Law Britannia: What Firms Want from Applications

When detailing your work experience and achievements on your CV and application forms you need to think about demonstrating and highlighting key skills to the firm.

Skills are an essential element of any work or study experience you have completed, but it is not enough simply to know about the law. You must also be able to apply that knowledge, for instance by constructing a convincing argument and by analysing the legal issues raised by a problem scenario.

Solicitors take trainees' legal knowledge and intelligence for granted. Firms will expect you to have the necessary additional skills to meet the demands of a solicitor. Each firm will detail what skills they particularly require in their recruitment literature (including brochures and websites).

Before applying for training contracts you should spend as much time as possible researching firms to maximize your chances of a successful application and also to find the best firm for you. Each firm may be looking for different qualities in their trainees but all firms will be looking for applicants who are highly motivated with thorough reasons for pursuing a career in law and more particularly with their firm.

From LawBritannia's research and experience in legal recruitment here are the most common skills required by law firms.

You will find all the information you need to highlight these skills in each of our publications. LawBritannia provides and in depth analysis of each of these skills giving you detailed information about what precisely they mean and the types of ways in which you can demonstrate you have these skills on applications and CVs.

We also include the questions on application forms that look for particular skills as well as words and phrases to help you write effective answers.

Every law firm is first and foremost a business. Every firm needs to compete for clients and prestige in an extremely competitive market. When working with clients you need not only to be able to explain complex legal issues but you also need to do this in the context of their business. A good lawyer understands both the law and their client's business and the need for that to succeed. You should be able to think creatively to find solutions to business problems in order to save your clients money, time and reputation. If you are unsure about the basics of business trust between you and your client will be lost and your firm will fail.

You do not have to have come from a corporate or financial background in order to demonstrate commercial awareness. The firm are looking for awareness of the legal sector, their firm and their mission and aims. Commercial awareness also requires you to understand the need for business to be cost effective and the importance of client relations.

Questions asked on training contract application forms used to assess this include:

Please describe a major challenge you have faced and how you responded
What are your main interests, activities and pastimes? Please describe any related positions of responsibility you have held.
From which work experience position did you gain the most and why?
Please tell us about a time when you worked as part of an effective team. What do you think made the team effective?
Describe a difficult or challenging situation you have been faced with, the steps you took to respond to it and the outcome of your actions
Please outline a problem that you have solved by offering an alternative solution; what steps did you take? How did you implement it?
From your knowledge about current affairs, please tell us about a commercial issue that has interested you and why.

There are three main ways in which you can demonstrate that you have commercial awareness to a firm.

You may be able to prove your commercial awareness by talking about specific examples of when you developed these skills from your work experience. This could be either legal or non legal experience. You do not have to have come from a corporate or financial background in order to demonstrate commercial awareness, although, of course if you have make sure you highlight this on your applications!

Perhaps you have had Human Resources experience, for example, which demonstrates your ability to develop effective relationships with your colleagues and senior management; perhaps you have worked on a project involving a wide range of employees from differing departments in your company and can talk about any successful outcomes that were achieved. You can also refer to any vacation placements or other legal experience that you may have had to demonstrate your knowledge of what a commercial solicitor actually does.

The Vacation Placement Example: Shadowed a solicitor [name if possible] in the [area] department during work on [the deal specifically or nature of the deal if confidentiality is an issue]. Attended internal and external meetings with [clients or business and size of the client if confidentiality is an issue]. Drafted letters to the client and worked with trainees to research [specific legal question].

Students without much work experience often feel at a disadvantage when they are asked to demonstrate commercial awareness but there is much you can use from your interests to demonstrate you have this skill. It is for this reason that application forms always have questions that directly ask about what you do in your spare time. On one hand the firm would like to get to know what you are like as a person but on the other, they are assessing how you manage your time. The way in which you combine other activities with study and work all helps to demonstrate commercial awareness and personal initiative.

It may be that you are involved with a charitable organisation and organise events or make decisions on budget expenditure. At university or law school you may have helped organise an event or been an active participant in a society or closer to home, you may be an active member of your tenants association.

The University Club Example: Responsible for marketing [event]. Controlled and allocated budget of [£]. Implemented highly effective marketing campaign [which included]. Achieved fundraising target of [£] attracting [number] attendees.

Even if you have not had any experience as set out above, regularly reading the financial newspapers and other broadsheets, magazines and websites would allow you to develop a better understanding of the commercial world.

It is much harder to demonstrate an interest on your application although any interest that has developed in to a active participation should be mentioned. As firms will be testing time management and your commitment to a career in law you should as soon as possible make your interest in commerce an activity. You could do this by joining a society at your Law School, even starting a society. You could also try and attend specialised lectures and join relevant law societies as well as enter the many legal competitions offered each year. The best way to demonstrate an interest is to take part in something or as the saying goes 'actions speak louder than words'.

To highlight your commercial awareness here are some positive and active words that you can use to describe your responsibilities and achievements to give your applications that all important commercial edge.

Appraised	Achieved	Assessed	Balanced
Budgeted	Co-ordinated	Exceeded	Evaluated
Increased	Initiated	Invested	Managed
Negotiated	Organised	Oversaw	Promoted
Publicised	Recommended	Reviewed	Secured