“For many women, returning to the legal profession
reflects unfinished business:
a desire for challenge, meaningful contribution,
and the reclaiming of a professional identity”
I’m a midlife woman and, in a previous life, a lawyer. Like many female lawyers, I am ‘lost to law’ – I left and did not return. I continued working in law firms, but in recruitment rather than practice. At times I questioned that decision, but law’s rigid, linear career structure – and the absence of visible retraining or re‑entry routes – meant that returning never really felt like a viable option. Instead, I forged a different and winding career path, typical of women’s career journeys. I’ve worked in recruitment, HR and now coaching, combining work, both paid and voluntary, with domestic responsibilities. I am happy not to be in a legal role.
What about the women who want to return?
But I was curious – I knew anecdotally that there were ‘older’ women who wanted to get back into the profession. I also knew that The Law Society had issued a pledge to get women back into law (The Law Society, 2022). Further, on a national scale, reports suggest that, with an ageing population, the UK’s future economic growth is dependent on getting over 50s back into work (Centre for Aging Better, 2025). They need to contribute to GDP, pay their taxes and be able to support themselves. Not just this – work provides purpose, meaning and identity which in turn support wellbeing. These issues, plus the fact that the careers of midlife women are under-researched, made the question of midlife returners one worthy of further investigation.
So, this is what I focused my MSc research dissertation on – what drives midlife women to seek a return to the legal profession after a break and what are their experiences? I sought out women between the ages of 40 and 65 who were looking to or had already returned to the legal profession after a break, and found 11 individuals who were willing to share their stories.
Photo by Vlada Karpovich on Pexels
From these narratives, I named some key themes:
- The drive to return
If I were to highlight one key message from my research, it would be that midlife is not the end of career. The women I spoke to did not want to slow down. The desire to refocus on meaningful work after a period spent in a domestic role was clear. They wanted the chance to progress and contribute, harnessing newfound confidence gained through life experience
- Getting back to ‘me’
This change of focus represented an intense desire to get back to an old self – a reclaiming of identity, rather than the creation of a new one. Qualifying as a lawyer had taken hard work and determination – and they had been good at it. Returning promised the challenge they were looking for at this stage of life
- Now or never
Time itself played a big part in the drive to return – time running out and fear of a future with no purpose, created a sense of urgency. This was unfinished business. Children getting older meant time became more available and as one woman said, it gave her the “freedom” to work full time – a contradiction for many
- Job seeking as an ‘older’ woman
Whilst the desire and energy to return was clear, job seeking had its challenges. Recruitment consultants, the main source of new hires for law firms, were not interested and few of the women who had returned found roles through them. One described how her interaction with recruiters left her with a strong sense of being “old, just old” and “not worth bothering with”. The perception that they were being discriminated against due to age and their career break made them feel angry and demoralised
- Mind the gap
The career gap was not an easy hurdle to overcome. The structure of law firms often means that once you step off the ladder, no one knows where to put you if you return. The concept of treating a 50-year-old as a junior lawyer, the level they were at when they left, does not sit comfortably within the legal career path
“Too often, midlife women lawyers who have
taken a break are seen as “past it”.
Here I want to offer a different narrative —
one of wisdom, experience
and an ongoing desire to contribute”
Despite the challenges, a number of the women I spoke to had successfully returned to legal roles in various forms. They had been able to bridge the gap and create a new pathway for themselves. From my research, I identified those internal resources which had helped:
- Putting up with ageist perceptions
There was a sense of having to put up with ageist attitudes. This didn’t mean accepting them – nor did it mean not feeling anger and disappointment. Arguably it was these strong emotions which proved helpful in driving individuals forwards to a new path. The important thing was not allowing this to be a barrier
- Forming supportive relationships
Relationships were a key support – finding jobs through contacts, getting help with processes in a new office environment, bonding with other women returners. Research has shown that relationships are particularly important for women as they navigate their career paths, especially those with other women (Motulsky, 2020)
- Being flexible with new roles
Looking at other ways of working also helped. For example, working as a consultant or on a contract, starting in a junior role or taking on a non-legal role which develops similar skills. It was important to be open to different types of opportunity and not rely on fitting back where they left off
- Harnessing age-related confidence or ‘wisdom’
The conflict between low confidence levels due to being out of the workplace and the increased confidence which comes with age and life experience was very apparent. It was striking how quickly work confidence came back once back at work, bolstered by the confidence gained through maturity. So too did legal knowledge, challenging the notion that legal skills erode significantly over time. This resulted in a real sense of pride and achievement
Photo by Timur Weber on Pexels
What does this mean for law firms?
