An increasing number of law firms are providing their assistant solicitors with career planning support of some kind, whether internally via human resources or partner mentoring or through specialist external career management coaching. A key message in this approach is that individual lawyers should take responsibility for their own career development and planning and often this will be about making a choice between various career options (e.g. whether they aspire to partnership or not) and making and implementing a plan to achieve their objectives.
Making partner in a law firm used to be the only career goal of a solicitor in private practice. Other options are now becoming more openly discussed but, for those who become partners, the paths they can take once they have been promoted are often unclear.
