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Applying for a legal role often means focusing on qualifications, practice areas and previous legal experience. However, employers across the UK legal sector are increasingly interested in something that sits alongside those credentials … transferable skills. Whether you are a law student, a newly qualified solicitor or an experienced legal professional considering your next move, the skills you have developed through study, work and everyday life can play a significant role in shaping your career prospects.
In this guide, we explain what transferable skills are and why they matter when applying for legal jobs. We also explore the key types of skills employers value most, how they differ from soft skills, and practical ways to identify them from your own experience. Finally, we look at how to present these abilities effectively on your legal CV, including how to demonstrate them with real examples that strengthen your application and help you stand out in a competitive legal job market.
Transferable skills for lawyers
It’s daunting to apply for any legal position. You might be freshly qualified as a solicitor or several years into your career and looking to go up another rung on the legal career ladder. Either way, your transferable skills can really help you get the job you want.
It’s understandable that you’d want to focus on your legal qualifications, work experience, and voluntary work experience when compiling your CV to apply for various legal positions. However, your transferable skills matter almost as much – if not more – and it pays to spend some time identifying and thinking about how to promote them (and you).
If you’re about to gain a law degree, begin looking for your first legal position, or you’re hunting for your next role, this guide will help you understand what transferable skills are and how to identify them. You’ll then be better placed to make sure you showcase them on your CV in future.
What are transferable skills?
Transferable skills are skills and abilities that you have developed through education, work or life experience and that you can use in many different jobs, roles or industries. They are not specific to one profession and can be applied in different workplaces and situations. For example, you might have worked in a shop, bar or restaurant when you were studying for your SQE or LLB. While that’s a long way away from any legal role, you’ll still have picked up some very useful skills that you can transfer into a new role.
A good example here would involve dealing with the public, especially in front-of-house roles. You’ll meet lots of different people while working in a bar or restaurant including customers, colleagues and suppliers. You might also have dealt with and defused challenging situations. Such experience would be good to have if you plan to become a solicitor, as you may meet people seeking legal advice who are facing tough situations in their own lives.
That’s why they’re known as transferable skills. It doesn’t matter where or how you gained those skills, just that you can continue to use them to help you perform well in a legal role as well.
Are transferable skills the same as soft skills?
Many people use these terms interchangeably, yes. However, some think of soft skills as things that you gain through life … for example, it might involve the way you interact with people. You might also have excellent self-awareness.
While you can use those traits to help support a new legal job application, they’re not quite the same as transferable skills. Here, you’re looking for things you have learned that you can take from one job to another, and even from one industry to another.
Let’s continue with the bar / restaurant analogy here. You may have gained experience in organising junior staff members and managing busy periods in that scenario. You can use this experience to show would-be employers your people management and organisational skills.
That’s just one example, but you can see that soft skills and transferable skills are important when you’re putting together your CV.
What are the main areas of transferable skills?
You’ll find all kinds of lists giving you ideas here, but we’ve opted to focus on eight of the main skills that you should consider highlighting.
1. Communication
Think about communication in all its forms. It doesn’t just mean talking with a variety of other people. You can also communicate in writing, for example. It doesn’t just involve public speaking either, it may relate to playing an active role in meetings, client discussions and negotiations.
2. Problem-solving
All legal roles will involve problem solving, and probably every day. Think about how you have solved issues that have arisen in other roles too. They’ll help to illustrate how you can bring this skill to a new legal role.
3. Time management
No matter what legal role you want to take on, from a paralegal to a solicitor to a company secretary, you’ll have multiple tasks to perform in a timely manner so good time management is essential. Look for ways you can demonstrate your ability to manage your own schedule and workload to achieve your goals.
4. Flexibility
Even if you’re brilliant at planning your day, there are going to be times when things don’t go to plan and you need to change as well, to be able to respond to the changing situation. If you’re flexible, you’ll find this easier to manage.
5. Teamwork
Many legal roles involve working with other people at times. Being able to work as part of a team is just as important as being able to focus and work on your own.
6. Initiative
It’s always good to see job applicants showing initiative. This could mean anything from taking notes you can refer to for answers later or suggesting solutions to issues that others may have noticed but done nothing about.
7. Commercial awareness
Commercial awareness is an increasingly valuable skill in many legal roles. It refers to your understanding of the wider business environment and how legal advice fits into it. Clients rarely come to a solicitor with purely legal questions, they usually have a business or personal objective they want to achieve, and the legal work forms just one part of that process.
