Becoming an attorney is a job that interests many people and students across the country, it is a highly rewarding job in terms of personal, professional and financial reward and it is a job which carries great prestige. Not everyone however, has what it takes to follow in the footsteps of people like Jon Bunge and go on to be a great attorney and if this is something that you are interested in, you will need to first understand what the skills are that you need to be successful in your pursuit of this profession. Let’s take a look at what kind of skills are require if you want to be an attorney of law.
Intelligence
Attorneys must be incredibly intelligent to gain their position, the studying alone requires that students perform to a high ability and consistently have very strong grades. Once you are in the profession you will also need to display quick wit and strong levels of intelligence to win cases.
Hard Work
If you are not prepared to work hard then you have no chance of even becoming an attorney let alone being able to do the job. After finishing college you must then go to law school which requires a gargantuan amount of work. Once you have passed law school you must then work in the practice for two years before passing the bar and only then is when the real hard work of working as an attorney actually begins, expect a lot of late nights.
Analytical
In order to be a great attorney you will need to process huge sums of information about past and present cases as well as oceans of paperwork to build your case. The way it looks on the television is nothing like real life and those moments in the court room are the result of hours and hours of poring through paperwork and highlighting relevant points.
Strong Memory
Aside from being analytical to understand how to build your case, you will also need to have a very strong memory to be able to draw on those cases which you have studied in the past and call on them when the time comes.
Team Working
No one case is won alone and each legal firm relies on a strong team of attorneys, paralegals and secretaries to build a case. You must have a strong understanding of how to play each role within the team dynamic so that you can add value to the team setting.
Confidence
A lot of the confidence which you have as an attorney will come from experience but you must start out with enough confidence to believe in what you are talking about and the ideas which you put forward. If you are not confident in your own convictions then you will not be taken seriously despite how good your points or thoughts may be.