Navigating Law Fairs!

Hello everyone and welcome back to my blog posts! Today I will be talking about something that tends to interest quite a lot of law students: LAW FAIRS! To put it simply, law fairs are events where representatives from law firms and other legal professions take up a stand each within a hall and promote their workplaces to the numerous students present. The actual set up of law fairs isn’t what students tend to find nerve wracking about these events- rather it is the concept of communicating well with professionals from the legal sector (according to my personal experience, as well as that of some of my peers). Therefore, I will be outlining some key ways to get around law fairs and make the most of them whilst trying to keep calm and collected- i.e. this is a short guide to navigating law fairs!

The first thing to point out is that there are representatives from the legal sector present, whom you can attempt to build some sort of rapport with at these fairs. Considering this, it would be wise (in my opinion) to dress more professionally than usual and to look more neat and collected. First impressions can go a long way, especially since representatives are usually employees from the workplace and sometimes even graduate recruitment themselves! Therefore try your best to make a good first impression, including a firm handshake, a good elevator pitch to introduce yourself, and professional attire.

Moving onto the second thing to point out, it is important to remember that you can usually find information about which firms and other legal workplaces (such as the Crown Prosecution Service) will be present, so it is a good opportunity to do some research about the places that you are interested in. This would also help narrow down the number of stands that you want to visit on the day, which is useful considering that fact that there are usually 50-100 stands at these sorts of events and you have only a few hours to visit them all. Once you have shortlisted the stands that you are interested in, make sure to note down some questions that you would like to ask those stands on the day so that you can get something productive out of the event. These questions could be about the employee’s daily life at work for instance, or specific questions about the application process- it is up to you to note down what you would like to find out!

This leads onto the final thing to point out, which is that you should communicate in the way that you would if you were at the firm/workplace itself (i.e. professionally). This includes introducing yourself (elevator pitch as mentioned above, where the idea is to introduce yourself within 20-30 seconds), asking questions (as mentioned above- make sure you research well and that these questions are not such that can be answered very easily by looking at the workplace website), and finally concluding the conversation smoothly; this can be done by asking for a business card or asking if it is okay to add the representative on LinkedIn (which shows that you plan to follow up on the conversation and indicates that you were interested in the workplace). Make sure that you do actually follow up- either leave a message thanking the representative for their time and mention something specific that you talked to them about so that they remember you, OR thank them and then ask them any further questions that you may have.

I hope that this short guide has been useful in helping you all prepare for navigating law fairs! As always, leave any queries in the comments below and I will get back to you as soon as possible!