LawCareers.Net (LC.N) is a comprehensive, one-stop online resource created for future lawyers and those who recruit them. The site contains a number of key elements: exhaustive editorial content on becoming and working as a lawyer; comprehensive directories (more than 1,250 organisations) of employers and legal educators; continually updated news and features; and practical tools designed to help users manage their research and maximise their chances of breaking into the profession. As such, the site is the market-leading product in a highly competitive environment.

LC.N has grown and developed for well over a decade, continually looking to provide and present information in the most effective way. Some of the site’s key features include:

• Search engine - The site contains comprehensive directories of firms, chambers and law course providers, all searchable under key criteria, including size, location and type of work. There are details of around 1,000 firms, 200 chambers and 100 law course providers, and the site is the only resource with such broad scope and sophistication.


• Exhaustive editorial - LC.N contains information on every aspect of becoming a lawyer. Topics range from your first steps in the law to career paths and life as a solicitor or barrister. You may even be thinking about what else you can do with your legal training - look at alternative careers for ideas.


• Deadline calendar - We offer an extensive list of application deadlines for training contracts and work placement schemes - a vital tool in helping to avoid the last-minute application submission scramble.


• Career timetable - Confused about the career path to becoming a lawyer? With this simple career timetable diagram, there's no need to be! Just hover over the blue circles to reveal an outline of each stage in the process.


• Immediate vacancies - This page alerts you to the availability of training contracts at firms who do not recruit regularly or who have late vacancies to fill, in addition to paralegal, admin and other law related positions.


• News - We provide a news service that is updated almost daily, highlighting key stories from the legal press and elsewhere. With you in mind, our particular emphasis is on training issues.


• Blogs - We've got a crack team of bloggers (or ‘blawggers’) reporting back from the front line, from GDL and LPC students, to paralegals to trainees. You'll be hearing straight from the horses' mouths about what the work is really like, not to mention how people stay afloat while juggling their studies, job search, finances and (hopefully) social life.


• LC.N Says - An opportunity here for the LC.N team to wax lyrical on all manner of topics; from info on which law fairs we'll be attending to comment pieces on developments that will affect future lawyers.


• Take 5 - This light-hearted feature takes five UK firms, chambers or universities each week that are connected by a particular theme, which may be serious or light-hearted. The firms could be united by anything at all - practice area, location or just the fact that they have names that would score well in scrabble!


• Burning Question - This is a weekly Q&A written by a leading firm designed to get you thinking about the commercial issues that the modern lawyer must contend with, as commercial acumen is an essential quality that firms both big and small look for. Topics covered already include the global financial crisis, piracy and whether VAT applies to pizza.


• Meet the Recruiter - Bearing in mind that the recruitment team is usually the first contact you will have with your desired firm, we have dissected that most powerful breed of legal professional - the recruiter. The resulting profiles are a great way for you to get a sense of the men and women who have the ability to welcome you to the profession with open arms or close the proverbial door in your face.


• Career spotlights - How better to find out what it’s like to be a trainee than direct from the people doing it? We have interviewed over 40 current and former trainees at different firms (and are adding to this all the time), to give you a taste of how things could be if you were in their position.


• The Oracle - We have always received requests for advice from future trainees and pupils, and decided to formalise this process in a ‘problem page’ format. The Oracle will help you solve all those tricky problems relating to the recruitment and training process. All letters are answered and those that raise vital issues are published in the LC.N Weekly newsletter and on the site.


• Features - Every fortnight we publish a new feature designed to increase your knowledge of the recruitment process or of the legal profession as a whole. Some are produced in-house, while others are written by experts from firms, chambers, universities and other organisations within the legal community.


• Law fairs - There is advice about how to approach employers at law fairs, plus a directory of all the major law fairs in the country.


• Diary - Many firms attend and hold events across the country to meet candidates and raise their profiles. Find out about open days, careers talks and skills sessions held by firms and postgraduate course providers with our online diary.


• Brochures - Around 30 firms have given us their brochures to display online for your downloading pleasure. These are the first things to look at when you want to identify which firms would be a good match for your personality and skills.

MyLC.N
MyLC.N is a customisable area of LC.N within which you can store information from both LC.N and elsewhere. You can save details of potential employers and make notes in MyFirms, store links in MyLibrary, refer to your personalised MyTimeline and even use MyMap to show you where your target employers are located. Genius!

In 2010, in conjunction with online application system Apply4Law, MyLocker was introduced as a central hub where you can store key information about yourself in order to transfer it into the application forms of participating firms. The idea is to allow you to focus on the information which is specific to firms, such as long answer questions, rather than spending time repeatedly entering core biographical information.

And most recently, MySelf was born. Candidates commonly do not realise that researching themselves is as, or more important, than building up dossiers on firms. Knowing one’s strengths and weaknesses is essential. Making applications without this information to hand is foolhardy. MySelf in MyLC.N is designed as a practical tool to analyse and record this information and keep track of your general progress towards identifying, acquiring and demonstrating the attributes you need to succeed.

Using LC.N is both simple and essential. With more than 60% of training contract applicants each year using it - making it the most popular resource in the market - can you afford not to?

www.LawCareers.Net