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Commercial Awareness

Some Great Advice for Law Students Everywhere

Our Top Ten Tips

After more than 20 years of teaching English to some of the world’s most successful lawyers, we have some advice for you if you are studying law at the moment.
Here are our Top Ten Tips for how to start building a truly successful career in law!
  1. Understand that an academic knowledge of law is not enough. Wherever in the world you are studying law, start learning some real, practical law.
  2. Your future employers call this practical knowledge ‘commercial awareness’ and they expect you to have it! Start on it now!
  1. Make a start by studying the websites of the leading law firms in your country and learn about the projects they are involved with.
  1. To find the leading law firms in your country, go to legal500.com.
  1. Find out what the base interest rate is at your country’s central bank and do some research on how this affects businesses. Always know the interest rate!
  1. Get some financial vocabulary in both your first language and in English. Learn about how businesses borrow money and the different types of security banks want from your future clients.
  1. Know something about how AI is affecting the work of lawyers. Just google ‘AI and law’ and start reading.
  1. What does your country export to the world? Is the price of that thing going up or down? What is your economy doing right now?
  1. Know how big business is organised. Find out the difference between a CEO, a CFO and a COO. Find out which companies are really ‘green’ in their operations and which are just ‘green-washing’.
  1. Learn commercial legal English, not academic legal English. Start with the vocabulary found in written contracts, not contract law.

How do I become more employable?

The successful lawyers who come to Cambridge all say that they use very little knowledge from their law degree. They all say they WISH someone had told them what the job really is.

Your country probably produces too many law graduates. There are not enough jobs. How do you get on the career ladder in law?

  • First, understand that yes, your law degree is difficult, but it is not enough.
  • Start on the list of our Top Ten Tips as soon as possible.
  • Start getting experience in what’s happening in law. Is there an online conference about AI in law? Register for it!
  • Start learning commercial legal English. Do a google search for ‘terms and conditions’ in English and look at the vocabulary. This is not contract law, it’s a contract! These are very different things.
  • Do you have any of the London ‘Magic Circle’ law firms in your country? If you don’t know who they are, find out!
  • Start on your CV now! If you know a successful lawyer, ask for a copy of their CV and see what made them stand out from the crowd.
  • In other words, think ahead. You are one of thousands of law graduates in your country. You can be among the best if you start now!

We are here to support you with your career in law. Please contact us if you have any questions about our courses or the TOLES exams.

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