Changing lanes in law

Amy Burton’s career in law reads like a long and winding road, punctuated by abrupt turns that have taken her across the country to unexpected places. During law school she volunteered at community legal centres but was unsure how to translate her interest in the sector into a legal career. Eventually, a well-trodden path for junior lawyers emerged: a summer clerkship with Allens, which led to a graduate position in the Melbourne office. 

Burton’s preferred employment law team was full, so she undertook rotations in technology, media and telecommunications, as well as corporate insolvency and restructuring. After three years, Burton realised corporate law wasn’t a good fit. “I did some pro bono work at Allens, which I enjoyed, but not so much the commercial stuff.” 

Next came a role in the criminal law policy team at the Attorney General’s Department in Canberra. There, it became clear to Burton that “I didn’t like corporate law, but I definitely liked being a lawyer”. 

She moved to Sydney and joined Salvos Legal, a pro-bono firm owned by The Salvation Army. “I was thrown into criminal law, family law, migration law, debt law, employment law – whatever came through the door,” Burton says of her five-year stint, noting that migration law was in demand. “It became the practice area I started to really love and develop an expertise in.”

After leaving to do her Masters, she returned to private practice at Mills Oakley, where she is now a partner in the pro bono team and managing principal lawyer of Everyday Justice, the firm’s in-house community legal service. In another sharp professional turn, Burton has changed practice areas – again – due to a conflict at the firm. 

“For the first few years, I did a little bit of everything. In the last two or three years, the demand for wills and estates from all around the country has become massive, so I’ve become a wills and estates lawyer without ever intending to,” she says. 

Many lawyers reach a point in their careers where they start wondering: is this it? After years in the same practice area, the idea of change can feel risky or impossible in a profession that has long prized straight, predictable career paths. But increasingly, the career trajectories of practitioners like Burton show that growth doesn’t always mean moving up; sometimes, it equates to shifting sideways. 

“People in pro bono are generalists. I’ve had to learn very quickly how to find the answer to questions or who to ask for the answer,” she says. “The biggest skill I’ve developed is dealing with vulnerable clients who have complex and wide-ranging legal needs. That skill has carried through everything I’ve done over the past decade.”

What’s becoming clear is that the traditional model of staying put in an unfulfilling practice area and holding out for partnership is no longer the default. Lateral moves between practice areas, or from private practice into community legal or in-house roles, are now more widely viewed as positive career steps.

With practice areas evolving and client needs shifting, fluidity and flexibility are emerging as defining features of modern legal careers – which, in turn, strengthen the profession’s adaptability, resilience and long-term sustainability. 

Gen Z leading the switch

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Gen Z lawyers – born between 1995 and 2009 – are at the vanguard of new ways of career building. This cohort of early-career professionals are predicted to work in 18 jobs across six careers, according to research by McCrindle. They desire purposeful work and prioritise flexibility and wellbeing – and aren’t afraid to change jobs or practice areas to get what they want. 

For Gen Z, progression is measured less by tenure and more by skills, values and sustainability. Rather than seeing mobility as a risk, they view it as a strategic way to future-proof their careers in a rapidly changing profession characterised by high rates of attrition.

“Young lawyers are keen to try and find what they want and what suits them. If what they’re doing doesn’t suit them, they’re quicker to jump ship and change to something that they do think suits them better,” explains John Littrich, a senior lecturer at the University of Wollongong School of Law.

“It’s not that they’ll take anything and jump if they don’t like it; it’s more that they’re more willing to change if it’s not working out the way they were hoping it would work out.”

He compares this pattern to his previous career as a family law specialist when “people spent the better part of their career in the one place”. “Changing jobs and practice areas isn’t seen as so much of a taboo as it once was.”

Matthew Edwards, director at specialist legal recruiter Beacon Legal, agrees that job satisfaction is a key driver of practice area pivots among Gen Z. “Junior lawyers now consider their careers to be quite fluid,” he says. 

“If they’re not happy in a particular practice area, whereas a little while ago people might have just sucked it up and worked in that practice area for their whole career, nowadays junior lawyers are a lot more likely to do something about it.”

It’s also easier in practical terms to change practice areas in early career; experts agree that most pivots occur when a practitioner has between one and five years of post-qualification experience. At junior levels, law firms are usually more open to lateral moves as skills are seen as transferable and professional identities less fixed, lowering the perceived risk of hiring a practitioner from a different practice area.  

“The best time to make these pivots is earlier in your career rather than later,” says Janina Louise, director at Janina Louise Legal Recruitment. “The degree of difficulty increases as you get more senior.”

