Articles From the Team
'Top tips' to help plan your in-house legal career
"James Caan, of Dragon’s Den fame recently wrote that “In any walk of life, planning and preparation is always a better approach than simply crossing your fingers and hoping for the best. When it comes to your career this is even more important, as having a clear strategy and plan of action automatically motivates you. Playing things by ear may work for some people, but a lot of the time it simply leads to a lack of purpose”.
For the full article click on the following link: http://www.linkedin.com/today/post/article/20140313102450-32175171-five-steps-to-creating-the-right-career-plan?
His top tips to working out the best career plan include, to:
• Assess your strengths and weaknesses • Know the market • Take some advice • Set yourself targets and goals
If you are looking for an in-house role how can the recruitment experts at BCL Legal help you with these points?
• Assess your strengths and weaknesses – in essence our role is all about benchmarking the lawyers that we meet against each other. Having met hundreds (probably thousands) of lawyers between us we have gained knowledge of ‘where’ one lawyer sits compared to another. We are able to pass this knowledge on to the lawyers who ask us to assist. It may be that you need more managerial experience, be involved in more decision making – whatever the case we can tell you how you ‘rate’ compared to your peers and what you may need to do to help enhance your career.
• Know the market – from The Northern Home Counties to Newcastle we know over 95% of the lawyers who have made a move in-house over the past 5 years. We have also worked the majority of legal in-house vacancies in this location. We enjoy passing on this knowledge to clients and candidate lawyers who ask us for it!
• Take some advice - We have assisted numerous lawyers advance their career over the years. Having placed lawyers in their first in-house role, many are now General Counsels/ Heads of Legal – a few are even Managing Directors of the businesses that they joined. We look to build a long term relationship with the lawyers that we assist. If you trust us and want our advice – for example why you aren’t getting on as well in interviews or advancing your career, we are more than happy to help you explore why this may be and introduce you to other specialists (coaches for example) that might be able to offer extra assistance.
• Set yourself targets and goals – This point generally falls to you.. but once you have set your target or goal we will be more than happy to help you explore how this might be achieved.
With offices across the UK, including London, Birmingham, Manchester and Leeds, BCL Legal has one of the largest In-house legal recruitment teams. For more information please contact Mark Levine, Director via marklevine@bcllegal.com