Some Quick LinkedIn Tips Every Lawyer Needs to Know
Last week in Female Lawyers’ Club, the amazing Sarah Ouis delivered a masterclass for our members on “How to best use LinkedIn to advance your legal career”.
Sarah is a former lawyer who now has her own business (lawbuthow.co) helping lawyers to boost their profile and gain work from LinkedIn. She has over 26,000 followers so she must be doing something right.
I’ve set out some takeaways from Sarah’s excellent session which you can implement today.
Don’t Take It Personally
In the legal profession we can encounter a lot of bad behaviour. From colleagues, clients, opponents etc.
It can be a very stressful job and, on a few occasions, that stress can get the better of people, and they can erupt at work into shouting, blaming, bullying, condescending behaviour. Treating people like a punchbag.
One lesson I am continuing to remind myself of is not to take things personally. If someone is rude to me, it’s actually not about me at all. It’s all to do with the other person and the world they are currently inhabiting, which is presumably a less than optimal place judging by the fact that they are being rude to others. I wish I’d learned this earlier as it would have saved me years of getting wound up at work!
How to Overcome Self-Sabotaging Patterns and SHINE as a Female Lawyer
As female lawyers, we often face immense pressure—juggling a tough career, personal lives, and societal expectations. These challenges can make us vulnerable to self-sabotaging patterns that not only hinder our career growth but also affect our well-being.
This is why I was thrilled to welcome Estelle Read of Beee Coaching to deliver her insightful masterclass, How to Overcome Five Self-Sabotaging Patterns, So That You SHINE.
Here’s a summary of what she shared and why it’s relevant to female lawyers striving to get ahead in their careers while maintaining work-life balance.
How to cope with a legal career if you’re a worrier (like me)
Have you ever lain in bed worrying about work? Have you ever had to get OUT of bed to check an email or deadline? Had that heart-stopping moment when you think you sent the wrong attachment, or sent the email to the wrong address?
A legal career can be stressful at the best of times. And if you’re prone to worrying about things, it can quickly become a bit of a nightmare.
Becoming a Likeable Badass in Law
I’ve recently read the book “Likeable Badass” by Alison Fragale and it was filled with great advice for women professionals. It’s about how you can behave in work to get you ahead whilst maintaining your likeability (in other words, how to walk the tightrope that men don’t have to walk).
I first became aware of this tightrope when I read “Lean In” by Sheryl Sandberg years ago. Sandberg talks about how when women behave assertively at work, they are perceived as less likeable which, in turn, affects their prospects of success in negotiations and their career more generally. When men behave assertively, it does not affect their likeability. The same goes for success: success and likeability are positively correlated for men but negatively correlated for women. Studies have shown that when a woman is successful, people of both genders like her less.