How Young Lawyers Can Build New Business Skills at an Early Age… and Why It Matters

By Anna Beaumont, CEO of gunnercooke

Starting at your first law firm is an exciting yet daunting time for a young lawyer. It is a time of rapid transition from academic to working life, and involves a steep learning curve.

After years of hard work making your way into the legal sector, the challenge is then to put into practise what you have learnt and understand the working dynamics of a law firm, including what skills you need for your career to progress.

Standing out as a young lawyer is difficult. Law is a competitive industry and all new starters are working hard. The traditional legal career path, which saw young lawyers progress by simply getting on with the work they’re given, is out of date.

Nowadays, young lawyers need to go above and beyond to show proactive and independent thinking – and a sure-fire way of doing this is to win your law firm new clients.

It’s not enough to be intelligent and proficient at law; in many firms you’ll only progress if you have the ability to bring in new business. Thankfully, the increasingly-connected world that we live in means that networking and building connections is easier than ever.

Networking is a skill that I was fortunate enough to start to develop during my early years as a young lawyer and it has definitely paved the way for some of the success that I have achieved to date in my career.  I was lucky to be at a very supportive firm when I was starting out – the partners encouraged me and worked with me to build strong connections.

These early experiences informed the way in which gunnercooke nurtures employees at gunnerbloom, the law firm gunnercooke set up for entrepreneurial young lawyers. We encourage our young lawyers to network from the moment they join and to spend time on secondments to understand how businesses are run and to gain vital commercial acumen.

Building strong connections and a solid client base is fundamental to a successful career in law, yet it’s often overlooked when law students are undertaking their undergraduate training. I’d love to see colleges and universities teach business development skills as part of a law degree; the softer skills can make or break your career, yet I never received a single lecture on them.

To any young professional looking to make a mark at their law firms, here are my top 5 tips for building your network:

• Meet as many people as possible. Grab every opportunity you can to meet new people, inside and outside of work. You may just as easily meet a potential client on the tennis court as at legal networking drinks.
• Be proactive about gaining face-to-face time with clients. Ask to accompany partners to networking events or client meetings, without waiting to be invited. Not only is this great on the job experience, but it shows proactivity and a willingness to learn. It’s not only a good way to build close working relationships with your peers, but it helps build networking skills and teaches you how to interact with clients.
• Ask questions. Get to know potential clients by finding out what makes them tick – find out how they enjoy spending their time, and what drives them. Build solid friendships in the early days and from that the work will flow, clients want to work with people they like.
• Say yes to big opportunities. Even if you can’t handle all the work yourself. Gain the trust and confidence of your client and then talk your colleagues about ensuring you have the necessary support and resource around you.
• Look out for networking events. There are lots of forums and networks for young lawyers all over the UK – they’re a great way to start building up relationships with peers.

Anna is CEO and a Corporate Partner at gunnercooke LLP, one of the UK’s fastest growing challenger law firms set up in 2010 with offices in London and Manchester. Anna was gunnercooke’s first ever partner appointment, joining the firm in 2011 and she took over the role of CEO in September 2015. She is also known for her work as a commercial and client focused corporate lawyer, advising on both M&A and private equity transactions, in addition to gaining extensive in-house experience at £1.2 billion turnover Enterprise plc (now Amey), where she advised on the groups acquisitions and disposals for a number of years.

Anna believes in providing brilliant client service, acting as a trusted adviser, she is passionate about innovation and creating a giving and philanthropic culture.