Demonstrating commercial awareness means showing that you understand how legal decisions can affect clients financially, strategically and practically. For example, you might show an understanding of how different legal options could influence a company’s operations, reputation or profitability. Keeping up with legal news, developments in key industries and changes in the wider economy can all help you build this skill and show potential employers that you appreciate the broader context in which legal work takes place.
8. Willingness to continue learning
Even when you’ve got your degree or completed your legal course, the learning doesn’t stop there. Be proactive in continuing to learn as much as you can. This could involve research or taking additional courses on specific aspects of your career that interest you.
How can you add transferable skills to your legal CV?
Identifying these key skills is only the beginning. The next step is to add evidence of those skills to your CV … but be aware that this can sometimes be harder than creating a list of skills to start with.
Go through each job role you’ve had, including any voluntary and part-time jobs and think about the skills you’ve picked up in each one. Then think about how you can show that skill in action.
It’s always a good idea to make a list of examples for each role that clearly demonstrate key skills, even though you won’t add them all to your CV. Sending a tailored CV to each job you apply for is far better than sending a generic one everywhere.
Review the job description in each case and pick out the most relevant examples of transferable skills to add to your CV. Making your CV relevant to the job ad can mean the difference between getting an interview and falling at the first hurdle.
Provide evidence for each transferable skill you add to your CV
It would be easy to add a range of skills to your CV if you’re applying for any type of legal role. However, you can be sure everyone else will be doing the same. It’s not enough to say you’ve got certain skills … you need to provide facts, proof of those skills and how you applied them to good effect.
The easiest way to do this is to look at your CV and review your work experience section. Remember you can go through prior work experience and not just roles you’ve held in the legal profession. This is particularly important if you’ve only just qualified to enter the legal sector.
Jot down some of the transferable skills you gained in each role. You don’t need to represent all the skills in every position … just jot down some ideas about what you might include. Then add details of experiences to illustrate how you gained those skills. Write down everything you can think of, remember, you’re not going to include all the details on your CV as you’ve probably only got two pages. However, if you write a list, you can pick out the highlights you’d like to use when you’re face to face.
You might also want to choose things that you can easily remember. If you reach the interview stage, the interviewer might ask you to talk about those examples, how you applied them and the benefits they brought. You’ll need to be able to do all this without floundering or forgetting any of the details.
What can you do if you’re lacking in some transferable skills?
As you’re going through your job history and making notes about the skills you’ve picked up along the way, you may start to notice one or two gaps. While you may have good transferable skills in some areas, you may be lacking in others.
If you spot things like this, think about how you can fill those gaps. This may vary depending on the skills you’re looking for. To fill these gaps you might ask for additional responsibilities or projects in your current role, for example. Alternatively, you might take on a volunteering role that allows you to meet people from many different walks of life if you’re looking for more interaction.
You could also enrol for online classes or evening classes to help you improve specific skills and demonstrate your continued love of learning. There are lots of possibilities here, and many ways to pick up extra transferable skills that can help in your search for a new legal job.
Showcasing your transferable skills to boost your legal job prospects
Hopefully, you can see that your transferable skills are crucial when you’re putting your CV together to apply for a legal job of any kind. While you should list your qualifications and legal experience, don’t discount the value of your transferable skills … even if you’ve picked them up from other roles.
We gain experience from every job we ever do, whether we realise it or not. Working in a bar is a million miles from working as a solicitor, but many will pick up skills at the former that will help them develop as the latter.
Take your time to find and list your transferable skills, together with finding examples of each skill in action. You’ve then got a list to refer to whenever you are editing your CV to best reflect your most valued skills for a legal job position you want to apply for.
You should also be sure to review your skills occasionally as well. You will pick up more as time goes on, along with improving those you already have … both good to know and recognise.
Bringing it all together
Understanding and recognising your transferable skills can make a real difference when you’re applying for legal roles. While your professional skills, qualifications and legal experience will always be important, employers are also looking for candidates who can communicate effectively, manage their workload, solve problems and work well with others. By taking the time to identify the skills you’ve developed through study, previous employment and everyday experiences, you’ll be in a far stronger position to present yourself as a well-rounded candidate.
At LegalJobs.co.uk, we regularly see how applicants who highlight their transferable skills alongside their legal expertise are more likely to stand out to employers. Whether you’re looking for your first paralegal role, planning your next step as a solicitor, or exploring new opportunities within the legal sector, presenting your skills clearly can help open doors. Browse the latest legal vacancies on LegalJobs.co.uk and use the insights in this guide to ensure your CV reflects not only what you’ve studied, but also the valuable skills you bring to every legal role you pursue.
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