In this blog post, Preena Gadra, a Growth Hacker at Mindler, lists and describes the nine skills that will make you a successful lawyer. 

Law as a career has been engaging the eyeballs of every parent in our country since ages. Classified as a tier-1 career option, people call it a successful career option. With impending competition in the field, here is what makes one a successful lawyer. Primarily, skills such as inquisitive nature, attention to detail, logical reasoning, persuasiveness, sound judgment and writing ability are significant for success as a professional in law. While these skills remain necessary, they’re no longer sufficient. Today, more skills are required to practice law competently and effectively. Here, we list nine such skills that will help you become a successful lawyer: 

• The Triple-A Skills – Aptitude, Attitude, and Analytics: Analyzing the real problems and arriving at the conclusions relevant to the situations, is something a lawyer will do throughout his/her tenure. A smart and logical brain with strong reasoning skills will definitely produce a successful lawyer.
• Emotional Intelligence: A right balance of emotions and logic add to the charm of a lawyer. Clients want their lawyers to understand their emotions and perspective, empathize with them and have a personal connect so as to feel satisfied and content with the lawyer they are banking upon. Colleagues need engagement, respect, and understanding to be their best, hence, a good lawyer makes sure he is well connected with his clients as well as colleagues.
• Good Communication Skills: A lawyer who can express himself freely, efficiently and vividly in a language the industry speaks is more likely to perform better. Every lawyer needs to be clear in his thoughts, and the same should reflect through his voice. A confident lawyer with a strong command over his language wins bonus points, in court and outside.
• Research & Reading Habits: Strong words backed by stronger research works in favor of every lawyer. A lawyer’s statements should be backed by facts and facts must be backed with proofs collected through extensive research. Reading habit, too, is a must to be in the know about of everything happening in the world. It shouldn’t be restricted to law and cover other aspects of life too-culture, literature, science, history, politics, etc.
• Oratory skills: For lawyers in private practice, being a good speaker is vital. A prospective litigator ought to develop the art of modulating his/her voice as per the demand of the situation to make his name and fame. Debating skills, thus, are a must.
• Patience: Success doesn’t come overnight. The initial few years in the shoes of a lawyer are tough and test patience to a lot of extent. A fresh law school graduate might have to face harsh working hours, but with perseverance and patience, the desired results start to show up.
• Team Work: Lawyers who collaborate well possess the ability to identify and bring out the best others have to offer, submerging their own positions and egos where necessary in order to reach the optimal client outcome. 
• Time Management: An effective lawyer is one who knows how to manage time. Time management is very essential whether it is in corporate or litigation practice and helps achieve the said deadlines. There is no typical day for a lawyer. The days are dynamic, and one probably has to run all over the place trying to manage numerous expectations. The days involve long phone calls, document reviews, long meetings and travel as well as looking after less glamorous administrative bits. All in all, every lawyer must be an amazing time manager.
• Technological Affinity: It has become one of the basic qualities of a lawyer these days. If a lawyer cannot efficiently use e-mail, access the Internet, work with instant messaging, Adobe Acrobat and the like, clients and colleagues will pass him by. Here are a few apps that a lawyer can use to be technologically-abled:
  • Timekeeping- Capterra Software
  • Networking- CamCard Website
  • Document Signing- CudaSign
  • Evernote
  • To-Do Lists- Wunderlist

Like there is never a shortcut to succeed in life, there is no shortcut to becoming a good lawyer, although possessing, acquiring or developing these skills might give an edge in this highly competitive world. To know the opportunities available, the right path to pursue law, information on the entrance examinations namely CLAT, best institutes to study law in India and other information pertaining to the career, click here.

This article has been contributed by Preena Gadra, working as a Growth Hacker at Mindler. Mindler aims to make career guidance accessible to everyone in the country through the world’s most advanced career assessment and counseling sessions by experts from ISB, Harvard, IIT. Got any career related query? Shoot it out at [email protected].