Opinion: Sink or swim?

The legal landscape is changing. Jane Wintringham reveals how to make your mark in the new world.

The challenges facing the legal world today are, depending on your viewpoint, either cyclical readjustments or a total paradigm shift of seismic proportions. And while law firms are altering their structures in response, individual lawyers also need to plan for their futures and adapt quickly to the challenges and opportunities change brings. For female lawyers the traditional obstacles to successful career progression are well documented. A lack of flexibility with regards to working practices, limited client development skills and opportunities, exclusion from informal networks within firms and a lack of female role models and mentoring opportunities are just some examples. The challenge for female lawyers is knowing how to harness and ride the crest of this wave of change. Wasting time, energy and resources fighting change is futile. Rather, use that energy to spot opportunities to stand out from the crowd and get noticed.
In Stephen Covey’s The seven habits of highly effective people (Free Press, 1989) a distinction is made between proactive and reactive people. These people often have the same concerns, but those who are proactive focus on what they can do and what they can influence whereas reactive people focus their energy on things beyond their control.
Covey illustrated the difference between what concerns us and what we have influence over through a two-circle model. The first and largest circle represents your concerns. The second smaller circle fits inside your concerns circle and represents your influences. Female lawyers should be following this ‘circle of influence’ – seek to influence what you can and forget the rest.
Clients are increasingly demanding lawyers who represent added value, whose fee calculations are transparent and not based on an archaic system of billable hours. Now more than ever, clients want lawyers who are trusted advisers. Having good interpersonal skills is key. Firms want lawyers who are flexible and able to adapt to rapidly changing business requirements with personality, aptitude, background skills and experience. Now is the time to combine risk and action. Indeed, the lawyers who have been hardest hit by the recession were those who were encouraged by their firms to become specialists in niche areas of work. They thereby lost their flexibility. The generalist who can turn their hand to a variety of tasks and areas of law will now find themselves to be more marketable – having built a portfolio career.
Beware the ‘glass cliff’, however. A study conducted by the glass cliff research group, led by Dr Michelle Ryan and Professor Alex Haslam in the School of Psychology at the UK’s University of Exeter, found a ‘glass cliff’ phenomenon existed whereby women are more likely to be found in leadership positions that are associated with a greater risk of failure and criticism. In contrast, men are commonly given safer and more secure jobs. The study found, therefore, that by being asked to take on difficult and stressful jobs often without being given enough information and the necessary tools to fulfil their roles, women frequently feel that they have been ‘set up to fail’.
Nonetheless, the recession does present a catalyst for change with regards to working patterns. In previous years, a lack of opportunity to work part time has oft been cited as a reason many female professionals have left the legal sphere. Now, with many firms contemplating flexible working and even reduced working hours as a means to succeed through economic stress, the case for women seeking to vary their working hours has strengthened.
Lessons should be drawn from the past and plans should be in place to react swiftly to the economic upturn when it comes. UK law firms reacted too slowly, after the last recession, to the change in the fiscal climate. As a result they simply did not have the staff in place, with the necessary skills to react and cope with the increase in work that an upward economic cycle entailed. A similar situation could well arise again. Female lawyers need to be prepared to act quickly and seize the initiative to make their mark in the new legal landscape.

Top tips for success

Stand out from the crowd – devise a career plan;
Maintain focus. Concentrate on taking action;
Take five actions a day (however small) to move you closer to your goal;
Address your areas of development right now. Management and networking skills are areas that have hindered female lawyers in the past;
Nurture your talent and keep up to date. Write articles or give talks to raise your profile and marketability; and,
Plan for the upturn.

Jane Wintringham is a qualified solicitor and founder of the women lawyers resource, Leading Women Lawyers. She can be contacted at jane@leadingwomenlawyers.co.uk