Legal education: Enhanced personal skills are vital to stay ahead of the curve in the early years of trainee lawyers

It’s hard work, but taking a realistic approach to stamina, time management and client needs will help career success says Amy McLellan

Project management skills and self-discipline are essential to stay on top of the workload (Alamy)

The transition from student lawyer to trainee lawyer can mean an abrupt change of pace. Law students aren't known for being slackers, what with the relentless focus on academic results and extra-curricular excellence, but the intensity of the early years in practice can still be a shock to the system. Indeed, once you complete the exam treadmill, it quickly hits home that legal knowledge is but “a hygiene factor”: instead it is a range of skills and personal attributes that will be the clear determinant of career success.

Stamina and grit are essential. While the profession, stung by reports of burnt-out juniors and stressed pupils, has in recent years taken steps to redress the work/life imbalance, this is still not a career for those seeking a nine- to-five job.

“It's not fixed hours,” says Professor Alisdair Gillespie, head of the law school at Lancaster University. “While the pressures and intensity can vary depending on the type of law you practise, there's no escaping there's a lot of work and you're likely at some point to find yourself reading papers over the weekend or structuring arguments for a case at 2am.”

Big City firms pay the most – and expect the most. Peter Crisp, dean of BPP Law School, says 12-14-hour days are not uncommon, with all-nighters required when a big transaction is being pushed over the line. “It's intense and challenging, and you need to know yourself, whether you have the resilience and tenacity to cope with it,” says Crisp. “And of course some people thrive on it.”

New lawyers, whether self-employed as a barrister or working for a firm, also need to have an entrepreneurial streak: after all, law is a business

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Project management skills and self-discipline are essential to stay on top of the workload. “Time management is crucial,” says Gillespie. “For solicitors it's understanding billable hours, while barristers, surviving on the offcuts of someone else, may be juggling four or five small cases at the same time and having to get on top of cases at the last minute.”

New lawyers, whether self-employed as a barrister or working for a firm, also need to have an entrepreneurial streak: after all, law is a business. There needs to a natural curiosity about the client's business and a keen commercial awareness in order to add real value to the client. Some law firms are now filling in the gaps in their new recruits' commercial understanding with their own training programmes: US law firm Cleary Gottlieb runs an in-house two-week Mini MBA Program for first-year associates.

Excellent communication, both written and verbal, are a given. But to this new recruits must also be highly personable, able to put clients at their ease and quickly build rapport while still maintaining a leadership role in order to secure desired outcomes. This can particularly be the case when handling difficult cases, such as family law or criminal cases.