Lets discuss some strategies and best practices that can help you become a Gen Z lawyer and enjoy a long and successful legal career. Let’s get started!
Strategy #1: Educate yourself about the global business and regulatory environment
You spent lots of time and money getting your legal degree. You also expended effort in determining your area of specialisation. But are you updated on the other, non-obvious parts of your job as a legal professional and advisor to your clients?
For instance, are you aware of new business models that are emerging in the post-COVID era?
Do you have a handle on complex international structures and transactions?
Are you knowledgeable about the fast-changing regulatory landscape?
Do you keep yourself updated on trade or supply chain disruptions, geopolitical conflicts, and economic challenges affecting many companies all over the world?
Today, legal departments and law firms are under immense pressure to stay updated on all of the above. If they don’t know what’s happening in the business and regulatory environment, they cannot function as valuable legal partners to their clients. That’s why you need to educate yourself on everything that’s happening in the world, even if it doesn’t affect your clients or firm directly.
Strategy #2: Learn more about your clients
For more and more law firms, legal counsel now constitutes a very small percentage of the overall service they provide. Many companies now expect their legal partners to understand and support their business. They expect lawyers to provide not just legal advice and answers, but also business input, advice, and answers.
Progressive law firms can stand out from the others because they do both legal work and business work. They don’t think about themselves as the experts who handle legal issues but as the value creators who handle business issues.
These firms are populated by Gen Z lawyers who show clients how they can overcome their legal/business challenges. These lawyers also apply their legal know-how to help clients better navigate the various complexities in their business environment. And all of this is possible because they make an effort to understand the client’s business. They are proactive about asking questions and about identifying new opportunities for clients. They develop a broad knowledge of the business world and develop greater fluency in the client’s line of work. In addition, they research and understand the various issues that may affect the client’s business as well as its various moving parts.
By positioning themselves as business-oriented rather than just legal-oriented, Gen Z lawyers create new opportunities for their firm to win more work. Moreover, since they understand what the client is trying to do in their business, these new-age professional can create a visible niche for themselves in a hyper-competitive professional landscape.
Strategy #3: Become a legaltech expert
The legal profession is no longer about paperwork and pencil pushing. The immense pressure on lawyers to increase billable hours while also improving client service is creating a need to simplify legal workflows. Here’s where legaltech comes in.
Legaltech refers to the use of technology to simplify many legal processes and workflows. Automation is one way to make this happen. Many kinds of software are now available to help lawyers and their support staff save time, reduce paperwork, manage cases, protect client data from breaches, and even satisfy regulatory requirements.
Your legal department or law firm may be using legaltech tools for:
- eSignature
- Contract management and drafting
- Case management
- Transaction management
- Data encryption
- Metadata removal
- eDiscovery
- Document creation
- Document comparison
- PDF creation and conversion
- Speech to text transcription
All of these tools can minimise the effort you would normally spend on day-to-day tasks. You can use this saved time to focus on your clients and their needs. By spending more time with them, you will be able to build stronger relationships and establish you – and your law firm – as a trusted legal and business partner for your clients. Bottomline: if you have been ignoring legaltech and not made any effort to improve your legaltech skills – now is a great time for a change!
Want to learn more about some of the most popular legaltech products available today? Check out Prime Learning – a learning portal that’s dedicated to dispensing legaltech knowledge to legal professionals.
Strategy #4: Build your professional network
Networking is an important activity for all legal professionals. It doesn’t matter which firm you work for, what kind of clients you serve, or which particular practice area you specialise in. Meeting new people and building your professional network is essential to maintain your relevance as a Gen Z lawyer. Your network will also help sustain you through your professional lows and champion you during your professional highs.
Now that the COVID crisis is behind us, there’s no reason why you cannot go to meetups, conferences, and seminars to meet other legal professionals. Each of these events is an opportunity to learn about new developments in your field and to publicise yourself and your skills in the industry. Plus, you will be able to learn from more experienced or knowledgeable peers and seniors and understand if there are professional gaps that you should look to fill. You may even find a mentor who will guide you, answer your questions, and help you meet your potential as a Gen Z lawyer for the future.
Strategy #5: Develop a wide range of skills
In article #2 of this series, we explain why Gen Z lawyers are a class apart: they develop a range of skills and competencies that are not limited to the legal sphere. They are also self-starting and learning-focused individuals who develop business and soft skills like communication skills, resilience, empathy, judgement, analysis, and problem-solving.
The Gen Z lawyer understands their client’s business and is not afraid to ask questions to improve their understanding. They do research about the client’s business and geopolitical landscape and look for ways to create value for the client through legal initiatives. Additionally, the Gen Z lawyer has the ability to overcome setbacks and learn from negative experiences. They use this knowledge to empathise with clients and strengthen client relationships.
There are many ways to develop all these skills:
- Talk to seniors in the industry
- Ask your boss and peers for feedback and suggestions
- Do online courses
- Sign up for soft skills courses at an institute or learning centre
- Read non-fiction books on management, autobiographies, business lessons, etc.
Another great way to be a self-motivated learner is to join The Emerging India Forum (TEIF) and attend our meetups. TEIF organises many free webinars and training events for legal professionals looking to expand their network and improve their skillset. Join TEIF here for free.
