Daniel Peacock, solicitor and immediate past president of the Law Society’s Junior Lawyers Network and the Junior Lawyers Division

I was rejected for many roles and made many mistakes. It has shaped me into the person I am: I will adapt and overcome. This is a key aspect of being a junior lawyer.

Managing comments can be very difficult. I’m a pretty “personal” person, so I take everything personally. But I learned over time not to take things so seriously. During my training, I felt like everything had to be perfect and without modifications. In practice, people have different opinions. I wouldn’t read too deeply into this.

Having a supervisor cross things out and make changes happens throughout your career. These mini-rejections can be quite difficult, but it’s all about resilience and that leads you to be better at what you do.

There will always be moments of adversity in any job that require you to develop your resilience. Even though practice and qualifying are tough, it’s not the end of the game: you’ll still have 30, 40, or 50 years to deal with this adversity. It’s a necessary skill. Life experience gives you resilience, but it’s something you develop over time. We are not born with it but it is vital.

Donna Smith, business coach and former lawyer

During my last year of my law degree, I applied for numerous training contracts and I did not have a single interview. This was very difficult to deal with and made me question whether I was good enough and had what it took to reach this next stage in my law career.

But my desire to become a qualified lawyer was so strong that I wasn’t ready to let that stop me. I decided to look at other ways to get into a law firm so that I could prove that I was worth considering for a training contract position. When you experience rejection, I think resilience and resourcefulness are both equally important. Whatever the cause, we will suffer the consequences, but our level of resilience must be high so that we can be resourceful before our next action.

I continued to apply for training contracts, but I also signed with a temp agency which provided secretarial services for law firms. Through this, I secured a short-term internship as a legal secretary at a regional law firm.

There, I had several conversations with key partners about my career goals. By the end of the four-week secretarial course, I had been interviewed and offered a paralegal role in the conveyancing department. I then became a trainee lawyer within the same firm. Rejection is hard but it’s not the end. This is simply unfinished business that requires a different approach.
Nobody likes the feeling of rejection. We want to get rid of it as quickly as possible. If you sit with it, you will learn to feel empowered again.

All the tools I recommend to young lawyers to overcome the feeling of rejection are very simple. Let’s start by thinking. For example, if you applied for a training contract and didn’t get it, what was good about your application? What pieces would you keep? What was tricky and what didn’t you like? What would you do differently? Asking these questions after each rejection moves you away from emotion and toward objective thinking.

The more you do this, the more resilience and confidence increases. This process makes you more resourceful.

Mila Trezza, executive coach and former general counsel

The idea that “if you’re good, you won’t be rejected” is a huge assumption. Rejection is part of every career – and every life.

If I have developed negotiation skills over more than two decades in the field of law, it is because of the countless times my ideas were rejected and criticized, not the times I won an easy victory . Whether I was trying to close a deal or seeking an internal promotion, every “no” from the other side of the table forced me to think harder, listen more deeply, and come up with better solutions than ever before. no matter what “yes” could ever have allowed. .

When I wanted to move up in-house as a junior lawyer, I don’t think I met a single person who thought it was a good idea. Everyone advised me to spend “another three or four years in private practice.”
I could have stopped after hearing “we’re cutting jobs, not hiring” 10 or 20 times, but I kept going. It was what I wanted, so I went for it. Eventually, various organizations started contacting us “to talk.” Even though there was no free seat, they invited me for coffee.

These informal conversations gave me a lot of insight and feedback. Not only did they reveal that firms had different views on bringing young lawyers to in-house teams, but they also confirmed that an in-house career was exactly what I was looking for.

Reframe rejection for what it really is: feedback. Sometimes this is helpful and shows where you need to put more effort. Other times, it’s comments you won’t agree with – pushing you to reaffirm your vision.

What you do after rejection is what can bring you closer to your idea of ​​success. No refusal is ever final. At every stage of our careers, there is always more to come.

The rejections don’t stop once you’re qualified, become a partner, or even get the top job. What has changed, however, is that you have gained confidence throughout the process and with each success. It is this confidence that will help you perceive and handle new refusals differently.

Stay pragmatic too. If your boss says “no” five times, eventually he or she will have to say “yes” to something!