** HALF PRICE OFFER IN JAN/FEB 2010 **

KICK START YOUR CAREER IN 2010 with Legal Careers Direct Ltd

For many 2009 was a year of revised expectations, with few opportunities for career advancement. However, with signs of recovery in the market, there is no better time to revitalise your personal career objectives.

What do you want for your career in 2010?

• Health Check – stay at the top of your game
• Partnership – drive forward your partnership agenda

• Qualifying 2010 – competition is fierce, are you ready?

• Career Change – internal move, new job, leaving law? Take charge!

• Impact – change how you are viewed at work for the better

• Value – know your worth …and ask for it!

Whatever your objectives, now is the time to get clear on what you want and take steps to ensure that you are ahead of the field as the curtains raise on 2010.

**HALF PRICE OFFER FOR JAN/FEB 2010 **

To help you get under way Legal Careers Direct is offering its “Kick Start” coaching session to individuals during January and February 2010 at the half price rate of £150.

The “Kick Start” session is designed to be a stand alone session with the primary intention of equipping you with clear career goals and an action plan of steps to success.*

To “Kick Start” your career for 2010 session contact Bridget Lavin on 07817 305 882 or bridget@legalcareersdirect.com

Legal Careers Direct Ltd is registered in England and Wales. Registered no. 7030067
Registered Office Turnberry House, 1404-1410, Whetstone, London, N20 9BH
Copyright © 2010 Legal Careers Direct

Part II: Vacation Placements

Some law students have a clear picture of how they see their legal career unfolding, others while passionate about the law aren’t sure what it is that they want to do and can fall o the trap of doing nothing.

Doing nothing only delays the decisions that you will need to make if you are truly committed to pursuing a career in law.

The longer you delay the harder it becomes ... whatever you do, do something.

Vacation placements are an invaluable way of experiencing first hand different legal environments. With each experience you will get new information that will help you build a picture of the type of legal environment that you would like to train in.


Step 1: Organisations
Making random applications will in some cases yield success but I recommend a more targeted approach, using your basic skills/interests as a starting point.
(Go back to the questions posed in Part I if you get stuck)

Action:
Identify at least three generic types of organisation that interest you or match your basic requirements.

Ideas (non-exhuastive):
City and International law firms
Barristers Chambers - London and the regions
High street law firms;
National and large regional law firms;
In-house organisations;
Court Services and Local Authority;
Government Legal Services

Step 2: Specialisations
While the historic view of legal practice was to have one solicitor who would take care of all of your legal affairs, for many years now the emphasis has been more on specialisation and indeed sub-specialisation, especially in the larger firms.

As such it is worth considering what areas of law interest you to ensure that any firm that you approach can offer you experience in those areas, given your vacation placement could be a precursor to applying for a training contract.

Action:
Identify at least eight areas of law that interest you and why

Ideas (non-exhaustive):
Corporate –M&A; Corporate Finance; Private equity; Venture Capital; Tax
Banking/Finance – Acquisition/Leveraged Finance; Financial Services; Asset Finance; Energy/Project Finance; Structured Finance
Employment – Employment; Pensions; Employee Benefits/Share Schemes
Real Estate – Commercial Property; Residential Property; Environmental; Planning; Construction; PFI/PPP
Commercial: IT; IP; E-Commerce; Media; Commercial
Litigation: Commercial Litigation; Civil Litigation; Criminal Litigation
Private Client: Trusts; Wills & Probate; Personal tax; Family/Matrimonial
Healthcare: Personal injury; Clinical negligence
Insurance: Reinsurance/Insurance

This is not an exhaustive list and many of the above examples have sub-specialisations.
It is also important to consider whether you prefer working for businesses or individuals – different firms will have a different focus.


Step 3: Approaches

Action:
From your findings from steps one and two identify:
i) at least 20 legal organisations that match your requirements and
ii) 5 legal organisations that do not match your interests as closely.

Aim to get experience at a range of law firm/legal organisation, not just those that you think sound good - the practical reality may not fit your mental picture and also your interests may change in time.

By taking a broad approach at this stage you give yourself the opportunity to make an informed choice at a later stage.

NB Take a focused approach to making applications, you have a finite period of time to do vacation work and so applying to 30 firms for placements for the same four week period may leave you having to turn firms down – which may ultimately count against you in future application processes.

Start early and make a limited number of approaches at any one time and for each rejection send out a new application and if you haven’t had any news after the allotted period, follow up with the firm in question.


Word of caution:
Limit your follow up to for example one e-mail and phone call, any more and this could give the wrong impression.

The partners or HR team are busy and generally have systems in place for responding to applications.

If you continue to hear nothing, you can safely assume your application has been unsuccessful and continue to make additional approaches.

Good Luck!
Part III will move on to actually applying for training contracts and interview pointers.

Legal Careers Direct Ltd provides career coaching services to lawyers at all stages of their careers. Stay in touch by signing up to this blog; follow us on Twitter (LegalCareersUK) and you can register on our website to receive our quarterly newsletter (http://www.legalcareersdirect.com/).

The Hunt for a Training Contract: Part I

In the coming months I will be posting a series of blog items aimed at giving you some pointers to kick start your search to find and secure a training contract.

Part I: Getting in Early

Year on year law continues to prove the most popular undergraduate course and with a static number of training contracts the competition for jobs will only increase.

I believe that applicants with a clear focus on what they want from their first legal job, and who can demonstrate a clear commitment to achieving their aspirations, will find themselves streets ahead of the competition.

