Reflection on rejections

Written by Polina krivosejeva

Although attaining a career in law can be rewarding in terms of development opportunities, career progression and compensation, it can be very competitive to get a job in the legal industry. Obtaining a degree in Law takes a lot of hard work, yet it represents only a fraction of the challenges aspiring lawyers may face on the way to qualification. Arguably, one of the hardest steps is securing a training contract. This is because the odds of getting rejected from law firms when applying for a training contract are extremely high, especially in your first cycle of applications.

According to the Law Society’s Annual Statistics. The number of legal graduates in England and Wales for the 2021-22 academic year was 18,927. Of them, an average of 5,754 secured a training contract, which is roughly 30%. The average age entered onto the roll in 2020-21, across both genders, is 29.9 years. This is how competitive the industry is! Therefore, getting rejected from training contracts and vacation scheme applications is something most aspiring solicitors are highly likely to face at some point.

In this article, we will provide practical tips on how to deal with rejections and turn this unpleasant experience into a strength.

Let it sink, keep on moving forwards and don’t give up

It can be highly disheartening to open an email from a graduate recruitment team saying: “Thank you for expressing your interest in joining [insert law firm], but we are sorry to inform you that…”. And all of this after you spent long hours (or most likely days or even months) putting a lot of time and effort into drafting application(s), attending law fairs and researching the firm. It is very healthy to feel upset and take time to process your emotions when you have worked so hard to achieve your goal. The most important thing is that you do not let rejections define you as a person. Internalising failures will negatively affect your ability to push past the setbacks and find the motivation to pick yourself back up.

Considering how competitive the legal industry is, it is not difficult to see how one may feel like giving up altogether. However, those who have an unequivocal drive for a career in law, despite being rejected, stand a much better chance at success. Not only will this help you to excel as a lawyer but those candidates are much more likely to showcase the required perseverance, tenacity and resilience. Honing those qualities will help you to find ways to cope effectively and persevere. 

Steps to take after receiving a rejection

There is a number of proactive steps you can take to get where you want to be.

• Reflect on your written applications

Ask for feedback if the law firm offers it but bigger law firms are known for providing generic rejection emails due to a large volume of applicants. It can be difficult to identify points for improvement when you can’t get individual feedback, not least because you can’t always say if you got rejected due to not meeting certain requirements or simply because there were too many applicants. But there are still things you can reflect on. Have you rushed your application, have you actually answered the question asked? Was it well structured? Have you related it sufficiently back to you (where appropriate)? Maybe ask a friend or family member to help provide some constructive feedback or maybe reach out to one of the many platforms that offer free advice to the legal community. This leads to the next point.

• Join mentorship programmes or use career services at university

There is a wide variety of mentoring schemes aimed at helping aspiring lawyers improve training contract applications and boost confidence (for example, GROW, Women Higher Up, NRG Lawyers and many more). You may be surprised how empowering it is to join a community of like-minded individuals who are going through the same thing and know the pain. It provides a safe space to ask for advice and support, share knowledge and discuss application strategies and vent frustrations. It is equally beneficial to utilise your university careers department for assistance.

• Keep attending events and law fairs hosted by, or in partnership with, law firms

Talk to trainees and the graduate recruitment team at legal events and soak up their insights about the process and the firm. It is very important that you take every opportunity to ask questions at those events to get that you cannot find the answers to online. This will help to elevate your application as you will have unique and personalised answers. Be sure to take comprehensive notes for future reference.

• Consider other careers and get varied work experience

It may sound counterintuitive if you are convinced that a career in law is for you. But it can serve as a great lever in your future applications. When you open your mind to other career options it can help you to say with confidence why you want to become a lawyer and provide an authentically convincing answer to one of the key questions: ‘why law?’, when you know that other jobs do not click. Moreover, non-law-related jobs are highly valued in training contract applications as you are well placed to demonstrate your transferrable skills and knowledge of how a business runs.

Personal example

It is all well and great to talk about dealing with rejections in theory, but in practice, things can get a bit more complicated. Therefore, I am grateful for having an opportunity to share a personal example of my experience of being rejected by law firms. Although I believe that every person will have a unique way of showcasing/developing/mastering dealing with challenges and failures, I hope that you will find this example relatable and helpful in one way or another.

During this cycle, I applied for four vacation schemes. It may sound not good enough given the competitive nature of the industry but there were several reasons for this. At this point, I received rejections from 3 of them. After receiving a rejection from the first firm, I was absolutely broken. The important thing is what you do once hard feelings have passed.

The two reasons why I found rejections particularly distressing:

Firstly, as I applied only to four firms, I placed a huge focus on the quality of my answers. I did extensive research into the firms I applied to. I spent a lot of time tailoring my answers to the particular firm. I had personally interacted with all four firms. I had worked on applications most evenings while being in full-time employment. The effort I had put in was to my standards instrumental. I imagine there will be a lot of you who can relate.

Secondly, my mental health diagnosis meant that it took me a great deal of effort to deal with the “why me?” aspect of applications in general. Despite being confident in my professional abilities, due to certain past experiences in my life, one of the greatest challenges for me has always been a pervasive fear of rejection. Over the years I made huge progress in that regard, yet this has had a substantial influence on the way I reacted to my first rejection. When I received a rejection from the first law firm, it made me feel rejected on all levels. I did internalise it and I did feel like a failure and I allowed myself to sit with this feeling for a couple of days, letting it sink in. I always find it helpful to live through difficult emotions as suppressed and unprocessed negative emotions can lead to further major health issues, both physical and mental. However, even with those extreme feelings I never lost engrained drive and desire to become a lawyer and it never crossed my mind to even think about giving up. After processing my negative emotions, I was able to regain focus on my ultimate goal – I want to become a lawyer and I will become one! Embracing this mindset allowed me to deal with the other two rejections in a much calmer manner.

I then spoke to my mentor and other members of the mentoring group, who understand what it feels like.  It helped me to stop internalising rejections. Journaling my thoughts and planning steps that I will take to improve my applications helped me to feel in control of the situation as I have a clear plan as to how I will get where I want to be. I also accepted that you can’t always win. Sometimes it is just not going to go the way I planned. These are important lessons that I would have not learnt elsewhere.

I want to finish this blog with two quotes from one of my favourite books called “Grit” by Angela Duckworth which nicely fits into the discussion of this article:

“I learned a lesson I’d never forget. The lesson was that, when you have setbacks and failures, you can’t overreact to them.”

“Passion for your work is a little bit of discovery, followed by a lot of development, and then a lifetime of deepening.”

― Angela Duckworth, Grit

I hope this will help someone going through the same process to feel like they are not alone! I am still trying to figure it all out but I know it will all fall into place soon.