Professional Development

Dealing with clients can be one of the most challenging aspects of legal practice. Some clients can be patient and appreciative of your work, whilst others can be very hard to satisfy, demanding, stressful and upsetting. Clients may even not pay their fees, complain to the Law Society or sue for negligence if they feel that they have been treated unfairly. 

As a Legal Secretary, part of your job is to make sure that your firm’s clients feel looked after and that they are receiving a good service. There are many different types of clients whom you will come across in your career. Here are a few tips which can help you deal with them.

Understand your role

When we are passionate about our careers we naturally look into ways of improving our practice. Continuing professional development is a process which encourages that improvement and is widely recognised as an integral part of professional progression. Through continuing professional development we can advance, refine and reflect on the work that we do, encouraging more effective practice and greater rewards in the future. It is a self-directed and ongoing process which allows the individual to become empowered to take charge of their career and steer it in the direction they want it to go.

Have you ever wished you could remember all the new names, faces, numbers, addresses, images and tasks that you come across every day of your life? Imagine the time saved and embarrassing moments spared if you could remember every detail of every day. Unfortunately, experts agree that a perfect photographic memory is a thing of fiction. This is not to say that you cannot allow yourself to have a brilliant memory, it just means that, like all things worth achieving, having a good memory will take a bit of practice.

Fortunately for us, people have been practicing methods for improving their memories since classical times, so we have a good 2,000 years of experience to guide us. These years of exploration have proven that in order to grow a good memory we need to create the right conditions, just like growing good vegetables! You can do this by practicing the following:

Roman Law is the legal system invented by the Romans more than 2,000 years ago. Having undergone the process of transformation and reinterpretation, Roman Law continues to influence legal thinking and legal practice to this day.

England has not adopted Roman Law as the other countries in Europe have. In England, ancient Roman texts were never considered as rules having the force of law. However, Roman Law was taught at the Universities of Oxford and Cambridge and had a considerable influence on the development of certain areas of law. Some substantive rules, and more importantly, concepts of reasoning based on the Roman legal tradition, influenced the English legal system.

One of the great things about the Institute of Legal Secretaries and PAs is the fact that they present you with a choice to either study many different areas of law through their Legal Secretaries Diploma course, or alternatively, you may choose to study individual areas of law through their Single Subject Legal courses. 

Good communication skills are a key part of being successful. Being able to effectively communicate as an individual or in a team will help you to generate good relationships between individuals, better understand objectives and resolve problems more easily. We are all capable of communicating effectively and use a range of different skills to achieve this every day. 

Different types of communication

Communication is about sending and receiving messages. You might do this using speech, text and body language. To receive communication, you not only have to be a good listener, but you should also use your other senses to understand any non-verbal messages that are being sent. Is the person speaking to you upset or calm? Are they frowning or smiling? We will consider written, verbal and non-verbal communication and try to establish what makes someone good at each.

Assertiveness is a direct, honest and respectful way of behaving and interacting with others. It is seen as one of the most desirable forms of human behaviour as it leads to honest and healthy relationships. As a Legal Secretary, the ability to be assertive will help you greatly in your career to communicate effectively with your colleagues and boss.

There are generally three types of human behaviour – non-assertive, aggressive and assertive.

Non-assertive behaviour is submissive and indirect. It can give a message of inferiority by allowing the wants and needs of others to be more important than our own. A person behaving non-assertively will lose while allowing others to win.

How can you advance in your chosen career as a Legal Secretary? I am retired now, but when I was practicing law, over a period of very many years I developed a habit with regard to my Legal Secretaries: I encouraged them to act as a team and to see themselves as part of the bigger picture.

What is the bigger picture that a Legal Secretary is part of? It’s obvious, of course: a successful legal practice, or a successful legal department of a commercial firm or public organisation. It does not matter how brilliant a partner or senior manager may be; success will come only if the firm as a whole, from top to bottom, is brilliant. This means that everyone should be singing from the same song sheet. If Legal Secretaries were not important, then firms wouldn’t need to employ them! In their own way, they are just as important as the partners or senior managers.

Excellence is about delivering work of quality and doing the best you can do at every moment. Success naturally follows for those who are prepared to go that extra mile in their job and are willing to devote their time and effort to bettering themselves. Excellence is brought about by doing things better than they have been done before, and only being satisfied with the very best from yourself.

Off the top of your head, what’s the best thing about the internet? Is it that you’re able to see as well as talk to friends and family members on the other side of the world? Is it that you can listen at any time of the day or night to practically any music track you can think of? Or is it simply that you’re never more than a minute away from a really cute cat video? 

All of these things are great. But I think that the best thing about the internet is the ability to connect with people you might otherwise never have come across, and to pool your knowledge and resources together: in other words, to network.