Originally Posted by Unregistered

For a more accurate idea, it'll probably be best to seek the opinion of someone who's got experience both with a legal career as well as in teaching. Not sure how many of those visit these forums…

That said, I do think work-life balance in teaching is not that great, especially if you're looking to teach EL/GP - though I guess it depends on how much you are able to detach from work as well. That said, from what I know, work-life balance in many legal jobs isn't great either (from what I've heard, probably worse than teaching).

Don't have personal recent experience with the interview process either, but from various accounts on this forum, it seems pretty selective. There is indeed an over-supply of teachers at the moment, though EL teachers are still pretty in demand.

Most practical path is to complete your legal training so as to maximise your options; but if you have the capacity to juggle it, you could consider registering as a SRE (relief teaching scheme) and stepping into schools to get a better idea of what the job entails. Given that your educational background (just guessing), you might not have that much exposure to the more typical student profile that you're more likely to encounter, given that the majority of vacancies would be in mainstream primary/secondary schools… basically, would suggest you 'try before you buy'.