Meet the Lawyer: first-hand accounts of life at the legal coalface

One of the main jobs of LawCareers.Net is helping you, the reader, to make meaningful comparisons between potential employers. We are pleased to announce that we are improving how we do this with our new Meet the Lawyer section.

On a general level, we describe what different kinds of lawyer, firm and market sectors there are. Commercial lawyers, criminal lawyers and family lawyers are very different beasts and you need to know what distinguishes them. We provide analysis of different types of firm and of different practice areas and, of course, look at the difference between  Life as a Solicitor and Life as a Barrister. Only once you have grasped these core concepts can you move on to the next level of sophistication, distinguishing between individual employers.

Meet the Lawyer (formerly Career Spotlight) is a section that dozens of (mainly commercial) firms contribute profiles to. We look at the experiences of an individual who has been recruited by, trained at and qualified with each firm. Looking at one person's journey from applicant to qualified lawyer is extremely revealing of what his or her employer is really like and what it has to offer. Similarly, reading a number of different profiles from different firms will highlight the range of experiences one might expect and allows you as an applicant to ask pertinent questions of any firm about how it operates. We are also changing the format of Meet the Lawyer to a question and answer structure - this will allow better comparison across firms and lets you extract the information you find most interesting from the pieces.

It is important to remember that while winning a training contract may be your short term goal, it is not the ultimate prize. Firms are recruiting for the lawyers of the future to take their firm forward. You need to imagine your career right from training well into qualification - Meet the Lawyer is explicitly set up to help you do this. Think about what you learn, who you will be working with, how you are assessed, the increasing levels of responsibility you will face, who will support and assess your progress and where the business you are joining is headed. Not only should these factors be important in making a choice about who you apply to (remember there is just not time to make dozens of excellent applications - shortlisting is vital), but you also want to be seen to be considering these issues if you are to impress recruiters as a thoughtful and credible candidate.

So, in short, read the Meet the Lawyer profiles both for their firm-specific content and for what they tell you about a career in law in general and how it might unfold.