workplace after a career break or maternity.

Simon Broomer Managing Director of CareerBalance talks about how lawyers can change career. Simon is a Qualified Lawyer who re-trained as a Career Counsellor and Coach. 

There comes a point in every lawyer’s career when they look around and wonder if partnership is the right path for them.

Law firms are typically eager to know who will progress to partner and who won’t. Established lawyers have built up sound knowledge and technical skills and want to be rewarded appropriately. Still, a lifetime of being on call at the weekend, helping another bank ink yet another corporate finance deal, and being interrupted at dinner by another client who has been served a writ, is hardly an alluring prospect for everyone.

While some forward-thinking corporations offer flexible working hours and career breaks while guaranteeing to hold your job, City law firms are not always amenable to women with a family focus. Perhaps this explains why women represent 50% of trainee lawyers but just 10% of City partners, according to CareerBalance founder Simon Broomer.

Many lawyers feel demoralised once it emerges they don’t want a partnership role, and complain of being sidelined. One fit and healthy woman who visited CareerBalance recently confessed she feels constantly exhausted. Another who regularly brings in new business to her firm, described her City law firm as a gentleman’s club where she felt pushed aside. Some lawyers CareerBalance has seen have been signed off with depression and feel unable to confide in anyone at their firm.

So if you find yourself at a similar crucial crossroads in your career, don’t let it pass you by. If you’re being pushed to your limits, set boundaries and make some changes. Think - what’s best for me given my priorities within my career and outside it? How appreciated do I feel by colleagues and clients?

At CareerBalance we know it’s hard to set aside time to make your next career move a reality. An initial career questionnaire lets us know all about our clients’ job satisfaction levels before we even meet for our first session. We specialise in helping lawyers take the future of their career into their own hands. Maybe we can help you too?

Posted by Simon Broomer, Managing Director and Founder at CareerBalance Ltd

Have you started the New Year feeling overworked, worn out and unconvinced about your future in the law? If so, you’re not alone.

While firms that expanded rapidly during the boom have been laying off staff, they’ve also been burdening those left behind with piles of extra work, longer hours and the pressure of bringing in new clients. A decade ago, young lawyers achieved partnership by their early 30s. Today equity partners eager to hold on to their slice of the cake for longer are drawing out this process - many lawyers now only become partners in their late 30s. In the meantime, many live with the frustration of serving as a small cog in a very large wheel. Employee Rewards, Benefits and Savings survey by Mercer's recently found that employee engagement amongst lawyers is on the wane. http://insight.badenochandclark.com/legal/30/11/2010/employee-engagement-waning-for-those-in-roles-such-as-legal-jobs-survey-shows/4599/

But the good news is, lawyers have choices. You’re not tied to being a lawyer just because you qualified as one.

At CareerBalance we’re finding that despite both the fragile economy and the £500,000 to £1 million salaries partners can expect to earn, many young lawyers are now putting their quality of life first. After careful consideration, some of our newly qualified lawyer clients have either secured in-house or training and development roles, moved to smaller firms where they are part of the bigger picture, switched to a business career, or taken time out to travel or trade shares. Some of our clients are moving out of the law completely – doing an MBA, a Masters in War Studies before returning to law, or embarking on a career in speech and language therapy.

If you’re considering making a career change and you’re in your early 30s, now is best time to start preparing. We firmly believe there’s still work out there – good people are finding jobs. At CareerBalance, our strength lies in showing you the options and rewards available

to you. Happy New Year!

Increasing life expectancy, coupled with a new law axing enforced retirement at 65 from next October, suggest retirement will soon look very different, says Claire Adler.

One Sunday morning earlier this year in a packed church hall in Bloomsbury, innovation expert Charles Leadbeater gave a secular sermon for The School of Life about ageing. He began by pointing out that every day we live, grants us another five hours of life expectancy.

"Ageing invites us to re-think work," he preached. "Instead of seeing articles about hot young things in their 20s, I'd like to see a list of 70- somethings at the top of their game, who've only been in a specific field for 10 years."

Leadbeater has a point, and it's one being addressed at City-based career consultancy CareerBalance.

In 1980, a 65 year old Englishman had a one in 1000 chance of living to be 100 years old. Just 30 years later, this figure has increased to one in 100.

"Many of us cannot afford to retire and even those who do retire in our sixties won't want to spend the next 30 years or more on the golf course," says Simon Broomer, CareerBalance managing director.

Broomer is now pointing his most mature and experienced clients in the direction of trustee, non-executive and advisory roles including lay membership of Health Authority Trusts and regulatory financial bodies.

This baby-booming generation of new retirees is tackling ageist thinking in the workplace, according to Broomer. "Many people believe mobility and employability reduces after 50, but that's untrue. It is down to the individual to deal with these objections, sell the benefit of their experience and the value of their skills and knowledge," he says.

Activists from Age UK recently welcomed the government announcement axing enforced retirement at 65, hailing it as a victory against ageism which would benefit both people over 65 and the economy as a whole – thanks to older workers' precious skills, additional tax revenue and increased buying power.

"From a frustrated senior lawyer now working in employment health and safety, to a partner in a City firm now considering deanship of a law school or becoming a charity CEO, I'm increasingly talking to clients who far from winding down are winding up for retirement," says Broomer.

To get an expert view on your current career options and/ or your job-hunting tactics make an appointment
now to see one of our Career Specialists. E-mail consultants@careerbalance.co.uk, or call us on
020 3051 1054.

I’m not a luddite, but I am beginning to wonder where all this technology is taking us.

It seems that we are all unable to step outside the office for a real break. On my way to work I pass people who no longer see where they are going, and on the tube I sit next to commuters who are scanning their e-mails on the journey to work, or when returning home. What’s happened to real relaxation, a time to reflect on the day, to dream about tomorrow?

It seems that for many of us our phone has become a comfort item, and we feel lost without it. We are all caught up in the race for the newest technology. In the last quarter of 2009 Apple managed to sell 8.7 million iPhones.

Many of our clients at CareerBalance are complaining of longer hours, and are feeling the stress of having to be ‘on call’ out of hours, including during vacations. The technology designed to speed things up and to make our lives easier is also imprisoning us.

We often help our clients to set clearer boundaries between their work and their home life.  For this reason some have chosen to work on a freelance basis or take on fixed term roles which require less commitment to the organisation. In or programmes we encourage you to look not just at how you want your career to progress, but also what kind of home life you would ideally like. We ensure that better quality time with partners, children, friends and wider family is an important part of the career planning equation.

What would it be like if you could throw your Blackberry away? I recently had to do without mine for a couple of weeks and found the experience very liberating. Once again I had time to read for fun, to make plans for tomorrow, and to dream a little of how life used to be….