She says economic considerations also come into play later in a career, when the prospect of stepping back into a more junior role, with lower pay and greater uncertainty, can become far less attractive. “You might not want to take the risk to retrain as a more junior lawyer,” Louise says. 

Making micro pivots

While it may be more challenging, switching practice areas after the early-career stage is still possible – and it can reset and revitalise a legal career. Among more experienced practitioners, Edwards says changing practice areas is “becoming increasingly common”. “We’re hearing it a lot more; lawyers are wanting to shake things up more so than they were 20 years ago.”

Louise says a stronger desire for professional satisfaction is driving the trend. “There’s a lot more emphasis these days on personal happiness rather than just following the well-trodden road. In years gone by, you’d probably just stay in your practice area forever.”

While bigger, more abrupt pivots – like moving from commercial litigation to family law, or family law to criminal law – are more common than they used to be, incremental change is often a more achievable pathway.

“You might build up knowledge in a specific area and identify a niche that you want to focus on; for example, a general litigator might see an opportunity to specialise in a specific type of litigation, or an energy lawyer might become a sustainable energy lawyer. That happens quite often,” explains executive coach to lawyers Dimity Brown.

A former tax lawyer, Louise has seen other tax lawyers move from tax litigation to commercial litigation, and from specialising in transactional tax work to advising on mergers and acquisitions. “There’s just so many variations,” she says.

For Justine Anderson, the journey to her current role as a senior associate in health law at Sparke Helmore Lawyers unfolded through a series of micro pivots rather than a single, linear path. She began her career with mid-tier firm Caroll & O’Dea Lawyers. “Mid-tier is a little bit more grassroots and diverse, and that was the experience that I was looking for,” Anderson says.

She started out in personal injury on workers compensation, motor vehicle accident and public liability matters, followed by a stint assisting on NSW Police panel work. During this time, she was allocated a medical negligence file, which quickly prompted a change in direction. Anderson says she knew she “wanted to do heaps more of this” and was soon paired with a special counsel with expertise in medical negligence. 

After eight years at the firm and seeking new experiences, she took a role as a senior solicitor with the NSW Crown Solicitor’s Office. “I went from plaintiff private medical negligence practice into government health defence work, and the change was relatively stark. It’s the same law but you’re approaching it differently,” Anderson says. 

Her move to Sparke Helmore Lawyers marked a return to health law in private practice, but with the addition of disciplinary work. “You’re dealing with people, whether they are patients or family members of patients, or peers potentially making reports to the regulator in relation to a certain practitioner, and you’re tasked to try to figure out what’s gone on. That was attractive to me because the advocacy is slightly different than in civil medical negligence matters,” Anderson says, explaining that it’s taken some time to get up to speed on processes and procedures in this new area despite her previous experience. 

She says the practice area pivots throughout her career have been “organic”, made easier through mentorship and case crossover. Lawyers who “just pull the handbrake and move in a completely different direction” are less common – and arguably more courageous. “Do I think it’s easy? I think that people who do it are very brave,” Anderson remarks. 

Emerging practice areas

Some career pivots are driven by the emergence of entirely new practice areas. It’s often remarked that young people will work in jobs that don’t exist yet, and for Chelsea Gordon that’s exactly how her career has played out. “I didn’t leave school planning to be an AI lawyer; I didn’t know what AI was,” jokes Gordon, legal lead AI advisory at MinterEllison. 

She spent the first decade of her career in health regulatory advisory, and when it became clear the firm needed to support this emerging practice area Gordon was excited to make the switch. 

“Throughout my career I had been advising clients about digital health transformations and the regulatory impacts, and as AI increasingly became part of the landscape that digital health advice became advice about AI in a health context,” she says. 

“I still do some of the health work, but more than 50 per cent of my practice now is AI-focused, sometimes in a health context but often not. I’m working increasingly with the financial services sector, education and other highly regulated industries.”

With AI poised to reshape the legal profession, Gordon says “helping clients at the cutting edge to think about transformative use cases and the governance they need for that is very exciting”. 

She also sees moving into this emerging practice area as an important future-proofing strategy for her career. “AI is going to change how lawyers work and the type of services our clients ask for, but they are always going to need legal advice about how to manage AI risk.”

Emily Coghlan’s experiences working in an emerging practice area are similar. When she joined Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer (then Herbert Smith Freehills) in 2011 as a bright-eyed graduate, Coghlan says she wanted to be a mergers and acquisitions lawyer. She landed in litigation, working mostly on class actions and large-scale litigation, where she was involved in “high-volume data and document intensive aspects of litigation” and developed an interest in legal technology and e-discovery tools. 

