Good work on completing Week 2 of this course!

We have looked at the main tasks lawyers do on a day to day basis, and the skills that they need to be able to do these tasks. We have had a peek at what these look like in a real life situation, with examples of common situations a barrister or solicitor would face. Finally we had a look at which of these skills you already have, and had a go at further developing one of them: legal research.

Further steps

Start compiling a skills assessment to help you identify which skills you already have and how you will develop them further.

1. Make a list of the skills we have learnt about this week and any other skills you think would be relevant for a career in law.

2. Identify specific examples of where you have already used them.

3. Now rate your level of experience in those skills

4. For those skills that you feel you need to develop further, put together an action plan for how you will do so. For instance for public speaking skills, you could set yourself a task to deliver a short presentation to a group of fellow students or work colleagues to build up your confidence in speaking to groups of people.

5. Keep this skills assessment up-to-date and add skills/examples/actions plans as you go along.

Next week

In Week 3 of this course we will look at what the legal sector is really like, focusing on the diversity of the workforce and the support available to people working in law.