The City Legal Market – past, present & future – a talk by Robert Sutton, Senior Adviser, Macfarlanes – Marie Tay
Author Marie
The City Legal Market - where leading solicitors gather - is a place that calls for versatile capabilities and wit along with the ability to adapt to new challenges constantly. And it’s a place where the faint-hearted or egoistic need not apply. Set against a background of Eurozone instability and the arrival of a number of US law firms on the scene, today’s City Legal Market is a far more competitive one.
Is there still a place for the GDL/LLB graduate whose goal is that increasingly hard-to-obtain training contract?
The answer is still a resounding yes. For it is said that competition brings out the best in us. And most certainly, while the entry of the US firms fosters competition between City firms, this also means that there is now a wider range of opportunities available.
Good news then for those seeking employment at City firms. For all that’s left to do is to prove yourself. Except that you need to do this in a more prominent manner than before. As City lawyers now play larger roles in the driving or organising of transactions, you need to be equipped with additional skill sets along with the all-important legal knowledge such as administrative and communication skills, a ‘what if’ intellect and the ability to lead.
Getting started – By Elizabeth Cruickshank and Penny Cooper
Working in a law firm isn’t just about knowing the Law. That might have been true decades ago before the advent of newspaper advice columns and consumer advice programmes, but now every senior practising solicitor spends a considerable amount of time in “client development” and keeping up with what is going on in the businesses and lives of existing clients. Law firms now place considerable emphasis on the acquisition of “soft skills”, for example knowing how to make existing clients feel valued and learning how to acquire new clients.
Certainly these are skills that trainees will need to develop and good law firms will guide them, but trainees who recognise that their main purpose is to assist their firms to earn money by being helpful, by being willing to learn and by having a degree of humility, save themselves a great deal of anxiety and heartache.
It's 100% or nothing remember! Thanks to MarcelGermain for image
Being helpful
First of all accept that your supervisors are busy people and may ask you to do relatively menial things to save them time, such as getting a cup of coffee, arranging a meeting room, rushing down to the Post Room with an urgent request or even typing up a letter. This may seem like a waste of your expensive legal education, but will earn you goodwill from a frazzled more senior lawyer, especially if you do the best that you can, because the name of the game is now to provide the most efficient and accurate service that you can for the firm’s clients. It’s not about passing exams in academic subjects. In legal practice a 50% pass mark or even a 70% one will not do. Anything less than 100% accuracy and efficiency can have severe consequences for a firm’s clients and indemnity insurance premiums.
Basic requirements
New trainees find that most of their work consists of research, form-filling, getting “ the ducks in a row” (a.k.a organised), attending meetings and drafting documents through from simple letters to Instructions to Counsel. The precise mix will depend on the individual seat, the size of the firm and the complexity of the matters that your supervisor is working on at any one time. All will require that you can communicate effectively, both orally and on paper.
Combining law and business via a Phd…? Nikzad Oraee-Mirzamani
I am a British-Iranian LL.B. Law graduate from City Law School, City University London. I graduated from City with LL.B. Hons (2:1) in July 2009. I completed my Masters degree in Management at Imperial College Business School in September 2010. I am currently enrolled on a PhD course in Imperial College, Department of Natural Sciences, Centre for Environmental Policies, researching on Middle Eastern regulatory mechanisms affecting Business Sustainability. Continuing my education until a doctoral level had always been of paramount importance to me and my family, though my initial plan was to research in a purely legal subject.
I began studying law in 2006 aspiring to become a barrister and then a judge in either England and Wales or Iran. To that end I became active in mooting competitions and embraced an opportunity for a mini-pupillage at a Chambers in Lincoln's Inn. These aspirations remained strong until my final year at City.
Supreme Court launches exciting new project for young Londoners – Anita Davies (BPTC)
On 20th January 2010 the UK Supreme Court will host the launch event for an exciting new project, Big Voice 2011. The project, run by a group of volunteers primarily from the City Law School, aims to empower young people from disadvantaged areas in London and to engage them in the legal system of the United Kingdom.
The project, which is endorsed by the Supreme Court, focuses on issue of legal access and identity. Over the course of the year the project will deliver a series of active workshops and sessions where students from a variety of schools in London will work with their peers, conduct research and meet well-known and successful public figures from both the law and elsewhere. Ultimately, the students will help to write a comparative paper on legal systems in both the UK and in post-apartheid South Africa. The project represents a unique opportunity for students who may otherwise never have the chance to engage with the legal system in such a constructive manner. The project hopes to empower of the young people involved, increase in their professional and practical experience and build their knowledge of the legal and political systems within the UK.
For more information, please contact the project team or visit our blog.
Internships available – pro bono initiative launched!
ELSA London member, Nishma Jethwa, is also a member of Femin-Ijtihad , a student pro bono initiative administered at Warwick University.
Nishma is looking to recruit voluntary researchers!
See the spec for full details of the initiative and how to apply.
The Internet: Friend or Foe – Elizabeth Cruickshank and Penny Cooper
How clients find legal firms
According to a poll of 2,266 people, commissioned by online solicitor directory legallybetter.com, the most popular method of finding a solicitor is the personal recommendation of friends, relatives or colleagues. But recent YouGov research suggests that the second most popular method when people are looking for someone to do conveyancing or to advise on a will is the internet. This is yet more evidence of the power of the internet as a tool in the decision-making process. How can you make it work for you?
Finding a training contract
If you have not already found a training contract, the internet can be a powerful ally. You can use it to find possible candidate firms who will appreciate your talents and achievements. But don’t restrict yourself to perusing firms’ online brochures and downloading their application forms. Simple Google searches on the name of a firm can enable you to garner useful information on a firm’s:
- Areas of expertise
- Important clients
- Recent deals
- Recent cases and whether they have been won or lost
- Charitable activities
- Standing in the local community
- Salary increases – and in some cases salary freezes and decreases
- Redundancies
- Promotions
Applying for a PhD – Pravin J
I came up with my PhD research topic in the shower.
Over the previous three years, since completing the Legal Practice Course at City, I had undertaken an internship with the Environmental Law Foundation, before joining a London law firm as a conveyancing paralegal. I even narrowly missed out on a training contract, so, if things had been different, I would be close to qualifying as a solicitor by now. I was also given the opportunity to manage the firm’s corporate social responsibility policy. I became frustrated at the reluctance of my colleagues to adopt environmentally-friendly behaviour, such as switching off monitors and wasting paper. I thought there must be a better way to initiate environmentally-friendly behaviour than through compulsion or nagging.
And so it was, during a period of enforced unemployment as a result of the credit crunch, in the shower and wondering what to do, that I had my ‘Eureka’ moment.
You’ll be happy to know that I showed more restraint than Archimedes. I did not run naked through the streets.
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