Course curriculum

    1. What does this course offer?

    2. What transferable skills do law graduates and lawyers develop?

    3. Law-related roles: legal tech, legal recruitment, and knowledge management

    4. Creative roles: journalism, copywriting, and corporate PR

    5. Commercial roles: start-ups, business development, customer success, and other professional services

    6. Education roles: teaching, lecturing, training, coaching and academia

    7. Operations roles: operations and project management

    8. Politics and the Civil Service

    1. Introduction to Neil Tanna

    2. Neil's journey into the City

    3. What Neil liked about being a City lawyer

    4. Why Neil left the City

    5. What Neil is doing now

    6. How Neil's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    7. Neil's final thoughts

    1. Hannah's journey into the City

    2. What Hannah liked about being a City lawyer

    3. Why Hannah left the City

    4. What Hannah is doing now

    5. How Hannah's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    1. Michael's journey into the City

    2. What Michael liked about being a City lawyer

    3. Why Michael left the City

    4. What Michael is doing now

    5. How Michael's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    6. Michael's final thoughts

    1. Luke's journey into the City

    2. Moving from one practice area to another as an associate

    3. What Luke liked about being a City lawyer

    4. Why Luke left the City

    5. What Luke is doing now

    6. How Luke's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    7. Luke's final thoughts

    1. Giles' journey into the City

    2. What Giles liked about being a City lawyer

    3. Why Giles left the City

    4. What Giles is doing now

    5. How Giles' legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    6. Giles' final thoughts

    1. Introduction

    2. Jasmine's journey into the City

    3. What Jasmine liked about being a City lawyer

    4. Why Jasmine left the City

    5. What Jasmine is doing now

    6. How Jasmine's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    7. Jasmine's final thoughts

    1. Introduction

    2. James' journey into the City

    3. What James liked about being a City lawyer

    4. Why James left the City

    5. What James is doing now

    6. How James' legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    7. James' final thoughts

    1. Daniel's journey into the City

    2. What Daniel liked about being a City lawyer

    3. Why Daniel left the City

    4. What Daniel is doing now

    5. How Daniel's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    6. Daniel's final thoughts

    1. Jake's journey into the City

    2. What Jake liked about being a City lawyer

    3. Why Jake left City law

    4. What Jake is doing now

    5. How Jake's legal skills have helped in a non-legal context

    6. Jake's final thoughts

    1. Mia's journey into private practice

    2. What Mia liked about private practice

    3. Why Mia left private practice

    4. What Mia is doing now

    5. Mia's final thoughts

    1. Alice's journey into law

    2. Why Alice opted against City law (despite coming top of her year at Warwick)

    3. Alice's role as a notary public

    4. Alice's role as a legal business owner

    5. Alice's final thoughts

    1. Iain's journey into law

    2. What is a patent?

    3. What is a patent attorney?

    4. How to become a patent attorney

    5. Why Iain loves his job

    1. Tessa's background and journey into law

    2. Why Tessa avoided City law

    3. Completing the Bar Practice Course

    4. Working as a solicitor's agent

    5. Completing pupilage

    6. Working as a barrister

    7. Working in international arbitration

    8. Working abroad

    9. Tessa-Jade's final thoughts

Alternative careers in and outside of law

  • 89 lessons
  • 7.5 hours of video content

What makes this course so unique?

In short, because it is the only course in existance dedicated to helping aspiring and current lawyers to understand their options, including the transferability of their skills and the practical steps they can take to change their careers in a positive way.

  • Features an incredibly diverse group of successful professionals.

  • Looks in detail at dozens of potential alternative careers, covering a broad range of roles and industries.

  • Uniquely open, honest, objective and holistic insights and reflections, from people under no obligation to be anything but forthright.

  • New interviews regularly uploaded, adding an even greater range of insights to our database.

  • Animated videos to explain concepts more clearly and improve the learning experience.

Instructors

Journalist Hannah McCarthy

Hannah is a journalist based in Beirut reporting on the Middle East. She has written for The Guardian, The Telegraph and Condé Nast. She also produces radio reports and documentaries for RTÉ, the Irish national broadcaster. Before becoming a journalist Hannah worked for Freshfields in the UK and Russia, as well as for Kirkland & Ellis in London. She holds a law and business degree from Trinity College, Dublin and a masters in public policy from the University of Cambridge.

