Increase commercial awareness??

I tried reading the FT... Do I need to know everything on there? What section do I focus on?

They have lots of irrelevant issues like the sexism thing with those lawyers on LinkedIn & who Labour's new leader is... These will not affect commercial law firms?

Currently, what kinds of commercial knowledge should I have?

Reply 1

TCchaser

Original post by p3ssimist

Ok so this is the exact opposite of what 'commercial awareness' is! Please, please do not see commercial awareness as just knowing what's happening around the business/legal world and regurgitating it.

I always say that commercial awareness is a mindset, it's a way of thinking. It's the ability to get the cogs whirring in your brain when there is a seemingly unrelated news story that you come across, and to think about how that particular story will have an impact on various sectors (including, but not limited to, the legal sector).

To give you an example, I just went on to the BBC website and Jeremy Corbyn is making the headlines right now. So at first glance you think 'ah but that's politics, nothing to do with the law firm I'm applying to or their clients'. Right? Wrong.

Think about it. Politics necessarily affects the society, and corporate law firms' clients in a pretty big way! So the next logical step is to see what Corbyn is all about. What would happen if he came in to power? What does he stand for?

I don't want to go into detail, but one example is People's quantitative easing.

What impact would it have? Well, if you read up on it a bit more, he wants to basically print money and invest that in infrastructure. So, construction firms, for example, would benefit massively. Employment rate would increase. Consumer confidence might increase as a result, which might mean good news for things like the retail sector. All these things have an impact on a law firm, and the economy at large. Inflation might increase, causing interest rates to rise to deal with that, which will have an effect on gold prices. A rise in interest rates in the UK might mean bad news for law firms' private equity practises because wealthy individuals might not see the UK as attractive any more. Etc etc. You get the gist. It's about making all these links in your head, and that only comes from reading widely and understanding how the world around you works. Only then will commercial awareness make sense. It doesn't even have to necessarily be right, but interviewers will be impressed that you're making these links and forecasts.

If you know the economy etc isn't your strong point (it certainly isn't mine), don't think it's all too technical for you. It literally is just common sense with a foundation of knowing how the world around you works. Try buying some books. I heard 'Know the City' is really good but haven't read it personally.