The College of Law is putting on additional 'Switch to Law' open days to deal with the demand
"A lot of people have questioned my sanity," says the Times's former travel editor, Cath Urquhart, of her decision to retrain as a barrister. "But I'd been thinking for a while that if I had my time again I'd have studied law. So I did."
It's a sentiment echoed by the growing number of career changers moving into law, whose ranks include former Blur drummer Dave Rowntree (who recently embarked on a solicitor traineeship at City law firm Kingsley Napley) and retired Blackburn Rovers and England footballer Stuart Ripley (who last year qualified as a lawyer at Manchester law firm Brabners Chaffe Street). Indeed, such is the demand among the 40-plus brigade that the College of Law is putting on additional "Switch to Law" open days.
Urquhart, who previously held roles at the Telegraph and Sunday Express, says it was the problem-solving element of law that drew her to the profession, reminding her of the consumer rights area of journalism, which she most enjoyed.
"The travel was great, of course, but the best bit of my old job was helping the people who came to you with problems – about a delayed flight, for example, or a hotel that was a building site," she explains. "As a journalist you're in a privileged position to investigate. In many ways being a lawyer is similar."
She was less keen on the large amount of management responsibility she had accumulated at the Times. "As much as I loved the job, the time I was spending on budgets and contracts had grown."
Having turned 40, she also felt ready for a new challenge: "I'd done 10 years as travel editor and I knew I couldn't expect to be in a role like that until I retired. Maybe this is my mid-life crisis?" she quips.
It was around this time that Urquhart found herself at an open day at the College of Law. "I remember suddenly thinking to myself, 'What am I doing here? I work as a journalist,'" she recalls, adding that it took her "ages" to commit herself to the decision to quit the Times and enrol on the graduate diploma in law (the conversion course that allows graduates of other subjects to convert to law), which she did part-time over two years while working as a freelance journalist.
Since then things have gone remarkably well. Urquhart – who studied history at Oxford as an undergraduate – scored top marks in her law studies and secured two scholarships that helped fund her.
Most importantly, she bagged a coveted £30,000 trainee barrister position at leading media law set Ely Place Chambers, which she started six months ago.
That represented quite an achievement in a profession where only one in eight applicants make it into practice. "I think being older helped because it means you stop seeing things in black and white, which is a useful attribute in law," she says.
Still, the last few years have been hard, too. First there was the fall in status. "The waters close over your head very quickly when you leave a job like my previous one. Suddenly it's Cath who?" reflects Urquhart.
"Having said that, when I used to get an upgrade or a fantastic hotel I knew it was due to my being the travel editor of the Times, rather than because I was a marvellous person."
Then there has been the "exhausting" matter of getting to grips with a new discipline – a process likely to continue for some time yet.
"Mostly I feel like I'm in a legal fog that occasionally clears, before quickly closing in again," says Urquhart, who has spent the eight hours before we meet drafting a document on the service of a claim in a foreign jurisdiction.
"An experienced barrister would have been able to do it much quicker," she concedes.
But learning new skills is also "hugely enjoyable", reminding Urquhart of her days as a cub reporter on the Walton and Weybridge Informer, even if she has arrived at the bar too late to reach its upper echelons.
"In journalism you can get one great story and suddenly you've leapfrogged to features editor, but law is far more structured. So I doubt I'll ever become a QC; the pleasure will be just to do the job," she says.
At least when Urquhart next goes on holiday she'll be able to relax: "To not have to inspect six hotels and speak to tourist information managers …" she smiles. "It'll be bliss."
Alex Aldridge is a freelance journalist who writes about law and education