Skills to Boost Your Chances of Success in Law

A career in law is broad and ever-changing, which is why some of the best and brightest people are attracted to the field year after year. However, becoming a lawyer takes more than just a law degree. You’ll employ both technical and soft abilities on a daily basis as a practising solicitor or barrister in your profession.

To find work and succeed in your career, you need to take the right steps to improve your skills and continue learning long after you graduate. This is true no matter what area of law you intend to work in, and it’s always a good idea to be prepared when it comes to looking for jobs.

As a student, you have numerous opportunities to gain skills and experience that you may later utilise to demonstrate to employers that you are the best candidate for the job. Beyond having the necessary skills, it’s also critical to know how to assess your own abilities in order to determine which jobs are right for you and how likely you are to be considered for specific tasks. Here are some of the main skills you need to succeed in your law career.

Leadership

Leadership is a soft skill that covers how you lead and guide others. It’s an important life skill in general, helping you in all areas of your career as well as in your personal life. It’s also a valuable skill for lawyers to have, as they may often need to lead a team and help others get the best results. Good leaders are empathetic and understanding, knowing when to listen to the people working under them. They also need to be able to make difficult decisions and lead by example, instilling confidence and motivation in their team.

You can study more on how to be an authentic and transformational leader with a leadership and change online course. Leadership is also often combined with teamwork, both of which are very important to employers. You can improve both of these skills by working closely with others, listening to your team and working with them to achieve common goals.

Initiative and Independence

While teamwork is vital for success, you must also be able to make decisions when the occasion calls for it. Trainee lawyers are often given a lot of responsibility. To succeed, they must rise to the occasion, developing solutions to problems on their own rather than relying solely on others. However, this doesn’t mean that lawyers work alone, as teamwork is still important. Instead, it simply means that knowing when to ask questions or seek help is best.

Developing the skill of initiative and independence comes through practice. The best way to do this is to work through certain tasks on your own, find your own solutions and get by without help until you get stuck. The more you practice, the better you’ll become at taking the initiative and getting things done.

Creative Problem-Solving

Being a lawyer requires a lot more creativity than a lot of people first assume. As a new lawyer, you’ll be faced with a lot of issues that require solving. In many cases, the solution to a case won’t be obvious, and you’ll need to think outside the box to resolve it. By exploring new options, arguments and avenues, you may considerably help a client, so there’s a big potential reward for being creative in your approach to problem-solving.

Developing creative problem solving can be a challenge in itself, but problems can occur anywhere in life. By looking at problems in a different way and avoiding the solution you’d normally take, you can find new ways to solve them and gain valuable experience in thinking outside the box.