This article is written by Ramanuj Mukherjee, CEO, LawSikho.
I got a call this morning. A lady wanted to know what course she should do from LawSikho.
She was really angry. She had done CA, CS, and law. She got all the qualifications possible.
Still, she could only get a job at an LPO.
I asked her how much she earns. She was like “Why do you need to know that?”
I said that will give me an idea about where you stand and then we can decide where you want to get and how to get there.
She said my package is 8 lakhs per year. I said “that’s great. What’s the next level for you? What goal will inspire? 12 lakhs per year? 15 lakhs per year?”
She said “first of all I want to work on something interesting. I have all these qualifications, but I am not able to get a job I like. And salary in Indian Corporates depends on who likes whom, who can suck up to the boss and stuff like that.”
I smiled.
I asked her “What are your top legal skills?”
She said “Corporate law, taxation and contract law”.
I said “Let me rephrase the question. What are your top legal skills that clients will pay for?”
“I can draft agreements.”
“Great, can you draft a franchise agreement?”
“No, I have never done that.”
“What about a shareholder agreement?”
“Maybe, partly.”
What is partly? If a client comes to you, offering money to do it, will you say I can draft it but partly! People who can’t talk about objectively about what they can do really baffle me. If you can’t admit, you can’t, you will never learn how to. It’s a huge barrier.
I knew I will probably lose her at that moment, but I decided to give her a piece of mind.
“You blame the whole world for not getting the kind of work you want to do. You think other people are progressing in their career because they suck up to the boss. Despite all your qualifications, you are not able to do much work that can help a client for which he will happily pay.”
The woman was incensed. She hung up on me at this point. So I could not finish what I wanted to say. Let me say it anyway.
They feel entitled to a lot of money, but they cannot deliver valuable work, because they never learned how to do it.
It does not take a lot to start putting your focus in the right place. You need to learn skills, one after another, that will help you to help clients, if you want to succeed, whether as a lawyer, or a CA or CS.
Make a list of skills that you have that are useful to your clients. Do not write stuff like communication skill, research etc. That’s alright. But what will clients pay for?
Example: “I can draft amazing bail application” or “I can advice a startup founder about how to create his employment policy”.
Then make another list: What are the skills you can learn and need to learn to get where you want to see yourself?
Success in life is a simple matter of taking action, no matter what else happens in your life.
Our courses are built on this principle. We teach a set of useful skills in every course that clients will happily pay for.
All the best. Below are courses in which enrollment closes on 14th March:
Diploma
- Diploma in Entrepreneurship Administration and Business Laws
- Diploma in Advanced Contract Drafting, Negotiation and Dispute Resolution
- Diploma in M&A, Institutional Finance and Investment Laws (PE and VC transactions)
Executive Certificate Course
- Certificate Course in Advanced Civil Litigation: Practice, Procedure, and Drafting
- Certificate Course in Advanced Corporate Taxation
