Academic ability
If you want to be a lawyer, you've got to be reasonably clever in an academic sense. Hopefully, you'll be doing work that genuinely makes you think. You need to have the ability to analyse and process information, draw inferences and make conclusions. It's a job for swotty types. Tell them how clever you are and back it up.How to demonstrate it (simple): The main one is your school and university performance (ie, results) - probably the very first thing an employer looks at. They should be good; don't shy away from highlighting the bits where you looked really brainy. Another tack is the ability to talk coherently and compellingly about current affairs, which means showing that you have background knowledge, can understand context and draw rational conclusions (regardless of whether they are 'right').
How to demonstrate it (off the wall): Have a minute grasp of an esoteric field of knowledge that you have studied and analysed, even if people think you are a bit weird (does not include conspiracy theories or obsession with a celebrity).
Drive and determination
This job involves lots of work, lots of boring bits, lots of pressure and perhaps some out-of-touch senior colleague or client shouting at you at some point. This should all be grist in your mill as you display a superb track record of getting things done.How to demonstrate it (simple): Achievement of the highest order, ideally involving physical discomfort (eg, fell running, open water swimming, tractor pulling or playing the bagpipes). If there is anything you've done in the past that you can't quite believe you managed to do, mention it.
How to demonstrate it (off the wall): Highlight some fantastic eccentricity that counters rational sense, such as creating a scale model of the Shard from needles or photographing every species of bird in the country.
Accuracy and attention to detail
Lawyers do detail. Lawyers do fine tooth comb. Lawyers spot and resolve mistakes. Proof reading comes naturally to them, but they still check again. Show that you have gone to the mat with a morass of material and come out on top.How to demonstrate it (simple): Talk about a massive computer program that you have written featuring thousands of lines of code, any one of which could have stopped it working. Discuss your single-handed organization and administration of an entire football league including fixtures, results, pitch allocation, and player registration and discipline (interestingly this is one of the ways that the detainees at Robben Island prison in South Africa maintained their sense of community and society in the face of the dehumanizing conditions they were placed in). Highlight your voluntary participation in scrutinising a new piece of legislation with your local MP, on which you picked up dozens of anomalies.
How to demonstrate it (off the wall): Years of fastidious train spotting.
Communication skills
There's no point in being clever, driven and attentive if you can't then let others know what you are thinking or suggesting. We all communicate, all the time, so you should not be short of examples. Look for those where your communication skills have made a material difference to a situation.How to demonstrate it (simple): Working in a forward facing role or volunteering for a legal advice centre where you are required to both speak with and write to clients; examples of journalism in which you present complicated ideas simply; debating and mooting.
How to display it (off the wall): Hostage negotiation.
Teamwork and leadership
You have already proved you can form an intellectually rigorous, detailed, difficult argument and communicate it to others. But hang on! You seem to be a total loner who shuns cooperation and collaboration! You had better dispel that impression pretty quickly. In the law, teams are everything - while there is much solo work to be done, even the lone wolves (eg, top advocates) perform within the context of a team in which everyone contributes to the whole. You must be committed to working this way. Again, you've probably done more of this than you think - teamwork is how society works (or at least it should do, but let's not get into an argument about the individual's naked self-interest versus society). Remember we are talking about teamwork AND leadership - show where you have led, but also show where you have bowed to the will of the group.How to demonstrate it (simple): Well, being in teams. Sports teams are the obvious ones, but any communal activity where different tasks contribute towards a whole can be used: orchestras and bands; clubs; Duke of Edinburgh activities; science projects; or communal debating.
How to demonstrate it (off the wall - not advisable): Involvement in complicated criminal activity of the type seen in caper movies (eg, Oceans 11 or The Sting) where an improbably convoluted plan involving split-second timing and cooperation leads to an unsympathetic rube being fleeced.
Commercial awareness
This old favourite keeps on tripping people up, despite it really being an exercise in common sense. Commercial awareness boils down to understanding people's or businesses' desires and motives, and how to achieve them. If you cannot understand your clients' (be they corporations, small businesses or individuals) motivations, goals and constraints, your advice on how they should act is going to be worthless. Furthermore, the place you will practice law will be a business, be it a multinational corporation making megabucks or a struggling high-street firm doing its best in straitened circumstances. Your role within it will have a direct relationship to it achieving its goals as a business. Make sure you think about how the business of law works and keep in mind the words of Mr Micawber.Commercial awareness boils down to understanding people's or businesses' motives for acting the way they do.
How to demonstrate (off the wall): You run a blog on The Apprentice in which you analyse why the contestants are and are not successful (and you talk about their abilities in business rather than their dress sense or physical attributes).
Work experience
The chances are you already have many of the above skills and the tough part is coming up with the evidence for them. Most of the examples above are drawn from the academic and extracurricular field. However, the richest pickings may well come from the work and work experience you have encountered. This implies two things; first, you must get some sort of proper work to put on your applications. If nothing else it demonstrates that you understand what it means to turn up on time each day and put in a proper shift.Presenting yourself as a credible candidate is not at all dissimilar to a piece of academic or legal research.
Presenting yourself as a credible candidate is not at all dissimilar to a piece of academic or legal research. Determine your goal (finding a career in law); take a body of material (you and your life); analyse it against a set of criteria (the skills employers seek); and present your findings clearly and economically (make an application). Simple really!