In 2017, when an opportunity came to lead the firm’s new alternative legal services team, Coghlan was initially reluctant. “I’ll give you my honest reaction when I was first approached: ‘Thanks, but no thanks’. I was a senior associate working on disputes and class actions and really loving what I was doing,” she says.  

At the urging of a senior partner who encouraged her to step outside her comfort zone and accept the position, Coghlan changed her mind – and hasn’t looked back. She’s now a partner leading the Australian digital lead delivery function, with her team “supporting the way the firm delivers legal services to clients where it leverages legal technology, process design and alternative resourcing models”. 

She points to the rise of generative AI and its integration into legal service delivery as one of the profession’s biggest shifts – and one at which she’s excited to be at the forefront. “A lot of the deployment of AI tools in our firm is supported through our digital team.”

Because the practice area is so new, Coghlan isn’t alone in making the switch, noting that prior legal experience brings valuable context to a rapidly developing field. “Many of our senior team members have moved from more traditional legal roles into this new function. It’s critical to have strong underlying technical legal expertise to then be able to leverage in adopting new technologies, processes and ways of delivering services,” she says. At the junior level, she adds, firms are increasingly bringing through a new generation of talent trained specifically for this work.

As technology continues to advance, Coghlan says she’s clear on her career direction. “There’s no way I could imagine going back to traditional practice. I rely on that experience I had, those foundational years of legal training and developing expertise as a litigation lawyer, but being involved in a part of the legal industry that’s new and emerging is really exciting,” she explains. The challenge now is to keep learning fast enough to stay ahead of the technology curve, Coghlan adds. 

Moving in-house

While not technically a practice area change, going in-house is an increasingly popular pivot for more experienced practitioners. The legal profession has grown substantially over the past decade, and corporate legal has been one of the fastest-growing areas in terms of practitioner numbers – rising 125 per cent since 2011, according to the Urbis 2024 National Profile of Solicitors. 

Edwards, who is head of in-house legal recruitment at Beacon Legal, says banking, property, construction and employment are among the most common practice areas from which lawyers move in-house. “It’s definitely becoming more common – a lot of lawyers are looking to move away from private practice.”

He says lawyers are often attracted to more predictable hours and better work-life balance. “Lawyers see appeal in moving away from the billable hours that they’re exposed to in private practice, as well as often very demanding working and client expectations.”

Jesse Shah, CEO at legal recruiter Nrol, says among the senior level candidates he works with, “it’s more common to switch from private practice to in-house rather than switch practice areas”, noting the perceived lifestyle benefits. “A lot of people want to experience not working in that law firm culture, the very traditional hierarchy that’s less flexible. If you go in-house, you’re following the working patterns of that business. If it’s a tech firm, for example, you’re getting a lot more work from home and going home on time, so less hours,” Shah says. 

Anderson, who is president of the Women Lawyers Association of NSW, says evidence shows women – who outnumber male practitioners across Australia – largely report that the attraction of in-house roles centres on increased flexibility to accommodate caring responsibilities for young children and older parents. “They’ve got far more autonomy over their time than potentially in other areas of the profession,” she explains. 

It’s also common for practitioners to reach special counsel and decide that an in-house role suits them better than pursuing partnership, so they make the move, explains Madeleine Shaw, an executive and leadership coach and speaker and former corporate and commercial lawyer. “Conversely, many senior in-house lawyers were previously partners at major firms and are recruited into corporate legal teams from partnership,” she says. 

Shaw believes the growing popularity of moving in-house has been helped by the fading stigma. “When I was a more junior lawyer, private practice lawyers would sometimes look down a little bit on in-house lawyers, whereas now I don’t see that anymore. It’s a much more respected choice now – it’s its own discipline with its own skill set and challenges.” She adds that in-house work now demands a level of commercial awareness and business acumen that is increasingly valued in the market. 

Such is the appeal of moving in-house that Edwards says lawyers are making the transition much earlier in their careers than in the past. He’s seeing many lawyers seeking to move in-house after just two to five years in private practice, rather than waiting until they reach senior associate level or beyond. 

Anderson agrees, explaining that the expansion of in-house roles and the subsequent availability of mentors for early career lawyers helps facilitate these lateral moves. “Previously you might have been the only lawyer in the organisation, whereas now there are teams of in-house lawyers,” she says. 

Luke Meeve realised he wanted to move in-house in his second year of working as a lawyer. After four years working in investment banks before switching to law and a position at Norton Rose Fullbright, he says he “wanted to be working closer with businesses and helping them grow and be part of the whole journey” rather than “solve a really technical problem and then you’re done”.