Founder (tech start-up) Neil Tanna

Neil trained at Hogan Lovells, qualifying into the corporate team. Just over a year after qualification, he resigned to co-found a social-centric tech start-up called Howbout, taking on the role of CEO. He has since raised millions of pounds of investment and amassed hundreds of thousands of users, with the app often being listed as one of the top apps in its category in the app store.

Strategy & Operations (Revolut) Michael Hey

Michael is from Perth, Australia, where he studied Law before moving to the UK. He trained at Freshfields (with Jake), before becoming one of fintech unicorn Revolut's first in-house lawyers. He then transitioned into a fully commercial role, leaving his practising certificate behind to work on strategy and operations for Revolut's crypto team.

Head of growth at a leading legal tech business Giles Thompson

Giles spearheads Avvoka’s growth strategy, which involves working with in-house legal teams, leading law firms, and businesses. Previously, Giles worked as a City lawyer at Herbert Smith Freehills and Kirkland & Ellis. Giles also has in-house experience working for BP’s in-house legal team and in the regulatory division of PAX Labs/Juul.

Commercial Law Academy Founder & Ex-Freshfields Lawyer Jake Schogger

Jake Schogger is a qualified lawyer, career coach, entrepreneur, author, copywriter and consultant. He is the founder and CEO of City Career Series, a publishing company that has sold ~50,000 handbooks designed to help students secure City careers, including the critically acclaimed Commercial Law Handbook and Training Contract Handbook. He also founded Commercial Law Academy. He trained at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and now acts as a legal adviser to start-ups and scale-ups, whilst also working as a career coach and delivering career-related presentations at universities across the UK. In addition, Jake works with tech start-ups and runs a variety of his own businesses. Connect with Jake on LinkedIn via www.linkedin.com/in/jakeschogger

Head of Legal (insurtech) James Richardson

James trained at Hogan Lovells, where he qualified into the insurance team and practiced for three years before leaving the City. He also ran a side hustle that produces revision guides for Law students during this time - Law Answered - which he still runs today. After Hogan Lovells, James worked as a W&I insurer, before moving into a Head of Legal role at insurtech start-up Cuvva.

Creative director Jasmine Fisher

Jasmine originally qualified and practised as a barrister, before moving to Freshfields to work as a solicitor in the dispute resolution team. She then worked as a freelance lawyer, before joining a boutique law firm. She eventually left her legal career to work as the creative director at a property development company.

Chief Legal Officer (crypto) Daniel Lo

Daniel studied a politics undergraduate degree in Canada, where he also founded and ran a student painting franchise. Next, he studied a law degree and the LPC in the UK, and then an LLM in securities and corporate law in Canada. At this stage, he secured a training contract with Dentons in Canada, where he eventually qualified into the M&A team. He subsequently moved in-house at a private equity firm in Hong Kong and then to UBS in Singapore, before securing his current role as Chief Legal Officer at a crypto company in Singapore.

Recruiter Luke Mitchinson

Luke trained at Freshfields, where he qualified into the project finance team. 18 months after qualification, he moved to Ropes & Gray, where he shifted his practice specialism from project finance to private equity. He remained there for three years, before transitioning to a career in legal recruitment.

Mia Siddique

Mia run's the hugely popular "Legally Possible" channels on Instagram and TikTok, with 30,000+ followers. She studied at a non-Russell Group university and went on to train as a solicitor Womble Bond Dickinson. She then qualified into an in-house role at Womble Bond Dickinson, in the Risk and Best Practice Team.

Notary Public / Legal Business Owner Alice Toop

Alice chose not to go into City law, despite coming top of her year at Warwick University. Instead, she trained as a solicitor at Steele Raymond in Bournemouth, before qualifying as a construction, commercial and contentious probate litigation lawyer. She subsequently studied the Notarial Practice Course, and now runs her own Notary Public practice alongside her role as a solicitor.

Course reviews

Hear what subscribers have said about this course

5 star rating

So many opportunities

Sidra Hussain

This course is perfect for people who don't want to pursue a career in law with their law degree. It shows just how many different careers are open to us.

This course is perfect for people who don't want to pursue a career in law with their law degree. It shows just how many different careers are open to us.

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