Professional Career Development
At Shearman & Sterling we believe that the key to being a successful lawyer in today's global economy is to continually hone your skills.
The firm is committed to providing extensive development opportunities for all our lawyers to assist them to grow professionally, intellectually and personally. In return, we expect learning to be a lifelong commitment for our lawyers.
Continuing Professional Development
The firm is a Law Society accredited provider of Continuous Professional Development (CPD) courses and frequently engages with experts and industry professionals, as well as our own lawyers, to deliver many of our development programmes. Additionally, we encourage our lawyers to attend external conferences and events across the world to support their ongoing development.
The Professional Development and Training Department offers innovative, targeted legal training ranging from corporate law and tax to banking and finance. Additionally we provide foundation and diploma courses for lawyers in association with external providers such as the College of Law.
Our technical training programmes enable associates from different practice groups, and often different offices around the world, to learn together and share ideas and best practice.
The Complete Lawyer
We recognise that to succeed in a law firm, as in business generally, technical ability alone is not enough - other attributes are required. The Shearman & Sterling core competencies outline the skills and behaviours needed by associates to become "the complete lawyer". That is, a lawyer who is both technically excellent and equally adept at managing oneself, managing others, developing business, managing transactions and building relationships with those around them.
Whilst we recruit the very best, we realise that it is rare for one lawyer to demonstrate high levels of competence in all of these areas. The firm therefore runs an ongoing programme of structured development for every lawyer within the London office. The programmes are based on the firm's core competencies, agreed by Partners, as contributing significantly to personal development and ultimately the success of the firm.
Tailored to meet the specific needs of Shearman & Sterling lawyers at different stages in their careers, from junior associates through to senior partners, the programmes have been designed to develop excellence in all areas of the firm's core competencies.
Global Opportunities
As a global firm we recognize the importance of working collaboratively with our colleagues from offices around the world. To encourage the building of relationships and cross-border learning, our lawyers frequently meet together at international Shearman & Sterling events.
Our associates are also encouraged to join one of our language clubs, which provides them with an opportunity to learn in an informal environment with other colleagues within the firm. We currently offer language classes in French, German, Spanish and Italian.
Ongoing Support
In addition to our structured development programmes, we offer ongoing mentoring and coaching to ensure that our lawyers achieve their full potential. Our mentoring programme promotes interaction, learning and support between our junior and senior lawyers. Additionally, we provide coaching to a number of our senior lawyers to support them with their development and their next career step.
Underpinning all aspects of professional development is the informal professional guidance and evaluation given to our lawyers on a regular basis by the partners with whom they work. Formal evaluations are given once per year, with frequent opportunities to discuss progress.