Price increase

[Legend]

Shouldn't they have back packs?

[Dunsignalling]

We paid £9,750 for our first house in 1978... I was earning £3,200 a year at the time. That’s inflation for you.

 

In forty years time, modellers will probably be reminiscing about when they could buy a model railway locomotive for a mere £200!

I paid slightly more than double that for mine (3-bed terraced, East Devon) only five years later. THAT'S inflation...............

 

John

Edited December 2, 2017 by Dunsignalling

[Ron Ron Ron]

Shouldn't they have back packs?

 

 

Sorted....

 

 

[Bernard Lamb]

Hmm. A point. Solicitors do not earn much these days, diluted by years of every careers advisor telling young people to read law. 

 

 

ROTFL

I remember a remark when my daughter qualified and we attended a presentation at The Law Society. "Your children will now be able to keep you in a style to which you have not been accustomed".

Still holds true from what I see of most of them from that time. Although a few of them, including my daughter took the money for a few years and got out as soon as they could.

The money in a city firm is still ridiculously good but they do have to work for it and some would rather not have a 24/7 involvement. 

However I do take your point, as the woman that did the catering has had to take a job on Bake Off, so times must be hard.    

Bernard

[Clearwater]

Hmm. A point. Solicitors do not earn much these days, diluted by years of every careers advisor telling young people to read law.

 

Let me swap that for you. You mean it is becoming a hobby for Plumbers (c. 32 k) and Train Drivers (c. 63 k). I am surprised by the national average for plumbing, as the ones I know earn over 50 k. Hmm.

 

Main point, what does professional training have to do with model trains? A hobby is a hobby for anyone who has the time to enjoy an activity.

Unlike medicine, there is not a c1:1 ratio of eventual jobs to undergraduate degree courses (plus you can do one year conversion courses before bar school or LPC). Sadly that means that some people who are advised to go and do law are, bluntly, not of the academic quality required to make a top City Lawyer (equity partners at magic circle firms will make hundreds of thousands, newly qualified probably 60/70k. US firms pay better) or a successful barrister. I don’t doubt that high street solicitors may struggle where the barriers to entry are lower. Medicine courses are generally tougher to get into whereas only the top law courses are as competitive.

 

However, as others observe, being a junior solicitor (even a partner) in a city law firm is not a walk in the park. I’m not a solicitor but I work a lot with such firms. Generally, their update emails to me arrive between 12 and 1 in the morning and they’ll have started at 9/930. They’ll also be expected to check emails, and respond over weekends and holidays. It can be nigh on impossible to organise a social life - you cannot guarantee you will leave the office at even 8pm. If a doc needs turning and sending out, then that’s what you do...of course the monetary rewards are good. Also, the thrill of being an insider and reading (often erroneous reporting) in the papers is a benefit to some too.

 

I’d observe that, at the top end, most professions pay pretty well. But to get there, usually involves many years of hard work, a good brain (not necessarily an academic one) and the ability to analyse and influence in order to get things done.

 

David

[Clearwater]

http://www.rollonfriday.com/InsideInfo/UKCityFirms/tabid/68/Default.aspx

 

From a popular solicitors’ forum.