Eight skills to help you in your legal career

Finding work in the competitive legal sector can be difficult. We all need to stand out from the crowd but how? In this post, I look at eight skills you should have to gain an advantage over your peers.

8. Be organised

A lawyer’s working day is never boring. Whether you are researching points of law, drafting legal documents, managing case files, negotiating, meeting clients or attending court you are always going to be rushed off your feet. The ability to prioritise your time and remain focused among competing priorities is essential.

You’ll have plenty of opportunity to improve your organisational skills at university and throughout your training. At job interviews, you’ll need to come up with good answers for this so consider examples of when you successfully organised an event.

7. Ability to work under pressure

Being a lawyer is a stressful job with clients relying on you to bring your ‘A-Game’ to work every day. If you work in property law, you’ll be dealing with huge amounts of money; if you’re a family lawyer, you’ll be dealing with child protection; as a criminal lawyer, you may be the difference between somebody losing their…