Career Guidance

01/03/2024 by James Pritchard

Looking for promotion to the role of Senior Associate? Here’s what you need to think about.

If you’re a mid-level Associate who’s looking to secure a promotion to Senior Associate, you’ll need to demonstrate excellent legal skills, a strong work ethic, leadership qualities, and a strategic approach to career development. Here are some other tips to help you achieve your goal:

1. Exemplary Legal Skills:

Continuously hone your legal skills and knowledge within your practice area. Demonstrate expertise in handling complex legal matters, drafting documents, providing strategic advice to clients, and achieving successful outcomes for cases or transactions.

2. Consistent Performance:

3. Take on Responsibility:

Volunteer for challenging assignments, take ownership of projects, and demonstrate your ability to handle increased responsibility. Show initiative by seeking out opportunities to lead teams, mentor junior colleagues, or manage client relationships.

4. Business Development:

Develop and nurture relationships with clients, referral sources, and industry contacts. Actively participate in networking events, industry conferences, and client meetings to expand your professional network and contribute to the firm’s business development efforts.

5. Leadership and Teamwork:

Exhibit leadership qualities by collaborating effectively with colleagues, contributing positively to team dynamics, and fostering a supportive work environment. Lead by example and inspire others through your professionalism, integrity, and commitment to excellence.

6. Seek Feedback and Mentorship:

Solicit feedback from supervisors, peers, and clients to identify areas for improvement and development. Proactively seek mentorship from senior colleagues or Partners who can provide guidance, advice, and support as you progress in your career.

7. Continuing Education and Training:

Stay updated on legal developments, industry trends, and best practices within your practice area through ongoing professional development opportunities, such as seminars and workshops.

8. Demonstrate Firm Commitment:

Show your commitment to the firm’s values, culture, and long-term goals. Actively participate in firm initiatives, committees, and pro bono activities to demonstrate your dedication to the firm’s success and contribution to its broader community.

9. Prepare for the Promotion Process:

Understand your firm’s promotion criteria and timeline for advancement to the role of Senior Associate. Document your achievements, contributions, and professional growth to support your case for promotion during performance evaluations or promotion reviews.

10. Communicate Your Interest:

This sounds so basic, but don’t forget to actually express your interest in promotion to your supervisors or Partners. Be prepared to openly discuss your career goals, development objectives, and aspirations for leadership within the firm.

By demonstrating your value to the firm through your skills, performance, and leadership potential, you will substantially increase your chances of securing a promotion.

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04/12/2023 by James Pritchard

10 tips for answering competency-based questions during interviews

Competency-based questions are commonly used in interviews to assess a candidate’s specific skills, behaviours, and experiences relevant to the job. These questions often begin with phrases such as “Give an example of a time when…” or “Tell me about a situation where you…”

Here’s a guide on how to answer competency-based questions effectively:

1. Understand the Competencies:

Review the job description and identify the key competencies the interviewers are looking for. Common competencies include, teamwork, problem-solving, time management, communication and adaptability.

2. Do your Preparation:

When candidates ask me what they can do to prepare for an interview I advise them that the most important thing they can do is revise their own work history.

Once you’ve identified the core competencies that you maybe questioned on, you should go through your CV and identify the pieces of worker projects that highlight each competency.

3. Take Notes in with you

Lest you forget which piece of work to mention when answering competency-based questions, write the examples down and take the notes in with you. This is an interview, not an exam, and it’s not cheating to take notes in with you. You just look like you’ve done your prep!

You don’t want to walk out of the interview thinking, ‘I can’t believe I didn’t mention that piece of work!’

4. Use the STAR Method:

Structure your responses using the STAR method: Situation, Task, Action, Result.

Situation: Provide context for the situation or problem.
Task: Describe your role and responsibilities in that situation.
Action: Explain the specific actions you took to address the situation.
Result: Conclude with the positive outcome of your actions and what you learned

5. Be Specific:

If there’s one piece of advice I always give to candidates attending interviews, it’s this… GIVE SPECIFIC EXAMPLES.

Your job during the interview process is to get the interviewers to picture you doing the job, and you do this by giving specific examples which include details about the context, people involved, and the challenges you faced.

If you can get the interviewers to picture you doing the job, you’re halfway there!

6. Highlight your Contribution:

We don’t want you to appear arrogant, but you musn’t be a shrinking violet either, so don’t be afraid to emphasize your individual contribution to the team or task.

7. Practice:

Rehearse your responses to common competency-based questions before the interview. You could also ask a friend or mentor to conduct a mock interview and provide feedback.

8. Be Honest:

Be truthful about your experiences. Interviewers can often tell when candidates are exaggerating or providing generic answers. If you’ve faced a really challenging situation, discuss what you learned from it and how the experience helped you grow as a professional.

9. Stay Concise:

While we want you to give good specific examples, we also want you to keep your responses focused and concise, so try your best to maintain a balance between providing enough information and not rambling.

10. Show Continuous Improvement:

If the situation allows, discuss how you have applied lessons from past experiences to improve your skills or approach in subsequent situations.

By following these tips and practicing your responses, you’ll be better prepared to articulate your skills and experiences in a way that resonates with the competencies sought by the hirer.

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16/03/2021 by James Pritchard

5 tips for nailing your virtual interview

Your ability to demonstrate that you have the skills and experience to succeed in a new role is the single most important aspect of performing well at interview, and it shouldn’t be affected by whether you attend the interview face-to-face or virtually.

But as we all know, succeeding at interview is about much more than just skills and experience. Building rapport with your interviewers is crucial, as is demonstrating that you have the right soft skills.

It would be a big mistake not to consider how the virtual environment affects these aspects of the interview process.

At NQ Solicitors we’ve been prepping candidates for virtual interviews for the last year and anybody that attends an interview through NQS can expect to hear the following:

1. Arrive Early

For traditional, face-to-face interviews I would advise that you aim to arrive 15 minutes early – just in case you encounter any delays in getting there. Although I wouldn’t want you to put the interviewers under any pressure by actually reporting to reception until five minutes prior to the interview slot (at the earliest).

The problem with the virtual interview is that it can lull you into a false sense of security in this regard. I know you only have to click on a link to be ‘in the room’ but you can still experience delays, so I still advise that you plan to arrive early.

Depending on what platform you’re using, you may or may not be able to check that the meeting link is working in advance. If you can, great! If you can’t, then why wait until the exact start time before seeing if it does?

I would strongly advise you to click on the link five minutes early. That way, if you do experience any technical issues (and they do happen) you’ll have a few minutes to try again, restart your PC/laptop or contact the interviewers.

Technical issues DO occur, and while interviewers are generally sympathetic when delaying the start of the meeting, it will put you on the back foot and your heart rate will be much higher than it needs to be during the crucial first few minutes.

2. Consider your backdrop

It’s a good job that most celebrities had nothing to do during the early stages of lockdown, as it’s clear they spent an inordinate amount of time rearranging their studies, polishing their awards and going through their bookshelves with a fine toothcomb.

While you certainly don’t need to aspire to perfection, it is worth spending a few minutes considering your backdrop and getting it right. It doesn’t need to be a plain wall, but it shouldn’t look cluttered or untidy, and you don’t want anything else to be taking the attention away from you.

During the interview, you’re going to be selling yourself as an organised and capable individual. Your backdrop should be on message!

3. Are you sitting comfortably?

This shouldn’t be an issue for those of you living by yourselves, but if you share your home with a few rowdy flatmates, you may be concerned about where’s best to conduct the interview.

A short time ago we arranged a virtual interview for a candidate who shared a house with three other young professionals. Concerned about the potential for disruption during the interview, he set himself up in the quietest room in the house, which also happened to be the coldest room. The candidate wore a smart shirt, but no jumper, and after a short while he found himself shivering.

The feedback we received from the client was that, while he came across as a credible candidate, he seemed to be overcome with nerves and they didn’t progress him to the next round.

While we definitely don’t want you to be lounging on a sofa, we’d advise that you’re comfortable in your surroundings and have taken a little time to consider heat, light and sound.

4. Dress for the occasion

I’d still advise that for most law firms, a suit (including a tie for men), is the right choice if you’re attending an interview in person, however, it’s certainly not needed for a virtual interview. In fact, I’d go as far as saying that it won’t look quite right if you’re wearing a suit jacket in your study, front room, kitchen (delete as appropriate).

Having said that, it’s still an interview and you want to look like you mean business, so I’d strongly advise that a formal shirt is the best way to go, and if you’re not warm enough, I’d rather you wore a smart sweater on than shiver your way through the interview – see tip 3.

By the way, there’s nothing wrong with asking your target firm how the interviewers will be dressed. I’d suggest something like ‘I am planning to wear a smart shirt for the interview but I’m more than happy to wear a tie/jacket if the interviewers are planning on doing so. Can you please advise?’

5. Look at the camera

Building rapport with your interviewers is almost as important as demonstrating that you have the skills and experience to take the job on, but it’s generally harder to accomplish during a virtual interview.

There are so many factors that come into play when looking to build rapport and, in a virtual setting, even more of these factors are out of your control. However, maintaining good eye contact – essential if you want to build rapport – is still very much within your command.

If you take just one piece of advice from this blog, let it be this: look at the camera, not at the monitor!

Candidates often say to me that they like to look at the monitor to gauge the interviewers’ reactions to their answers, but I think they often read too much into these reactions and in a virtual environment, where we might be dealing with slow connections, reading body language and reactions can be wildly inaccurate.

Also, if the interviewers react negatively when you’re answering a technical question, it’s probably best that you don’t see it as you’ll still be dwelling on it while answering the next question.

You don’t need to stare at the camera throughout the interview, but you should spend the vast majority of time (especially when you’re talking) delivering your message directly to the camera.

Maintaining good eye contact with multiple interviewers is actually far easier during a virtual interview. Instead of having to switch eye contact on a regular basis, the camera allows you to maintain eye contact with multiple parties at the same time.

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08/12/2020 by James Pritchard

10 interview secrets every junior solicitor should know when applying for a new role

NQ Solicitors’ Ian Roberts has advised thousands of applicants within the legal sector over the years and is in no doubt what factors make the difference between success and failure. In this blog, we set out Ian’s top 10 interview secrets for solicitors moving firms upon qualification.

You’re about to qualify as a solicitor after years of hard slog but all that effort could be in vain unless you can secure the right role at the right firm. The good news is you’ve got an interview at a firm you’d love to work for. Here are 10 tips that will help you dazzle your interviewers and get that all important offer.

1. First impressions count

According to various studies, you have c. 17 seconds to make a good first impression, so don’t waste them. The following are basics but shouldn’t be overlooked. Start with a good firm handshake, (but don’t do a Donald Trump). Make steady eye contact (but don’t stare), smile and say “pleased to meet you” in a confident and sincere tone and you’re off and running. The goal is to make a connection and start building a rapport with your interviewer(s).

2. Commit yourself

As Wayne Gretzky said: “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” Or, if you’d rather not take your inspiration from an ice hockey player, think of it this way. If you’re not totally committed to getting an offer, you may as well not show up for the interview. Firms want people who they can see are excited to work for them. If you’re dialing it in, they’ll see through you.

3. “So, why do you want to work here?”

This question is asked at almost every interview and the answer is so important, yet amazingly, this is the question that catches candidates out more than any other. Do your homework on the firm. Answer the question by reference to what you have learned and give specific examples. What it is about the work the firm does, its culture, its reputation and its story that appeal to you. Show why you would be a good fit and why you’re precisely what they’re looking for.

4. “Have you applied to stay with your current firm post qualification?”

The interviewers know how the NQ system works. They are more than likely to ask questions like the above and others along the same lines. “Where you are in the process?” “How many and what seats have you applied for?” “What would you do if they offered you a role?”

These can be tricky to answer. You may be waiting to hear from your training firm and would prefer to stay there if they make you an offer. If so, you won’t want to make it evident to the interviewer that they are a back up.

Alternatively, you may be pretty sure that your training firm doesn’t want to keep you on or may have decided that your future lies elsewhere. But you won’t want to say this if you feel it will shed you in a bad light.

Rule number one, don’t lie. First of all, it’s inappropriate for a solicitor and secondly, there’s a good chance you’ll get caught out. Remember, the legal world is a small one.

What you can say is that you’re aware that it’s a highly competitive process at your training firm and you would be foolish not to see what other opportunities are out there.

You may also give candid reasons why the firm you are interviewing with appeals to you in ways that your training firm doesn’t (without slagging them off). This may perhaps be because of its size, the work it does, its work/life balance, etc. Be subtle and frame all your answers positively.

5. Your CV got you here, but it won’t get you the job

Interviewers are interested in the person behind the CV, not the CV itself. The interview is about you as a person and, to a certain extent your technical knowledge, not your qualifications. What matters now is how you express yourself, how well you will fit in at the firm, what you’ve learned during your training contract and what your ambitions are.

6. Be prepared to talk about anything on your CV

We mean anything. If you say you like the theatre, then be prepared to tell your interviewers what the last three plays you saw were and when you saw them. Or, if you say you speak basic German, be prepared to answer “Warum möchtest du hier arbeiten?”. I’ve known candidates get grilled for 20 minutes or more on seemingly throwaway bits of information on their CVs leaving them wishing they hadn’t put them on there in the first place. It’s your CV, you have to own all of it.

7. Show you are at the right end of the NQ spectrum

We all know that some trainees ‘get it’ from day one. They understand how to run a file, deal with clients, get their work done without drama and are in tune with the firm’s ethos and commercial objectives. They may not be the trainees with the most impressive CVs, but they will make the best lawyers. Your interviewer knows this too and is digging to find out if you are one of these or one of the others. The lame ducks. A good CV but no grasp of what the job is all about. It’s a spectrum and you need to show you are at the right end.

8. Give specific examples of what you have done

Don’t speak in generalities, be specific. Paint a picture, tell a story, put some meat on the bone (pick your own cliché if you like). The interviewer needs to be sitting there imagining you doing the things you’re talking about and picturing you doing the same for their firm. (Remember, while being highly specific is essential, be careful not to give away client confidentiality).

9. Always ask questions

Pick up on points they have mentioned during the interview to show you’ve been listening. Ask questions that demonstrate your interest in the firm, your understanding of the work they do, their culture and the types of clients they have. Check out the LinkedIn profiles of the people interviewing you (beforehand, not on your phone in the interview) and ask about their career path and anything especially interesting or relevant. Ask about future training to show your desire to become a well-rounded lawyer and what your prospects of rising through the firm would be if you do well.

10. Don’t play hard to get

At the risk of sounding like a Facebook meme, “Don’t play hard to get, play hard to forget”. Leave the interviewer in no doubt that you want the job. Be enthusiastic though not gushing. Be keen but don’t grovel. They hold most of the cards and want to employ someone who is genuinely motivated to work for them and do well. Show them you are.

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04/02/2020 by James Pritchard

Should junior lawyers learn to code?

To code or not to code, that is the question? Many lawyers believe learning to code is a waste of time and will do nothing to help them succeed as a lawyer. Others argue that coding is an essential skill in an industry finally embracing technology. Some even predict that before long, all lawyers will be coders. Who’s right?

Let’s start by agreeing that law tech is not a fad. Admittedly, the legal profession is not renowned for being forward thinking, but I think we can safely say the penny has finally dropped. Technology is altering the way lawyers work by simplifying the way documents are produced, speeding up research, transforming due diligence and disclosure exercises, and reducing administration costs. While nothing is certain, it’s a reasonable bet that law tech is going to continue evolving and will do so rapidly.

That’s all well and good some lawyers say, but why does this mean lawyers need to code? Arguments against it range from “Lawyers would be better off learning to use Word and Excel properly” to “Lawyers should learn to work with coders, not become coders” to “Lawyers should spend their time learning specialised legal skills that can help them deliver a better service to clients”.

What is coding?

Before giving the flip side to these arguments, we should take a step back and look at what coding is. In brief, coding is a language used to get a computer to behave the way you want it to. The skills needed for coding share a lot of those required for being a lawyer such as being able to express yourself logically and without ambiguity. The important thing though is that coding is a language.

Lawyers who are expert coders

US lawyer Jason Morris argues in an article in Medium that some lawyers need to be expert coders and that they are needed now. “There are legal services which we clearly need, which cannot be effectively provided by a lawyer who cannot read and write, at an expert level, the language in which the relevant rules have been expressed,” he says. “We cannot get by in a world that operates in one language and lawyers who only speak another.”

What about the rest?

What about the other lawyers who are not required as expert coders? What do they need to know?

Slaughter & May’s Knowledge & Innovation Manager Emma Watson believes “lawyers may not need to be coders, but they will need to be digitally literate”.

“By having an understanding of the link between computers/coding and the legal sector,” she says, “lawyers will be able to make the most of advances in legal tech, but more importantly they will be able to understand the art of the possible. Lawyers with a greater digital literacy will be better placed to advise their clients on the impact of disruptive tech.”

It’s the crossover between soft skills (human and legal) and technology that’s important. Steve Jobs was, as usual, ahead of his time when he said tech alone is not enough: “It’s technology married with liberal arts, married with the humanities, that yields us the results that make our heart sing.” I doubt law, even combined with tech, will ever make anyone’s heart sing, but you get the point.

Lessons from Deep Blue

Former world chess champion Garry Kasparov explains this concept brilliantly in his book about Deep Blue, the first computer chess programme to beat a world champion (Kasparov himself). Kasparov subsequently started a new form of chess involving humans and computers. What he found was that a human and a computer would always beat a computer on its own.

More interestingly, he found that a computer plus a mediocre chess player with a good understanding of how to make the most of the computer’s capabilities would beat a much better chess player who was not as adept at using the computer’s capabilities.

