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27/10/2024

Mastering Commercial Awareness

By Kyle Bates

This week’s key terms/concepts:

• Commercial Awareness: An understanding of the business sector and how it is impacted by the law.

This week, Lex Weekly are launching a one-off article about commercial awareness – the foundation of our newsletter – to showcase our relevant Scheme coming up and our efforts in supporting early legal careers. We have partnered with the Cardiff University Law Society to provide our first Winter Writer Scheme, a scheme available to first-year law and second-year non-law undergraduate students where two applicants will be chosen on a competitive basis to write an article for Lex in the winter, and receive a payment for the competition of the Scheme. 

Applications open tomorrow on Monday 28th October, and you can read more about it here. 

What is commercial awareness?

Commercial awareness has been coined by Chambers Student Guide as ‘an annoying buzz-phrase of the recruitment process’, but its importance in tailoring future lawyers into gauging their business is crucial. As a general definition, commercial awareness is an understanding of how businesses and entire industries function, as well as recognising the potential impacts of market developments– in essence: staying up to date with the latest trends and news within your field and understanding these changes. This can include recognising what the largest practice groups for a firm are, how the sector operates and how any recent political, economic, social, legal and technological changes might impact it alongside spotting potential challenges and opportunities.  

Why is it important?

Employers increasingly expect candidates to demonstrate commercial awareness. According to TargetJobs, commercial awareness ranks as one of the highest skills that graduate recruiters seek. On application forms and during interviews, firms will assess your understanding of their business, the industry they operate in, and any significant developments affecting the sector as a whole. Law firms push the phrase as a tight-knit way of making sure students in the early stage of their law careers are equipped with a deep understanding of the industry to enable them to make more informed decisions and better anticipate competitors’ strategies. 

How to improve my commercial awareness?

Weekly, up-to-date news about current legal events are the first port of call for improving commercial awareness skills- whether its free articles, paid articles or a podcast, tuning in to business news that is making an effect on the law will help a reader understand the business sector and prepare well for interviews. For example, if you were preparing for a Dentons interview where they might ask about a recent deal/transaction that the firm had completed and why it interested you, the follow-up Lex Weekly article releasing this afternoon about Dentons advising on a landmark cross-border rail project for the GCC may be useful to mention. 

Aside from using weekly news to stay informed, speaking to legal experts is a valuable technique. Whether it’s connecting through LinkedIn or speaking to them at networking events and insight days, engaging in conversations about an associate’s firm or practice group and enquiring about the legal challenges that they currently face – as well as any recent deals they have completed – can be a beneficial way to gain a deeper insight into a firm commercially. 

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