With four years of experience in private practice, he became legal counsel at Dulux Group where the breadth of work was “enormous”. “I had a general corporate commercial skill set – I’d done a little bit of mergers and acquisitions, a little bit of general contracting, a little bit of intellectual property. But at Dulux Group, I was doing everything from trademarks, intellectual property, technology agreements and distribution, to purchase, sale, mergers and acquisitions and competition and consumer law,” Meeve says.

More than 13 years later and now general counsel at PEXA Group, Meeve describes himself as a generalist and says the in-house environment has proved a very good fit. “I wasn’t an overly technical lawyer; I was [a] very commercial lawyer, and that’s where I naturally gravitated to,” he says. “Others, they really love the very deep subject matter expertise that some of the law firms can offer with their different practice groups.”

Value match in community legal

Indeed, the ability to isolate a practice area or sector of the profession that truly resonates – and muster the confidence to pursue it – is key to making these pivots possible. Amelia Klein left their job in private practice not because of an issue with the firm, but because they have “a problem with this part of the legal profession”. They are now a supervising solicitor in the financial abuse service for Redfern Legal Centre.

“The barrier of having to pony up hundreds of dollars an hour to get legal assistance was something that sat uncomfortably with me,” Klein says of their seven years in private practice. “There were people who had legal rights and to enforce them they were having to do things like sell properties or refinance mortgages over their home, and we weren’t even able to get to people who didn’t have options like that to help support them.

“I just really wanted to be in an organisation where money was not a barrier to getting legal help.”

Klein says their experience working in suburban firms helped to ease the transition – for both them and their new employer.

 “One of the questions that was asked in the interview [with Redfern Legal Centre] was whether I could do my own photocopying and legal research. That was work I was doing myself anyway,” she notes. 

The number of lawyers employed in community legal centres is growing, and Klein says greater demand for specialised practitioners is helping to encourage people to move into the sector. “We’ve recently been able to launch a company and tax practice within the financial abuse service. Being funded for these very specialist roles allows people who have this specialist knowledge to bring it in.”

Like Klein, Burton, the Mills Oakley pro bono team partner, sees a good fit between her current role and her values and plans to “settle down” for the foreseeable future. “This is an area that I really enjoy and I think I’m good at. I would like to get better at it so I can help clients with trickier pro bono wills and estates matters because there is so much need out there,” she says. 

Transferrable skills and risk taking

At a practical level, changing practice areas requires practitioners to recognise and leverage transferrable skills. Shaw says it’s common for lawyers across the profession to doubt the portability of their skills, especially in early career. “In those first couple of years after law school, you’re learning how to be a practising lawyer, and those skills are absolutely transferable,” she says. 

As legal careers become more fluid and with almost half of solicitors aged under 40, Littrich at the University of Wollongong believes employers are much more open to candidates from diverse professional backgrounds. 

“Even if they haven’t necessarily started their career in that particular area of law, employers are more open to taking someone on if they’ve shown an ability to problem solve, have good communication skills and are a good fit for the organisation,” he says. 

“If you’ve been a successful lawyer in a particular area and you’ve got skills in cultivating a practice and keeping clients, and you’re highly regarded by clients, some of those skills should be transferable to a new area of law.”

Beyond technical capability, making a practice area change also requires a willingness to step outside one’s comfort zone. Brown, the executive coach, notes that it takes a particular kind of confidence for established practitioners to reset their expertise and effectively start again. Reaching a point of comfort and competence, only to “willingly go and become a newbie all over again”, can be confronting – professionally and personally.

Brown says the challenge is not just the new knowledge required, but the mindset shift that accompanies it. “It is quite overwhelming to start from scratch again and to learn something new,” she explains, noting this is particularly the case for lawyers who are used to operating with a high degree of mastery.

In this context, Brown emphasises the importance of a growth mindset. A genuine enjoyment of learning, curiosity and openness to change are critical traits for lawyers considering a pivot. “One of the things about growth mindset is it embraces the idea that you will fail – but you’ll learn from that failure and see it as an opportunity for growth,” Brown says.

Willing to start again

Changing practice areas can be liberating, but it can also come with real costs – not just in time and effort, but in status, salary and professional identity. Shaw works with lawyers to identify what “lights them up” and what drains them, and she says it’s worthwhile pursuing a career that fits one’s strengths, values and working style. But she cautions that a switch is not simply a matter of wanting something different as it often means starting again.

“You have permission to build a career that fits you, but you have to be willing to accept the reality of that, which is, to some extent, you’ll be a beginner again,” she says.

