Let’s go to the fair

It's been a busy first few weeks in my new post - not just for the LC.N team, but for aspiring lawyers as well. November heralds the law fair season and several great opportunities for students to have to some contact time with potential employers, as well as for me to meet some of the lovely people it is now my job to try and help.

We have spoken to hundreds of students, in between stampedes to pick up the latest Training Contract & Pupillage Handbook, and will be hoping to meet you at your local law fair this month too. One thing which several of us were struck by was the high number of first-year students in attendance, many of whom seemed a little nervous and unsure when I accosted them. Admittedly, my brash and obnoxious face/voice/personality may have been the main reason for such responses as, "I don't know…I'm just a first year getting a feel for things really", but as I replied at the time, this is in fact the perfect reason for a first-year student to attend a law fair.

Those first years attending law fairs this month deserve all due credit for taking the initiative and introducing themselves to firms now, even if these early meetings are casual in nature. Law fairs present the perfect opportunity to get ahead with this sort of thing early on, so that you're already underway when demands start to pick up in your second and third years of study. The competition for training contracts and jobs is as fierce as ever, so it really is down to you to take as much initiative as possible. We received an email recently from a lecturer in a university law department thanking us for reinforcing the message that for law students the first year of study really does matter - we cannot emphasise enough how important it is to work hard and help yourselves as early as possible.

Law fairs are also a great opportunity to pick up lots of the information and literature that first years need to start familiarising themselves with. I don't refer only to our essential Training Contract & Pupillage Handbook, but also to information available from the firms themselves as well as from representatives of pro bono organisations and others. In an increasingly commercially oriented legal sector, it is so important for future lawyers to begin building up their wider commercial awareness as early as possible - and if you feel brave enough, then maybe even demonstrate this to a firm's delegate, who will be certain to remember such an impressive candidate!

Crunch time may seem a long way off to some first years, but as my colleague Matt Broadbent analogised to me in my first week, Olympic athletes do not start training a few weeks before their event - success requires preparation. So, kudos to all you first years dipping your toes in the water at law fairs this month, and if you haven't been to one yet, make sure you come along and say hello - I'm new to the legal world as well and it seems to me that the best way to break the ice is to dive right through it!