activities taking place across England and Wales on p129.
aware. Commercial awareness is the ability to understand a client’s business needs and provide legal advice to help the client achieve its aims. It is also about understanding the business needs and drivers of your own firm. Whichever area of law you decide to go into, you will need to demonstrate that you are commercially aware in order to convince law firms, barristers’ chambers and in-house legal employers that you can help to drive their business forward, beyond just securing your training contract. Learn more about commercial awareness and find recommendations to suit a range of learning styles and interests on p30. Peer support Peer advice and support are important too, so it is highly recommended to join your student law society at university (or getting together with friends to create a new society if your institution doesn’t have one). Student law societies organise both in-person and virtual initiatives to help students to develop key skills and benefit frommutual support, as well as valuable networking and advice sessions with lawyers, firms and chambers. Find an extensive list of student law societies on LawCareers.Net – and check out LCN’s annual Student Law Society Awards to see the best examples of what these societies do for their members. Information and advice are also provided by the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Division (JLD). Learn more about the JLD and its
Reality check: If youdon’t have all of the abovequalities and you are consideringdoing theGDL/LPC/BPTCwithout the security net of a training contract or pupillage, think very carefully. For somepostgraduate institutions, money is thebottom line. Putting it bluntly, they sometimes offer places to studentswhodon’t have the remotest chanceof getting a training contract/pupillage. As one recruiter said: “Many institutions consider their course a licence toprintmoney, forcing candidates intodebt. They allow in studentswho are unlikely ever toget an interview, let alonepupillage.”
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