What Are the Key Skills that Lawyers Need to Develop Essay

What Are the Key Skills that Lawyers Need to Develop - Essay Example Holborn (2001) notes that it cannot be assumed that all employers look for exactly same aspects; nonetheless, aspiring lawyers have to exhibit certain visible skills to succeed as a barrister or solicitor and to work successfully in the competitive business world.     In recent times, there has been increased emphasis on the need for soft skills among legal profession, and the various legal firm has responded by introducing training courses and programmes to train their lawyers and partners in oft skills (Giusti, 2007).   Soft skills are basically defined as skills that impact the manner people interact with each other (Giusti, 2007). They include effective communication, interpersonal skills, leadership, team building and on an advanced level, career planning, project management and time management. Soft skills are normally contrasted to technical skills, where for lawyers these include, knowledge of the law, legal analysis, legal drafting and legal practice.   Whereas the business world has been using soft skills for a long time, the legal profession only realized the significance of soft skills recently. Soft skills are therefore important in legal field when interacting with current and potential clients, and in the firm when interacting with superiors, juniors and other employees (Giusti, 2007). The legal world seems to have realized that to succeed in his career and employment, a layer needs to understand and effectively use both soft skills and technical skills. It is against this background that lawyers have to learn and master soft skills.