OK, not everyone wants to be a partner. But, for many solicitors, a partnership is the logical reward for the years of study and hard work that comes with a commitment to the legal profession.

But what do you need to know about the partnership experience, how can you prepare for it and how can you maximise your chances of attaining it? Here are Clayton Legal’s five top tips:

Are you ready?

Long ago, perhaps when most solicitors wore pinstriped suits and hats during all their waking hours, it may have been true that admission to a partnership meant a life of clubbable lunches and rounds of golf. Those days have, unfortunately, been consigned to the rubbish bin of history. Partners now need to justify their position and reward on a daily basis. And if you are not ready for this, then perhaps you need to wait for the time when you are.

Are you in the right place?

Working for a firm and effectively being a shareholder in it are two very different experiences. This is a major financial, commercial and personal commitment so ask yourself if this really is the right environment to make it in. Do you have complete faith in the direction the firm is taking and its ability to gain and retain clients? Will you be able to get along with your partners on both a social and business level? Do believe they are not just competent lawyers but also have the commercial acumen to sustain and develop the practice? These are all questions best answered before rather than after you find yourself at the partnership table.

Have a Plan

A partnership doesn’t just fall into your lap because you have managed not to get fired. Think through and implement a strategy – a series of timed steps tailored to your target firm – your current one or one better attuned to your goals – that will bring you to the inner circle by a defined deadline.

Get and retain business

Of course you need to be a highly capable lawyer to merit entry to partnership, but now legal professionals are judged as much on their business development skills as they are on their technical ones. A masterful understanding of Rylands v Fletcher or Donoghue v Stevenson is unlikely to get you to any partnership table, and even if it did it wouldn’t keep you there very long unless you could also bring in new clients.

Play the game

Partnerships, whether we like it are not, are political environments so recognise this and act accordingly. Network, support, socialise, fit in. Remember that your potential new partners will not just be thinking how clever you are and how good you are with clients but whether you are the sort of individual they will be comfortable working with, possibly for the rest of their careers.

We are presenting at this year’s Legalex Show on the skills needed for 2017 – don’t miss what will be an insightful and informative presentation.

Historically, professionals looking to move into the legal sector would have to possess highly impressive qualifications at A-Level and a commercial awareness at the very least if they wanted to make their mark on the profession. However, one firm is conducting its graduate recruitment slightly differently and feels that its trend could soon be more commonplace in the profession. Here’s what it means for aspiring lawyers.

Fishing from the same pool of talent

Founder, Adam Moralee created the intellectual property and sport firm Brandsmiths after an extensive career at Mishcon de Reya where he was partly involved in its hiring of graduates. However, he soon noticed that firms seemed to be after the same group of high performing people year after year. He found this problematic, “If everyone has three As and a First….and if they are all being brought into the same workplace then it can’t help but be dysfunctional,” he suggested.

He also outlined that the issue is particularly acute with legal firms who want to find “a diamond in the rough”, but at the same time don’t want to recruit paralegals as they think it could make them look like a second class firm. As Moralee outlined, this is made even more difficult as you need to be a “bit of a rough with 3 As and a First.”

Growing the legal talent pool

In order to diversify his practice, the founder has asked potential candidates for his trainee/paralegal position to create a two or three minute video explaining why they should be interviewed for the job. This means that candidates who may have slipped up on their exams for whatever reason but who may otherwise be a perfect cultural fit for the organisation aren’t overlooked as they historically may have been, which automatically shrinks firms’ talent pools even further and could prevent gifted professionals from working in the field. “There are these stupid, outdated barriers in place,” Moralee suggested. “Of course academic achievement is important – if two candidates are the same and one has As and one Cs I am going for the one with the As – but it is not the be all and end all. It is not even the most important thing.”

With more and more firms likely to adopt this type of approach as they look to diversify their talent pools, it falls into the laps of graduates and potential trainees to consider what makes them employable. Rather than firms solely looking for public school old boys with academic success on their CV, they’re likely to be seeking a combination of this along with commercial awareness and a personality, something which may have been slightly overlooked by many practices in the past. Graduates should therefore consider what makes them stand out from the crowd and how their personality can potentially be the recipe for success. Rather than solely focusing on preparing for exams, they should now also consider their wider profile and what they can do to make themselves more employable. Otherwise, if this trend does continue to grow, we could see rising numbers of smart professionals, who have failed to consider the importance of personality, fall by the wayside.

Need some pointers for you next career move? Checkout our advice pages and career events