Lawyers - do you alter your PQE to account for p/t?

[Mandy21]

I qualified in 2002 and was full time until 2005 when I had my first period of mat leave. I went back in 2006 (after 9 mths mat leave + accrued holiday) 3 days per wk. Changed my contract at that point to a 3 day week.

Had 2nd period of mat leave in 2009 (9 mths again + holiday) returned on the same 3 day per week contract.

If you've done something similar, had mat leave and had periods of p/t hrs, do you count your PQE differently. Would you say I'm 11yrs PQE, or 9.5 (disallowing mat leave)? Would you only count your part time yrs as 3/5?

I've worked for the same firm throughout so its never been an issue but wondering how its viewedin other firms.

[MissBeehiving]

I've had two periods of mat leave (6 months and 1 yr) and worked p/t at various times. I wouldn't discount PQE for those.

[Trazzletoes]

I count my pqe as if I'd been in full-time employment the whole time.

[Poppyjen]

I have been back at work full time for 4 months after 3 years out (2 lots of maternity leave and 1 year working part time for my dad's business). I qualified in 2007 and when I was looking to go back to work the recruiters all told me that realistically firms would pitch me at the 3pqe level (so simply reducing PQE by length of time out).

At the time I accepted this without question, but its now obvious that perhaps I shouldn't have...my firm is charging me out at their 6pqe rate, and have confirmed that my performance is at 6pqe level. I have (delicately) raised this with the partners and have suggested that they do something to address what is quite a large gap between my salary and my acknowledged PQE level. Sadly they don't seem willing but that's another story

What I am trying to say, albeit in a very rambling way, is that I would be cautious about automatically reducing your PQE because of maternity leave. Ok you weren't in an office, but you certainly didn't stop developing as a person. What is more important is the level you feel you can perform at, and the level the firm is comfortable pitching you at to clients. Don't do yourself down

A colleague of mine commented to me recently that if a man had had time out in another role outside of the law for a couple of years, no-one would be suggesting that this would automatically reduce PQE level - on the contrary this would be celebrated as adding breadth and depth of experience

[Mandy21]

Thanks all, thats really interesting!

[Trazzletoes]

poppyjen your comparison with men is spot on and one of the reasons I wouldn't automatically drop mine.

Another is that if I were applying for a job I see no reason why I should have to explain non-gaps in my cv. I haven't been out of employment during that time, and I don't think it is necessarily helpful to advertise that I'm a mother during a job interview - I appreciate that shouldn't be the case and it depends on the firm etc etc etc but if even I'm selling myself short with regards to my work experience, then that's not a great start.

Anyway, it probably all evens out when you add in all the overtime

[madamepetitchou]

Hi there, just thought I'd add my tuppence worth. I agree with poppyjen. In my mind, your PQE is a fixed amount, being the number of years from the date that you qualified. Certainly any periods of maternity leave should not be discounted from your PQE - this would never apply to a man, so why should it apply to a woman.

Further, like anything, PQE is a subjective test: a 6 year PQE from a small firm will have very different experience to a 6 year PQE from a large firm. Whilst I appreciate that PQE is used by the legal industry to peg salaries of associates, I would suggest that your experience and capability can be illustrated from examples of the work you have done and feedback from clients and colleagues that you have received.

All that said, law firms are going to try and 'discount' PQEs as often as possible to get a bargain for the associates that they employ. Oh well.

[Poppyjen]

Yes I know - they are certainly making a lot of profit out of me at the moment, and this is at a large City practice who are lauded as being one of the most pragmatic and forward thinking, emphasising performance based pay etc etc

Needless to say I am currently exploring what other options are out there

As you were. Rant over.

[Mandy21]

Its useful to know how everyone views the issue. I hope as you say Poppyjen that remuneration is based on capability and experience. In fact the only person who suggests I reduce my PQE on account of mat leave and p/t hours is my sister - a partner in a magic circle firm!

[minipie]

I don't think your pqe level on paper reduces - after all you've still been qualified for X years whether it was part time or full time. However, your job title, pay and the level the firm charges you out at may well be reduced.

I know someone who is 15yrs plus pqe, but has been part time for years - because of this she is restricted in what kind of work she does, so her experience is less broad than a 15yr lawyer and she doesn't get put on the mega projects that require constant availability and clients will pay top whack for. So she is only charged out and paid as something like 4 or 5 yrs pqe.

personally I think the main thing is that your salary level and your job title/pqe rating keeps pace with your charge out level. Firms will charge you out at the max they think you are worth. so if you are being charged as a Level X at £Y per hour, you should be being paid the same and given the same job title/pqe as anyone else being charged out as Level X. hope that make sense!

