6 Skills and Qualities Every Good Legal Professional Should Have

These are the six skills you need for an ideal career in the legal field. 

Different jobs and industries require different skills from their workforce. Tech professionals need, besides techy skills, critical thinking, problem-solving skills, and communication skills. Being a teacher means you need to have skills like adaptability, confidence, excellent communication skills, and to be a continuous learner. 

The legal field is no exception to the rule. Working in the law field requires a particular skill set. 

In a difficult, confusing, or complex situation, both individuals and companies find themselves desperately seeking the guidance of a legal professional. A great lawyer must have the potential to have a dramatic and positive impact on the life of a client. Whether this means protecting them against false charges, securing fair financial compensation after being the victim of an accident, or helping them through a challenging family law matter. Attorneys are the people who can help others in some of the most challenging times of their lives. 

As the experts from ReviewOfSolicitors explain, “Although very rewarding, being a legal professional isn’t an easy job. Legal professionals need to have certain skills to be cut out for it. And it doesn’t just mean having legal knowledge.” 

This article explores the six skills and qualities every good legal professional should have. 

1. Attention to detail 

Being able to spot even the smallest and apparently irrelevant detail no one else considered is key in being a good lawyer. In the legal field, very often, small details make a huge difference in a case’s results. For example, a single word out of place can change the entire meaning of a clause or contract, making a claim or even a whole case irrelevant. Good lawyers need to be those people who spot those tiny details and know how to use them to their client’s advantage. 

2. Excellent communication skills 

All legal professionals need to be excellent communicators. There’s no room for poorly chosen words, aggressive communication, or even incapability to formulate clear phrases when talking to a client, jury, or the judge. 

Legal professionals need strong oral and written communication skills. Excellent adaptability skills are also necessary when you’re a lawyer. To build a case, you need to talk to a lot of people, from clients to experts to witnesses. 

Being able to adapt to all sorts of discussions, personalities, and levels of knowledge in your speech is also essential. Your clients may not have deep knowledge in the legal field. So, it’s your job to adapt your messages to a language they understand. At the same time, when talking to a judge or other legal professionals, you need to formulate more accurate ideas using legal jargon. 

When you are a good communicator, you have significantly higher chances to be a good lawyer. You are able to understand and help your clients better and do your job at the court. 

3. Compassion for clients 

Being compassionate for clients is another essential quality that can make the difference between a good and a bad attorney. Compassion is also a quality that can make you a better communicator because you can better understand the genuine harm a victim felt or the motifs of someone to do something immoral. 

This will allow you to create genuine connections with the people you meet at your job, not just clients but also juries and judges. Compassion for your clients also helps you stay motivated to continue your hard work. Even when things get complicated with a case, you will still work hard and go that extra mile to help the person who reached out to you for your legal services. 

4. Information analysis and research skills 

All legal professionals must have fantastic research and analysis skills. When you’re a lawyer, you have to build solid and relevant cases to support your clients. This involves a lot of research. 

Very often, you’ll have to consult a dozen of sources to gather information for your case. You may have to look for insights in legal books and sources, read medical studies, research experts who can help your case, and maybe you’ll have to find information that seems not to exist anywhere. 

But, besides researching and finding information, you also need to properly analyze it and choose those insights that will help you build a stronger case. As a legal professional, you need to know how to make huge documents into a few small insights that give your case a new twist to its advantage. 

5. Teamwork skills 

Working in a team and collaborating is a vital skill for any job, including the law field. When working on a case, you’ll never work alone. You’ll have to work alongside many people, including your clients, coworkers, or certain experts. This requires you to have amazing teamwork skills in order to know how to communicate and collaborate correctly. 

Don’t assume that you will be on your own when preparing cases because that’s rarely the case. You may need the help of another more experienced lawyer. Or maybe you’ll need to involve your clients in building their case. Or maybe you’ll need to discuss with an expert about your client’s situation, such as a medical professional. 

All these collaborations will require you to know how to work efficiently in a team to help your clients better. 

6. Knowledge of the law 

Last but not least, a good legal professional must have law knowledge in order to build cases and represent their clients in court. Legal knowledge is key to doing your job well, whether that means knowing laws, legal jargon, past cases, and more. It is true that some of this knowledge comes from experience. But some of it comes from education. 

If you find it impossible to learn the knowledge related to your area of practice, you literally won’t be able to do your job.