Senior Legal Career Growth: Is It Skills, Hard Work, or Connections That Matter Most?

Factors Influencing Growth in a Senior Legal Position

What factors help the growth of an employee in a Senior Legal position in an organization? Is it their academic exposure, experience, quality, hard work, and continuous perseverance to achieve set targets and objectives, or is it the proximity to the person having authority?

In my view, a sound mix of knowledge, traits, and skills, along with clever ways of promotion, will help a budding legal professional grow in the organization.

Knowledge:
He should have a clear but not confused understanding of the provisions of law on the subject he deals with in the organization.

Traits:
• Copious amounts of appetite for reading (legal journals, judgments, etc.).
• Listening.
• Commitment.
• Hard work.
• Quick wit.

Skills:
• Analytical.
• Interpretational.
• Drafting & presentation.

Hope this helps.

Regards,
B. Saikumar

Can you please provide the reason(s) for this query of yours? Such a query from junior/middle-level professionals, irrespective of their functional responsibility, is pretty common. However, coming from such a senior professional at your level is, to say the least, a bit of a surprise. Obviously, there is much that is unsaid, more than what you mentioned—or, to put it another way, there seem to be many issues in the background that prompted you to post this thread.

I suggest giving as many details as possible. Though B. Saikumar has summarized the generic aspects that address such a query, frankly, I think that you should give the opportunity to the members to provide you with more focused, accurate, and well-informed suggestions—which obviously depend on the inputs you provide.

The consequences of decisions based on the suggestions given in this forum would be directly proportional to the level of the individual—hope you get the point.

Regards,
TS

It is pertinent to mention here that I am a topper in Law from BHU with distinction and have been working in the domains of Legal, IR, HR, Admin & Compliances for the last 15 years. I am currently heading a team of 40 HR & Legal staff. However, I find that individuals in the Legal staff management are not given attention unless there is some illegal glitch in the company.

There is a mental barrier of demonization which always reflects in the work of the Legal Executives. Nowadays, legal professionals are stepping into the HR domain, which may be termed as Legal HR, to oversee the compliance of companies. They are often treated as subordinate staff for depositing drafts and challans in government departments. However, from my experience, I have found that hard work and legal knowledge are secondary to proximity to the source of authority, who may or may not show favor.

Without naming any specific company, I can share that in my career, I have encountered situations where employees have worked for a company for over 15 years as Legal Assistants and Trainees. Furthermore, the salary paid to a recent graduate from a business school is three times that of a newly graduated lawyer.

Management of middle-grade companies often prioritize cost over the quality of candidates for senior positions, compromising on mediocrity for cost-saving. This discussion aims to understand the current atmosphere in other states regarding this issue.

Regards