[78bunion]

Always check the definition if there is one in the context in which you use the term PQE. It may go into detail as to what that means. It does stand for post qualification experience. If a male lawyer had one year of that experience then worked for 7 years on a sheep farm in Australia and then said he had 8 years PQE you would say he was a liar who should be up before trading standards. if you've had 3 months off twice to have a baby in and did a lot of CPD etc in those 3 months each time I think not losing any PQE would be reasonable by contrast.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

No you fecking don't reduce it, and it would almost certainly be unlawful sex discrimination if you were made to.

You would normally reduce for actual career breaks - e.g. a year spent travelling, etc though. Though that isn't automatic.

Grrrrr, PQE makes me angry for so many varied reasons. It's a shitty way to measure seniority in a modern workplace.

Sorry, rant over. Can you tell it's a bug bear?

[78bunion]

That's consistent with what I said. 3 months off to have a baby and then back full time means you worked most of that year so it's neither here not there. however if you take 5 years off full time work it would be very deceptive to imply you have 5 years of experience when you don't. So I think it depends.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

But actually, even a year off on maternity leave should be treated differently to a year off travelling even if it was the exact same length of absence because of the way discrimination laws work.

You aren't allowed to treat women less favourably because they have taken maternity leave (or men either now it can be shared). And because everything around law is based on PQE, it would be effectively penalising women for taking maternity leave if you deducted it.

[Lizzylou]

I work in Legal recruitment (sorry ).
Your PQE is your PQE, mat leave/part time whatever.
PQE s are fairly skewed now anyway due to the number of Solicitors who can spend years as a fee earner pre-training contract.

[78bunion]

Indeed although if you had a baby just as you qualified and then took a year off and said you had 1 year PQE that is hardly accurate. Instead you have no post qualification experience so it is 100% wrong no matter what the employment lawyers might say. If you had a year off for each baby over 6 years the reality is you have 3 years not 6 years of actually practising.

Plenty of women with these very long maternity breaks might prefer to be honest because of their own personal morality even if employment law encourages them in effect to lie.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

It isn't lying. It's perfectly accurate. The fact that is doesn't reflect actual experience is just another way of exposing the ridiculousness of the PQE system, which is designed for upper class men with linear careers from an era where most firms were passed down the generations.

I hate PQE. Even the accountants have had the sense to mostly get rid of it. Just the dinosaurs in law grimly clinging on.

[Lizzylou]

A lot of law firms don't stipulate PQE anymore, some actively discourage talk of it.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

I wish more would follow suit Lizzie. Too many of the big firms still grimly cling to the idea, often whilst giving lip service to some other system.

Honestly, it was one of my biggest gripes about people management in law. I do get quite annoyed over it

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

Sorry *Lizzy

[Lizzylou]

Amanda, Law is catching up and needs to. But yes, some of the worst cases of breaches of Employment Law I have ever seen have been made by so called Employment law specialists.
Outside of the Magic Circle and the national multi office heavyweights, the world is very different.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

Oh indeed, I've seen a few of those in my time too. Physician heal thyself and all that. .

[78bunion]

We live in a very topsy turvy world if women lawyers think you do not get better at something by doing more of it. Whether you are a milkman, factory worker or lawyer if you spend 48 weeks a year in your first year or two doing the work rather than 2 weeks you are bound to be better. Anyone thinking otherwise should not be practising law.

However as I said above 3 months off fine and if you were 20 y ears qualified and had 2 lots of maternity leave perhaps even of a year I don't think there is a big difference between `18 years of experience and 20. However in the early years it matters and awful lot. Experience is absolutely vital. you are so much better with 3 years of work than with none.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

'Women lawyers'? I think you'll find you could just have used 'some lawyers' or 'certain people' in that sentence, since gender isn't relevant to someone's view on this and not all 'women lawyers' will share the same views. Seems a very odd and somewhat dismissive choice of language.

My point is not that you don't get better at something by doing more of it, but that PQE is a poor and deeply flawed measure of how good or senior someone is. Experience is only very loosely related to months and years since qualification - by your reckoning a magic circle assistant who has routinely worked 60 hour weeks is more qualified than an assistant who did 40 hour weeks in another firm. In fact, the hours spent tell you nothing about the quality or nature of what they have done.

PQE is not fit for purpose. Preventing those who take breaks for parenting responsibilities being disadvantaged by an idiotic system is, quite frankly, the least we should expect in the 21st century.

[78bunion]

I think experience is a reasonable measure just as A level grades are a reasonable measure too. Not perfect of course but works reasonably well.

[AmandaPandtheNightmareMonsters]

Experience has naff all to do with PQE though. I have never heard a defence of PQE that doesn't basically boil down to 'I don't want to do the work to figure out what skill set and experience this employee/candidate has'. Though I am always open to hearing one.

It isn't comparable with A-levels. A-levels is at least measure how you did on a particular test. PQE is just a measure of time - not any measure of what you have actually done or how you have performed.