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I am an employed solicitor in a medium sized firm in the south of the country.

I enjoy my work and would be seen as an expert. My fee income is good, clients are happy and I get on well with all in the firm. The difficulty is that promotion is based solely on length of service as opposed to ability. I am ambitious, have lots of ideas about the business end of the firm but new ideas are met with reluctance - almost disdain. I would consider opening a new practice, but it is difficult to leave 'a good job' in 'a good firm'. Please help

Congratulations on your successful legal career to-date. You are in a strong position, having several years’ experience, together with happy clients, ambition, ideas, and a strong revenue position.

When faced with a career junction, it is useful to pause, and to create an image of yourself in the future (say 2-3 years’ time).  It is valuable to ask the question: what is important to me? Here I encourage you to focus less on titles or positions and more on the factors that need to be present in the future.  What environment would suit you? For example, do you work better with many colleagues around you, or on your own or in a small team? What aspects of your current work motivate and stretch you and will want to keep? What would you like to let go of? Are you more interested in the business of law or the practice of law? The answers to these questions will help you create criteria against which you can assess potential options.

You do not mention other aspects of your life, and it is risky to examine career options without considering their impact on family and personal relationships. How much additional time can you commit to a new role? It is likely that any significant change will require the investment of more time, whether that is in developing new professional relationships, developing client business, marketing, and potentially the responsibilities of invoicing, debt collection, and financing a business. What time and other resources are available to you?

You present your situation in “either/or” terms: stay in a good job in a good firm or set-up your own practice. Have you considered additional options? Could your ideas and ambition be welcomed in another law firm, or in-house? If you have rejected these options, what contributed to your thinking? 

From your query, I suggest you are in an exploratory phase of career change, so I encourage you to investigate some of the options in more detail to enable a ranking against your answers to some of the questions I have suggested.  You mention setting-up practice. Have you spoken to any colleagues who can share their experiences and realities of setting up a practice?  You mention that your current firm promotes based on service, rather than contribution, and that your ideas have not been well-received.  Have you considered adapting the way you communicate your ideas to the benefit of the firm? Can you put yourself in the shoes of the lead partners? What is important to them? Can you link a promotion and your ideas to what they value?

My response includes some questions that career coach would explore with a client who is contemplating a career or job change. It can be quite an isolating and daunting time. You may find it valuable to work with a career coach who could help you untangle and evaluate the options so that you take the next step with confidence and commitment.

This question was received from a solicitor and the answer was written by Fiona McKeever, a qualified lawyer now working as an executive and leadership coach. Any response or advice provided is not intended to replace or substitute for any professional, psychological, financial, medical, legal, or other professional advice.