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Career Coaching for Lawyers

Written by: Rosie Evans and Personal Career Management
Published on: 7 Dec 2015

Career Coaching for Lawyers

After investing more than four years of studying and up to £50,000 in your legal qualifications, it is important to manage your legal career in order to reach your full career potential.

With the number of people qualifying in Law increasing, there is a lot of competition. It is more important than ever that legal professionals are standing out above the rest in their Lawyer job search – and that’s where career coaching comes in.

Career coaching is about taking control of your legal career in order to meet both your professional and personal objectives. It can help formulate a career strategy, ensuring you have clarity in your ambitions – for example, helping you to determine which area of Law you want to move into, as well as knowing the most effective ways of getting there.

What is career coaching?

If you are looking for legal career development or an internal promotion, career coaching will help you gain confidence, and identify your options. A career coach can help you to look at your experience objectively and show you how you can capitalise on your strengths, maximise on your opportunities within the firm, and position yourself for future job opportunities.

If you are looking for a career change, career coaches have a breadth of experience and can help you to explore your transferable skills. This can be useful if you are looking to move into a new specialism, a new role, or even if you are looking to move out of Law altogether. A career coach will help you to look at how to choose a legal practice area, determine your career ambitions and identify your options, helping you to market yourself effectively in your applications.

No matter what you are looking for, a career coach can help you conduct a targeted and focused job search which can include advice on; CV writing, job application forms and interview preparation. They can evaluate your online presence, help you to network and help you best present yourself to give you an edge over other legal candidates.

What are the benefits of career coaching?

A good legal career coach will tailor a programme to your specific needs, but career coaching can help you to:

 • review your career, assessing your key skills and experiences
 • build your career action plan
 • determine your options
 • improve your marketability including; CV, online and at interview
 • Your goal: Demonstrate your multifaceted skills, competencies and capabilities to potential employers while also addressing your personal and professional development needs.
 • enhance your salary negotiation skills
 • manoeuvre within the job market and identify your next roles and opportunities
 • gain career confidence and clarity in your direction and ambitions
 • look objectively at your career so that you can make smart, realistic decisions regarding your next career move
 • turn any career aspirations from wishful thinking into reality

The skills that you will learn through career coaching can be applied all the way through your career, enhancing your job satisfaction and improving your chances of a steep career trajectory from trainee solicitor to equity partner.

What to be aware of

Career coaching is not a miracle solution – it is a two-way process and involves working on a one-to-one basis with a career coach. Your coach isn’t going to apply for jobs for you but they will give you expert advice and help on how you can best to do this.

You will need to find the time to fully invest yourself in your coaching in order to get as much as possible out of the experience. Your coach may give you activities to work through away from the sessions.

If you’re ready to apply then start searching for the latest Lawyer jobs on Totallylegal today.

This article was written in collaboration with Personal Career Management, a career coaching and advice platform that provide high quality career coaching and outplacement support for individual and corporate clients. Their expert career coaches work with individuals from Graduates to Senior Partners, helping them to explore their career options and move into their next role.