In just one year of embarking on an education for legal assistant, like Anderson College’s Law Clerk legal program, you can be launching into a rewarding and exciting career! But beyond the powerful skills you’ll glean during any law clerk program or legal course, there are soft skills that make you a leading-edge candidate for employment and having a balance of both these skillsets is crucial.
6 Skills to Master to Succeed as a Law Clerk
1. Attention to Detail
As a law clerk your ability to be accurate is essential to your success. Spelling and grammatical errors can not only change the context of legal documentation, emails, or any communication piece, but can tarnish your firm’s reputation with a client and jeopardize business relationships.
As you apply for positions, be keenly aware that potential employers are looking for those who can present themselves accurately and in a concise and compelling manner. This shows them what an asset you will be for their team.
2. A Foundation in Communication
An ability to present yourself powerfully, in both written and verbal form, is essential to becoming a successful law clerk. Your listening skills will allow you to catch details when working with clients and know how to build relationships and accurately take action. Your ability to speak persuasively can lead to your taking your law career to the next level. And when presenting legal documents, you need to be able to use technical language in context and convey ideas clearly.
3. Teamwork
As a law clerk you are an integral member of a team of professionals focused on succeeding for those they serve. Your ability to collaborate with colleagues and foster connections with clients, and act in a manner that is professional, personable, and persuasive, will make all the difference. You need to be able to build trust will people on all levels of the legal system, and honing this skill is crucial to your career.
4. Organization
It perhaps goes without saying, that a law clerk’s ability to manage and master all of the above goes hand-in-hand with an ability to stay on top of the details, keep things in order so that all team members can easily access and understand information, and ultimately leads to you being considered a professional to be counted on. Likely this is a skill in your wheelhouse that you barely need to think about. If not, it is one to master. While researching laws, drafting documents and juggling all the pieces of any case that need to be managed, you will need to precisely prioritize and organize myriad details at any one time.
5.Research and Analysis
There will be copious amounts of information that you wade through to prepare and help your team present a winning case. You will be required to read, absorb, and distill technical and subtle details into a format that is manageable and present it in a way that is understandable and compelling. You will need to be familiar with researching using the internet and library materials and resourceful, determined to seek out and find any information that will empower your team and clients.
6. Creative Problem Solving
Often the determining factor for success is a team’s ability to think outside the box, to move outside the norm of possibility and see the creative angle, the detail that opposing council missed. To get noticed and become invaluable to your colleagues, you must have a flair for demonstrating your creative talents and practically applying them to the day-to-day requirements of the job.
___________________________________________________________________________
If you’re passionate about law and are enrolled in, or are considering taking, an online law clerk course or in-class program, these six skills are likely a fundamental part of who you are … you may just need to take them to new levels. We can help.
If you’re still determining if this industry is for you, take the “Anderson College Legal Career Training Quiz”. If you’re ready to embark on that legal career, explore our Law Clerk program or book a virtual appointment with an Admission Advisor today.
Quick Links to Fuel Your Success!
We want to make sure you have what you need to succeed! Check out these reference links:
