Career Advice

Even if you love your job and your career, there are bound to be some weeks when it feels like the “same old, same old” routine, sometimes when you hit a plateau or a dip in the road. That doesn’t mean you need to change jobs or careers – or that you should resign yourself to feeling stagnant.

Here are six paths to renewal:

1. Variety: A routine can become a rut too easily. Even small changes add up to reignite your enthusiasm. Try working from a different place once a week. Hold meetings someplace new. Eat lunch with people in other departments.  Find two routine tasks that you can complete in a different way.

Knowledge is power, and knowledge of the market for your own job is always empowering, even if you’re not thinking of moving in the foreseeable future. That knowledge can help protect you against shocks to your earning power or even your job security.

Joining a professional organisation is the best thing you can do for your career. It enables you to advance your skills, develop yourself professionally, show that you are committed to your career, and be recognised for the value work that you do. ILSPA provides its Members with many benefits, which are sought by those wanting support in their careers and law firms that want their staff to excel in their roles.

Journals

Guess what? Christmas falls on December 25th this year.

This isn’t my line, but Martin Lewis’s – he of “Money Saving Expert” fame. His point in a nutshell is that although we all know on the 1st of January each year exactly when Christmas will fall, we tend to make little or no financial preparation for it, with the result that many of us binge spend and then have to pay for Christmas at least until the following Easter.

What holds true for our finances can also be true of our working and private lives at Christmas. Somehow, as that immovable deadline of 25 December looms ever larger, there just seems to be more to do at work and at home. And worse still, it all must be done by Christmas Eve.

On one level, there are as many answers to this question as there are legal secretaries and lawyers. Every working relationship is different, and most of us will have found out that what perfectly suits one relationship doesn’t work at all in another.

However, as someone who has worked both as a Legal Secretary and as a lawyer, I think that there is one quality that most lawyers would agree is essential to the makeup of a really good Legal Secretary or PA. This is a quality that transcends personality types and practice specialisms, and you need it whether you are working for a family lawyer or a commercial lawyer, and whether your boss is permanently frantic or completely chilled. Looked at from the other side of the desk, your fundamental skill is to make your boss’s job easier, however you achieve it.

What is ‘agile working’ and how is it likely to affect you? Jocelyn Anderson talked to Virginia Clegg, Senior Partner elect of national firm DAC Beachcroft, to find out.

Agile working is beginning to gather momentum. It’s a concept that has been around for a few years, but it has come into sharp focus recently in the legal market because of its adoption by a number of firms, including Herbert Smith, Wedlake Bell, DAC Beachcroft and, after an announcement in August, Clifford Chance. Indications are that this new idea is likely to be taken up increasingly over the next few years, and that it is going to touch the working lives of many Legal Secretaries quite soon.

Those of you who are starting out in your legal secretary careers may be considering looking for employment in one of the larger law firms. We have provided some information about five large law firms which have offices in the UK and overseas.

Pinsent Masons

Thousands of women throughout the world celebrated International Women’s Day on 8 March. Events were held by organisations, charities, educational institutions and groups to celebrate achievements and inspire women of all ages and nationalities. The first International Women’s Day was held way back in 1911 and was celebrated by over a million people in countries across Europe.

There has been a significant shift in our society’s attitude to women in the past century. It is amazing to think that women of 21 years and over were allowed to vote only after the Representation of the People (Equal Franchise) Act was passed in 1928. Some of our grandmothers will have been around at that time.

Norton Rose Fulbright is a global legal practice who have more than 3800 lawyers based in over 50 cities across Europe, the United States, Canada, Latin America, Asia, Australia, Africa, the Middle East and Central Asia.

Recognised for their industry focus, they are strong across all the key industry sectors: financial institutions; energy; infrastructure, mining and commodities; transport; technology and innovation; and life sciences and healthcare.

Wherever they are, they operate in accordance with their global business principles of quality, unity and integrity. They aim to provide the highest possible standard of legal service in each of their offices and to maintain that level of quality at every point of contact.

The Team

The general job market today is very competitive, and there are more people than ever applying for each available position. But this is not true of every single job market. Over the last five years or so, there has been an increasing demand for Legal Secretaries, which looks like it will continue well into the future.

If you are a law graduate, getting a job as a Legal Secretary could be the perfect way to get your foot in the door and get noticed. ILSPA’s Legal Secretaries Diploma course is studied by many law graduates as it helps them to acquire the practical skills they need and it boosts their CVs.