Getting started

Over the last ten years or so I have worked with many junior lawyers and I have found that the most successful of these started early, getting clear on what they wanted from their careers and gaining practical legal experience.

In my view, what set these individuals apart was a confidence born of an understanding of the kind of firm and areas of law that interested them and to which they were suited.

It is never too late to get started, but the later you leave it may result in a less attractive range of choices available to you.

So what can you do?

Attending milk round fairs is a great way to meet some of the law firms/organisations and begin to build a picture of who you might like to work for. In addition there are also a host of online resources that you can tap into as you research firms to approach.

As part of your investiagtion process I strongly recommend that you offer up some of your holidays to gain vacation experience at different law firms/organisations (I will discuss this in more detail in Part II of this series).

Before you start making approaches, take some time to understand your reasons for choosing a career in law. This will help you get grounded in what is really important to you and will have also have a positive impact on your application/CV writing process and subsequent interviews.

To help you get started take a look at the questions below:

1. Why law – think of your top five reasons for pursuing a career in law.

2. What are three legal specialisations that interest you and why?

3. Name ten qualities that you think are important in becoming a successful solicitor/barrister.

4. What are five of your personal qualities that make a career in law a good profession for you?

5. What kind of work environment do you think you would be best suited to? If you aren't not sure ask the people who know you best what they think.

6. What does a successful career look like for you?

This isn’t a race so take your time.
This is your opportunity to get to the heart of what you want for you.

Once you have answered these questions look back over them - what it is that is important about each answer?

Having completed this exercise - what do you know now that you didn’t know before and how will this impact on the applications that you make?

What next?
In Part II will cover in more detail the value of vacation placements and include more questions designed to give you a deeper understanding of your motivations and interests.

Legal Careers Direct provides career coaching services to lawyers at all stages of their careers. Stay in touch by signing up to this blog; follow us on Twitter (LegalCareersUK) and you can register on our website to receive our quarterly newsletter (http://www.legalcareersdirect.com/).

What do you want to read about?

I am committed to making this blog as informative and relevant as I can and to this end I am curious to know WHAT TOPICS YOU WOULD LIKE to see being addressed here.

Some questions to get you going:

* Are there circumstances at work where you find yourself getting bogged down?
* Time recording - a bit like marmite you either love it or hate it, but does the thought of completing your time sheets fill you with dread?
* You feel ready to take on greater responsibility but how do you get that through to your boss?
* Do you know what your strengths are?
* Do you know what areas you could do with some support?
* You love your work but don't feel stretched or challenged enough?
* Do you want to asking for a raise in a tricky market?
* Not sure where to go next?

I really look forward to hearing your thoughts and ideas and getting some discussions going.

Best wishes

Bridget

Career Coaching - what's it all about?

Lawyers come to coaching because they want to create change in their work lives. Working with a career coach will help you to identify what you want and then support you in achieving your desired result.

Coaching is all about what you want and the importance of that for you.

Everyone has different passions and motivations, that's what makes life interesting.

Coaching will give you the skills you need to get to the bottom of what it is that drives and inspires you. In turn this clarity will help you broaden out your options (and sometimes your horizons) and place you in a strong position to make the right choice(/s) for you, at this stage in your career.

From here you will find that you naturally move into action and we will set down a plan to get you from where you are now to where you want to be in the future and then work together to make it come to fruition.

Taking control of your career direction can be bold and exciting and fun and scary but it will, I believe, lead you to a truly fulfilling career that you will look back on with satisfaction.

So, in 20 years time at your retirement party what would you want people to say about you?

Can you achieve that in your current career progression?

What more will you do?

Introducing Bridget Lavin and Legal Careers Direct

Welcome to the Legal Careers Direct Blog.

My name is Bridget Lavin and Legal Careers Direct is my business, which specialises in providing coaching on career issues for lawyers.

I work with lawyers at all levels of training and qualification to include:

• Law students looking for their first job out of law school or bar school
• Trainees approaching qualification
• Mid to senior level lawyers considering their next step
• Lawyers considering a move in-house
• Barristers considering a move into a law firm
• Associates seeking partnership
• Lawyers new to management
• Partners juggling management responsibilities in addition to their normal caseload
• Lawyers seeking to improve their work life balance
• Retirement planning for senior partners.
• Lawyers seeking to change jobs or leave the law all together.

Throughout my career I have been involved with lawyers, as a student I studied law at Nottingham Polytechnic and York College of Law and went on to train to become a solicitor at a regarded Nottinghamshire law firm.

On qualification, having realised that law in practice was not for me I moved to London and for over 10 years pursued my career in recruitment, successfully placing lawyers primarily into law firms throughout the City and South of England.

In 2005 I trained as a professional coach with a leading provider of coach training, the Coaches Training Institute and set about building my career coaching practice, initially in conjunction with my work as a recruiter and latterly under the banner of Legal Careers Direct.

I believe that my legal and recruitment background together with my professional coach training give me an invaluable insight both into the industry and most importantly ways to support you in uncovering what a truly rewarding and fulfilling work life looks like for you and then having you take action to achieve your career and life objectives.

My wish is for lawyers at all levels of experience to lead happy and fulfilled lives throughout the duration of their careers and I believe that together we can achieve this.

To find out more, please visit the Legal Careers Direct website via the link on this blog.

Thank you for reading and I look forward to seeing you again soon.

Bridget