New skills for new suits: Preparing new lawyers for practice

In October 2025, the Centre for the Future of the Legal Profession hosted its third Think Tank, New Skills for new suits: Preparing new lawyers for practice, bringing together participants from leading law firms, the bar, legal regulators, academics and current law students, to identify and analyse critical issues in the new lawyer journey, devise strategies to develop graduate skills, and explore skills development post-admission.

Key Discussions

The Think Tank identified four clusters of skills that define a ‘practice-ready’ lawyer: personal values and character traits, interpersonal skills, technical legal skills, and business of law skills. Graduates are expected to combine ethical awareness, communication and collaboration, strong legal fundamentals, and commercial and digital competence, including AI literacy.

Participants agreed that developing these skills is a continuous process beginning before admission and extending throughout a lawyer’s career. Legal education should build solid foundations, while practical legal training and early professional experience deepen and refine capability.

The discussions also highlighted the need for closer collaboration between universities, PLT providers, employers and regulators to ensure consistency in skill development, and for stronger emphasis on leadership, mentorship and lifelong learning to support lawyers’ ongoing growth and adaptability.

Key Outcomes and Strategies

• Agreement that practice readiness involves both human-centred skills and technological fluency.

• Recognition that AI-awareness and digital literacy are now baseline competencies for all lawyers.

• Call for a national conversation on defining minimum skill standards for law graduates.

• Support for structured mentorship and supervision programs across all practice settings.

• Endorsement of micro-credential and “stackable” learning models to modernise post-admission education.

• Emphasis on lifelong learning as a core professional expectation.

Conclusion

The Think Tank underscored that preparing new lawyers for practice is a shared responsibility across education providers, employers, and regulators. Building the profession’s future requires investment in adaptable skills, ethical judgement, and continuous learning. As technology reshapes legal work, the most valuable lawyers will be those who combine technical proficiency with human insight, integrity, and resilience.

Previous Think Tanks

May 2025

Future Lawyers in a Tech-Driven World: Strategies for Success.

This Think Tank explored how rapid technological change is reshaping the legal profession and what lawyers need to succeed in this evolving environment.

July 2024

Rethink, Reevaluate, Redo? Navigating recruitment and retention challenges in the legal profession 

This Think Tank examined how Australian law firms can tackle recruitment and retention challenges by rethinking culture, leadership, wellbeing, diversity and the influence of technology, particularly generative AI, to build fulfilling and future-ready legal careers