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In this article, I'll be examining some of the things future lawyers should look out for. Keeping up with these elements will up your legal game no matter what stage you're at and will, no doubt, get you wherever you want to go. 

Commercial awareness

Commercial awareness may well be the legal field's favourite buzzwords. You've probably seen this phrase before – on application forms for training contracts and vacation schemes, firm's websites, at law fairs and of course on LawCareers.Net. Despite its prevalence, it may still be worth breaking this phrase down into its constituent parts, so as to better understand how it should be tackled.

As someone with virtually no background in business (yet), here's how I understand it:

• 'Commercial' refers to elements concerned with or engaged in commerce, making or intended to make a profit. Commerce itself is simply the activity of buying and selling, especially on a large scale.
• Awareness refers to knowledge of a situation or concern about and well-informed interest in a particular area.

When you break it down like this, commercial awareness doesn't sound too daunting. As a future solicitor, your role is not only to understand how commerce operates (to have, in other words, an 'awareness' of it) but also to keep yourself informed on the many and frequent developments in the business sector.

So, what does this look like in practice?

Maintaining commercial awareness means first ensuring that you understand that the bare bones of any law firm are the same. By this I mean that law firms are, in essence, businesses subject to the financial, social, and political changes around us. The most important thing to do to improve this awareness, therefore, is to keep a constant eye out for changes and challenges in both the realm of business and the wider world.

Examples of things to look out for include economic challenges, environmental concerns and sustainability, consumer priorities and demands, political and social trends, and updates on the front of equality, diversity and inclusion (EDI) on both a commercial and social level. In particular, it's worth looking at contemporarily relevant issues - such as the impact of the pandemic on the working world, or the ambiguous future of AI.

For a full tutorial on how to break down real-world commercial issues, check out our Wrestle with PESTLE series and out Commercial Connect podcast.

As for the how, though it may seem overwhelming, the practice of maintaining commercial awareness is far simpler than it sounds. It could be as simple as listening to a podcast on the way to school or work or reading a couple of news articles every morning while commuting. To simplify your search - and take advantage of technology – you can turn on Google alerts, or else sign up to the newsletters of specific firms you'd like to apply to. Signing up to the newsletters of law-specific websites, like LawCareers.Net, is another great way of getting news specific to the legal profession. Though if you've read this far, you probably already know that.

The personal and the collective

Now that you're all caught up on the importance of commercial, social and economic trends, it's time for some introspection. A crucial part of a lawyer's career – or any individual's career – is a holistic understanding of the long-term. It's worth asking yourself these questions:

• What are you working towards?
• What direction do you see your future going in?
• What kind of firms would you want to work for, and what areas of law interest you?

Having a wider awareness of your broader life intentions (a massive ask, I know) can also help spur you along your journey, especially during those inevitable slumps. You don't have to know exactly what you want out of your life (honestly, whether you're 20 or 65, who does?) but having some idea of what change you'd like to enact can help shape both the career-related and personal decisions you make in your life from now.

Once you've decoded that, here's where the collective kicks in. When you've decided what you want, you can work with others to make it come alive. Being an active member of a community – whether online, in-person, or both is the source of the kind of collective strength that shapes entire movements and cultures and, ultimately, ends up making history. Get involved in the things that matter to you and do them with people who matter to you. So, join those societies, go to that law fair, send that LinkedIn invite go out and talk to people, meet with friends of friends, expand and grow your connections. It's helpful on a professional level, sure, but also, more importantly, on a personal level.

To summarise, aspiring solicitors should keep two main things on their mind: the world outside of themselves (commercial, economic, and legal updates - among others) and the world within themselves (personal goals and community challenges). Like anything else, of course, it's all a balancing act. But maintaining an awareness of all of these factors is a sure-fire way of ensuring your professional goals are met and even exceeded, without leaving your personal goals and desires in the dust.