The analogy with lawyers is obvious.

Many of the larger law firms have bought into this and several are offering training contracts and graduate schemes with a focus on technology. Among these are Clifford Chance, which has launched a training contract specifically focus on law tech called Ignite. Ignite that will take on five trainees in autumn 2021.

Another is Addleshaw Goddard, which offers a seat to trainees in the firm’s in-house innovation and legal technology team as part of their training contract rotation.

Addleshaw Goddard’s Kerry Westland, head of innovation and legal technology, expresses what no doubt a lot of junior lawyers think when she says: “People who are growing up with tech are future clients. And we, as lawyers, need to train our new joiners to understand that.”

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07/01/2020 by James Pritchard

10 pieces of career advice every ambitious NQ should follow

How often do you hear successful people say they wish they’d known at the start of their career what they know now? How they would love to be able to sit down with their younger self and teach them what they learned over the years. If only they could perform that time-travel trick, how much smoother their career path would have been.

We speak every day to careers advisers and partners at the top of the legal profession. Here are 10 of the best tips they have for newly qualifieds and junior lawyers at the start of their career:

1. Go to your boss with a solution, not a problem

At its most basic level, a lawyer’s job is to solve their clients’ problems. The higher you rise in the profession, the tougher the problems become. Most partners have additional, non-client problems to deal with too, usually in relation to the running of the firm. The last thing a partner wants to do is solve your problems as well as their own. They want to see that you have the ability, tenacity and initiative to work things out for yourself. At the very least, they expect you to attempt to find the solution to the issue at hand.

2. Keep on learning

After years of school, university and law college, it is easy to lapse into the mindset that your days of studying are behind you. This would be a mistake. The best lawyers are the ones who never stop learning, whether from their own experience, their colleagues or anyone else they come into contact with. This requires an enquiring mind and a dose of humility. As the saying goes: “True humility is staying teachable, regardless of how much you already know.”

3. Admit your mistakes and learn from them

Every lawyer has had that heart-stopping moment when they realise they’ve made a terrible error. It may be more than a little tempting to pretend it hasn’t happened and hope it will go away, but whatever you do, resist. It’s how you deal with life’s challenges that reveals your true character. Own up, face the music and take responsibility. And whatever you do, learn your lesson and don’t make the same mistake again.

4. Understand your strengths and weaknesses

No one is good at everything, and you are no different. The chances are that you are excellent at some things, average at a few and less competent at others. The best organisations employ people with complementary skill sets. Start by recognising and cultivating your particular talents as this is where you can shine. You can always get help from other people on things you are weak at, so be honest with yourself about what these are.

5. Learn to delegate

Delegation is one of the hardest skills for a junior lawyer to master. People resist delegating for several reasons. One is the embarrassment that you are asking someone else, possibly someone older than you, to do something for you. You may fear you are going to be perceived as too high and mighty for the task at hand.

Or, you may think it is easier to do the job yourself as you know it will get done properly and more quickly than if you have to explain it to someone else and wait for them to do it.

The truth is that as you rise higher in the profession, your time becomes more valuable. You should aim to spend it doing work that makes the most of your skills and experience and delegating the rest.

6. Professional reputation

“It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it. If you think about that, you’ll do things differently.” – Warren Buffet. That says it all.

7. Find a mentor… and be a mentor

If your firm offers a structured mentoring programme, by all means, use it. But many mentoring relationships are informal and evolve naturally. Find someone you admire and whose advice you value, and ask them if they would be willing to share their knowledge and experience to help your career. Clarify what you expect from the mentoring and make sure you keep them updated about your progress, especially if they give you specific advice.

Also, be willing to mentor someone more junior than you. Not only will it improve your leadership skills, you are likely to be energised by their energy and enthusiasm.

8. Stay in the loop, but avoid the gossip

If you want to be trusted and respected at all levels of the firm, avoid being a gossip. That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have your ear to the ground so that you know what is going on around you. But gossiping about other people will almost inevitably backfire on you, however much you think you can trust the people you are sharing it with.

9. Cultivate contacts outside work

As you rise through the firm, you will be expected to contribute much more than chargeable hours. The ability to bring in clients will set you apart from your peers, so get out there and network and start building your contacts list now.

10. Strive for work/life balance

There’s a lot of talk about how firms need to ensure their staff have the right work/life balance, but this responsibility starts with you. Get enough exercise, go for a walk and some fresh air during the working day, keep up your hobbies and make sure you take all your holidays. Work hard, but set your own boundaries and stick to them.

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