If you have just earned your LLB degree, the next step on your journey to becoming an attorney is to become a candidate attorney. While the position of candidate attorney can be difficult with long hours and being at the beck and call of everyone in the law firm, it provides vital experience for you to build your law career.
With articles being so important to achieve your goal of becoming an attorney, we decided to put together this article to give you a helping hand. We will look at what qualities make a good law candidate, some tips to help you secure a candidate attorney position, and how to succeed in your position as a candidate attorney. We hope this will equip you with everything you need to ensure your success.
Qualities of a good law candidate
There are certain qualities that make a person an ideal law candidate, especially as a career in law is not easy. These qualities are as follows:
- Dedication: Becoming an attorney takes a lot of time and hard work, so it is important that you are dedicated. With proper dedication, you will be able to push through long hours and hard work to succeed.
- Communication skills: Communication whether written, listening, or oral, is a vital part of being a legal professional. That is why communication skills are an important quality for a law candidate to have.
- Analytical: Working as a legal professional requires you to look at a situation from multiple angles, to find a solution. That is why it is important for law candidates to be analytical, to improve their problem-solving abilities.
- Creative: While creativity is not usually associated with the legal profession, it is an important quality. To be a good lawyer you have to be a creative problem solver. Being able to think outside the box can be very useful for a law candidate.
These qualities are important for any law candidate to have, as they will be used throughout their legal career. While they aren’t essential, and some of them can be learned over time, they will be helpful to you.
Traits law firms look for in candidate attorneys
Finding a position as a candidate attorney at a law firm can be a daunting task, and unfortunately, there are no guarantees. However, there are certain traits that law firms look for in potential candidate attorneys, aside from your academic ability which is a large factor for law firms. These traits include the following:
- Time management: As a candidate attorney you will be working for multiple members of a legal department at any given time. That is why time management is very important so that you can handle competing deadlines and manage your time effectively. This is also an important skill once you become a lawyer with multiple clients.
- Communication: As mentioned, communication is a vital part of any legal profession. That is why law firms look for candidate attorneys with good communication skills. Primarily as many law firms use their candidate attorneys as a point of contact with their clients.
- Attention to detail: Accuracy is important in any legal career, as meanings in legal documents can drastically change with one wrong word. That is why law firms look for candidate attorneys with good attention to detail, especially as they will often write correspondence, and draft legal documents for the firm.
Demonstrating these traits to a law firm when applying can greatly improve your chances of securing a position as a candidate attorney. It is also important to research the firm’s legal expertise, clients, office locations, and competitors. This will help you understand the firm's business, and demonstrate you have commercial awareness.
Tips to succeed as a candidate attorney
Securing a position at a law firm as a candidate attorney is only the beginning. You will have to work in this position for a minimum of 2 years, under your principal in a very stressful legal environment. This can be difficult, and unfortunately, there is no golden rule to guarantee your success. However, we have put together a few tips to help you succeed and get the most out of your time as a candidate attorney.
Ask questions
As a candidate attorney, your primary purpose is to learn and gain experience, and with the law being an intricate science there is a lot to learn. Ask your boss, mentor, or colleague to explain as much as they are willing about your tasks. Ask them to refer you to case law, to explain legal terminology or anything else that is ambiguous to you.
Asking questions is the quickest way to learn anything. Additionally, this allows you to benefit from the wealth of transferable knowledge and years of experience that your superiors possess. Inquisitiveness is also a defining characteristic of a great lawyer, as they need to question everything to understand issues down to the smallest detail.
Therefore, this serves as the perfect chance to practice, while letting you get the most out of your time as a candidate attorney.
Take initiative
As a candidate attorney, it is important to get the most out of your time. If you ever find yourself with some free time at the law firm it is important to take initiative. Ask one of the attorneys at the firm if you can assist them with anything. Show interest in their work, and yours throughout your time at the firm.
Taking initiative will increase the number of learning opportunities you have while demonstrating your determination to be useful, which can benefit the firm. This can also encourage your colleagues to give you more challenging tasks that will help you grow. Taking initiative may just seem like making more work for yourself, but the benefits are not to be missed.
Find your niche
Your time as a candidate attorney provides the perfect opportunity to find your niche. While law is a diverse profession with a variety of fields of specialisation, it is better to master a few related fields than to be good at everything. That is why it is better to specialise in a field that excites you, and there is no better time to find that field than while you’re a candidate attorney. Specialisation in particular fields can improve your marketability as an attorney. Experts who master a few niche fields of law can build strong reputations and charge more in their field.
Ensure your success come exam time
While the above tips can help you be successful as a candidate attorney and get the most out of your time as one, the final hurdle at this stage is the attorneys’ admission exams. The competency-based exams are not to be underestimated. That is why the Gawie Le Roux institute of law offers quality attorneys’ admission exam courses. These intensive short online courses will give you the theoretical knowledge and understanding you need to pass your exams. You will receive comprehensive notes for exam preparation which can also be used for reference throughout your career. These courses can help you succeed in achieving your dream of becoming an attorney, so sign up today.
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