Shaw adds that the cost of changing practice areas rises the further along a lawyer is in their career. At the 10 to 15-year mark, the challenge is less about learning subject matter and more about navigating the new practice area’s rhythm: who the key players are and what it takes to close a matter. “It’s often quite overwhelming to start from scratch again and to learn something new,” she says. 

The day-to-day demands of a new practice area can also be a big adjustment. Meeve, who moved in-house, says the most significant challenge was changing how he communicated. He needed to shift from a lawyer-to-client approach to a more collaborative problem-solving style. “I got very direct feedback: ‘Don’t treat me like I’m your client at arm’s length. We’re here trying to solve a problem together’,” he recalls. 

For Meeve, adjusting to the in-house environment wasn’t easy. He says he had to build a broader understanding of the full scope of legal issues a company faces and be prepared to handle whatever came through the door, even if it was outside his comfort zone. “If I’m being honest, the first year-and-a-half to two years was hard to really change how I had been working. It took a long time,” he says. 

Edwards agrees that a practice area change often involves an adjustment period. “Anyone transitioning practice areas probably needs to accept there will be a period of upskilling, learning and relearning,” he says. As a result, lawyers may need to accept a step back in seniority or salary, at least initially, even if the long-term prospects are stronger.

Indeed, salary is one of the most immediate implications of a switch. Brown notes that moving into a new practice area is easier earlier in a career because junior lawyers have fewer “sunk costs” in their expertise. At that stage, employers are more willing to invest in training because the candidate isn’t yet viewed as a specialist. But once someone is more senior, the conversation changes and the salary expectations can become a sticking point. “Employers are thinking: ‘How much effort and investment am I going to have to make in you to bring you up to speed?’” Brown says. 

Edwards recalls an instance where he recruited a “reasonably senior” lawyer from corporate mergers and acquisitions into funds work. The firm was willing to recruit the candidate, but the salary offered reflected the time needed to get them up to speed. “The employer was happy to offer the position but did factor in that the candidate would need to be trained and upskilled,” he says. “As a result, the salary wasn’t quite comparable to what they might have received in their previous role.”

Shah agrees that lawyers must be realistic about the financial trade-offs, recommending that practitioners not expect to earn at the same level, although there may be some flexibility depending on the practice areas. He says the decision often comes down to weighing long-term fulfilment against short-term financial sacrifice. 

Adaptability not instability

Experts agree that the makeup of legal careers is set to continue evolving, with shifts between practice areas and across sectors becoming increasingly common as practitioners pursue professional fulfilment and new opportunities over a single straight path. A practice area pivot will be seen less as a risky detour and more as a normal part of building a career.

Anderson notes that while specialised practitioners will always be required, there are now many more tools – digital platforms, mentoring and coaching, and networking opportunities – helping lawyers navigate fluid, flexible careers. “This makes it easier to change from one practice area to another or potentially incorporate additional practice areas into your practice,” she says, emphasising that mentoring is crucial. “Without mentoring most practitioners would be lost in a new practice area.”

As the early-career lawyers championing this fluid approach gain more experience, the profession is likely to become even more accepting of lateral moves. Edwards says firms are increasingly recruiting for cultural fit and personality as much as technical expertise and are willing to invest in upskilling. “Once they get past that period of training, there’s so much benefit in having somebody in the team who’s culturally aligned,” he says. 

In his view, the employers that are open to pivots will be the ones that win in a competitive market. “The profession probably does need to be a little bit more open-minded to people transitioning practice areas,” he says.

Coghlan, the digital lead delivery partner at Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer, says the profession stands to benefit from a proliferation of diverse skillsets. “A legal career isn’t as linear or binary as it used to be. You can go between private practice and in-house, and there are more options beyond these like legal operations, policy and legal tech startups,” she says. 

“Fundamentally, the purpose of the work we do is to service our clients, and the complexities of the modern business environment really requires a diversity of skillsets and a multidisciplinary team that solves clients’ challenges.”

What is evident is that change throughout a legal career is no longer a sign of instability – it demonstrates adaptability. The new benchmark is not how long practitioners stay in one role, but how effectively they can evolve and add value in new contexts. 

Shah says the message to lawyers is simple: “Whatever your level of experience, you shouldn’t feel apprehensive or scared to change practice areas or move into another sector. There are more and more firms that will count your previous experience as merit rather than hindrance.”

Learn more: An on-demand course called ‘Alternative ways to practise law’ (43032) is available through the Law Society of NSW, on the LawInform website. See lawinform.com.au