By making an up-front investment in returner programmes and providing support for midlife returners to reintegrate into the legal profession, firms would benefit from the skills, commitment and wisdom that individuals bring at this key life stage. The benefits of engaging mature people with diverse perspectives is supported by research suggesting multigenerational teams outperform others when (and this is important) organisations intentionally design inclusive practices that support generational diversity (The Inclusion Initiative, 2024).
Few of the women in my study found jobs through regular legal recruiters – many used contacts, joined returner programmes or used specialist recruiters who understood the challenges they faced and were able to provide targeted support. Law firms would do well to collaborate with legal recruiters and work with them to encourage and support midlife lawyers to return to the profession.
What does this mean for individuals?
Returning to the legal profession with its linear career path is undeniably challenging. If we look at Erikson’s theory of life stages (Erikson, 1950) it identifies the choice we have at midlife between stagnation and generativity – do we want to give up, or do we want to continue to contribute and hand on our experience? By looking to pick up their legal careers again later in life, the women in my research were choosing generativity. But they needed internal and external resources to do this, including resilience and optimism, a flexible outlook, an ability to recognise the wisdom that age brings, plus supportive relationships.
What if these are resources we just don’t feel we own? A particularly useful support to help develop them could come in the form of career coaching. At midlife – a time of reassessment and reflection (what is our role in society and who do we want to become, for example) coaching can provide space to consider and develop answers to these questions.
Photo by Denys Nevozhai on Unsplash
To sum up
For many midlife returners, this journey is about more than just a job. It’s about craving a challenge, making a contribution and reconnecting with a part of themselves they have put on hold. There’s often a sense that it’s now or never.
If this resonates, there are practical steps you can take. From the perspective of the individual: reflect on what you want for yourself in the future; think positively about your life skills and what you can offer. Recognise too that, whilst it may be a challenging journey, reaching out to other people for support can be helpful. For law firms, it’s time to recognise the skills, experience and commitment midlife returners offer. Embracing a range of perspectives, backgrounds, and experiences isn’t just the right thing to do. It’s essential for long-term success.
References
Centre for Ageing Better. (2025). Work: The state of ageing 2025. https://ageing-better.org.uk/work-state-ageing-2025
Erikson, E. H. (1950). Childhood and society. New York, NY: W. W. Norton & Company.
The Inclusion Initiative, London School of Economics and Political Science. (2024). When generations meet: The productivity potential of multigenerational meetings. https://www.lse.ac.uk/tii/assets/documents/When-Generations-Meet.pdf
The Law Society. (2022, April 4). Women in law pledge. https://www.lawsociety.org.uk/campaigns/women-in-leadership-in-law/tools/the-women-in-law-pledge
Motulsky, S. L. (2010). Relational processes in career transition: Extending theory, research, and practice. The Counseling Psychologist, 38 (8), 1078–1114. https://doi.org/10.1177/0011000010376415
About this piece
I’m delighted to contribute as a guest writer for The Careers Company blog, drawing on my MSc research on midlife women lawyers returning to the legal profession. The research is fully anonymised. For those looking for more in-depth findings, my article is published in the NICEC journal:
Roberts, A. (2025). The draw of the law: Midlife women lawyers seeking to refocus on their legal careers after a break. Journal of the National Institute for Career Education and Counselling, 55 (1). https://www.nicecjournal.co.uk
Whether you’re thinking about a professional comeback or interested in fostering inclusion in your workplace, I hope this blog will provide you with some food for thought.
Images in this blog are for illustrative purposes only and do not depict research participants.
Amanda Roberts image credit: @vicki_sharp_photo on socials.
To read a range of other articles by The Careers Company click here to view our blog page!