
As we step into 2025, it’s natural to start reflecting on what the year ahead might hold for you and your career. Perhaps you’ve already set specific goals, or maybe you simply feel it’s time for a change. Whatever your aspirations, creating a career plan can be a powerful way to clarify your thoughts and chart a path forward. By defining clear short-term and long-term objectives and outlining a strategy for your professional growth, a well-structured plan can help you make the most of your time and unlock your full potential.
As a Legal Secretary, there are many routes of progression available to you. You can specialise in a certain area of law to become an expert in that field. You can expand your skills by taking on more PA duties. You may wish to progress beyond the role of a Legal Secretary and be interested in becoming a Paralegal, Legal Executive or perhaps in the future a Solicitor.
ILSPA has collaborated with Secsinthecity to advise how to develop a career plan that will ensure 2025 sees your career move forward and your goals get met.
Firstly, what is a career plan?
A career plan is a strategic tool that is used to guide you toward your career goals. It contains clearly defined, well thought out objectives with actions to achieve them. This career development tool will help steer you in the right direction, aid your decision on whether you need to spend time enhancing skills through training and development, which opportunities you should seek, and the best time to take them.
Once established, your development plan serves as an ongoing career tool, enabling you to review and update it before or after any significant career milestone.
So, how do you create a career plan?
1) Identify Your Goals
First things first, sit down and consider what it is you ultimately want to achieve in your career. Once thought through, note down your career goals - using a mind-map format often helps for your initial brainstorm. If you need help, pose yourself the go-to interview question of ‘where do I want to be in 5 years’ time?’ Extending this question to 10 years, helps you visualise the bigger picture. The ‘how do I get there’ element isn’t necessary at this stage - having an idea of the bigger picture is simply an aid to put the small stepping stones in place later down the road.
If you’re an aspiring Legal PA currently working in a Legal Secretary role, identifying your dream outcome is the first step. As explained in Secsinthecity’s Legal PA job description, there’s a crossover with the roles of Legal PAs and Legal Secretaries. The distinction lies with Legal Secretaries often providing support to an entire team or department, with Legal PAs offering assistance on a one-to-one basis, managing the personal calendars and diaries of one or more bosses. Legal PAs also assume greater responsibility on the legal front, engaging in high-level tasks such as business development, project management, and client liaison. With this in mind, the move to a Legal PA from a Legal Secretary is a natural step.
2) Assess Your Skills, Qualifications and Experience
Once you have identified your key career goals you can start to bridge the gap between where you are now and where you wish to be. In order to start putting the pieces in place, you will need to conduct a self-assessment of your current soft and technical skills, qualifications and experience.
Start by considering how you’re currently performing - what you are excelling at? Where do your weaknesses lie? From here you can evaluate the strengths and gaps in your skillset. Perhaps you need to upskill your legal knowledge, ability to work autonomously, or diary management. For more information on the in-demand skills across the profession, see our ‘Guide to Diary Management’.
Ask yourself the following key questions:
• What have I enjoyed doing in my prior roles?
• What soft and hard skills have I learned?
• What experience have I gained?
• What qualifications do I have?
• What do I had wish done differently or explored further?
• Ultimately, can I see myself doing this for the rest of my career?
3) Research and Identify Career Paths
Upon the evaluation of your skillset, start to explore job roles that match your expertise and preferences. Remember - this is an exploratory stage, so don’t be alarmed if your goals don’t align with the roles you’re seeking. This is why you are making a career plan in the first place; to identify the skills you need to achieve your goals and then put together a strategic plan to develop them. Within this research stage, it’s wise to explore a myriad of avenues.
The changing landscape of work with the rise of AI, return to office schemes, and development of responsibilities across certain roles, makes adaptability key. Giving yourself a sound understanding of alternative career paths and factoring these into your career plan helps to future-proof your career.
4) Create Your Goals
The key to setting effective career goals is specificity. A clear, focused goal helps you gather relevant information and better understand the steps needed to achieve it. Set a timeframe or deadline to stay on track and create tailored action plans to guide your progress.
We’ve detailed a career plan template below to help you create short-term and long-term career plans.
We advise you to put together two types of career plan: short-term (6 months-1 year) and long-term (5-10 years).
Short-term plan:
The short-term plan will be your main reference point to keep you on track as you progress through your career. This short-term career plan will consist of goals you are hoping to achieve in the near future, making them achievable over the period of 6 months - 1 year. For example, gaining particular experience or starting a new qualification. ILSPA offers a range of legal secretarial qualifications that are perfect for individuals looking to advance their legal knowledge or expand their skill set.
Long-term plan:
The long-term career plan is a useful tool to remind you of the bigger picture and what you are ultimately working towards. What are your key career milestones over the next 5 to 10 years?
Career Plan Template
Each stage of your career plan should consist of the four sections below:
Career objective:
Remember, this needs to be ‘measurable’ so try to be as detailed as possible here: what is the ultimate role, position or job title? For example:
‘I wish to become a Legal PA, earning £40,000 at a Criminal Law Firm in London’.
To be completed by:
Use this section to set yourself a deadline or timeframe by which the goal should be achieved. If this is a short-term career goal, try to be more specific by setting yourself a date to complete this goal. If this is a long-term goal, a vaguer and more flexible timeline is acceptable. For example:
‘I wish to become a Legal PA, earning £40,000 at a Criminal Law Firm in London within the next two years’.
Actions to achieve this goal:
Use this section to list a few bullet points. Remember, these need to be realistic within the given timeframe. We advise listing between 3 - 5 smaller actions, such as signing up for an online course to improve your skills. For example:
- Complete a Criminal Law course with ILSPA or another training provider to advance my knowledge in that area.
- Take a look at the PA courses available and gain the relevant skills needed.
- Tailor my CV with ILSPA's help to highlight my experiences and skills, showcase relevant responsibilities and achievements from my Legal Secretary role.
Tools or resources required:
End your career plan with a section to list any resources that might be required for this career development goal.
Creating a career plan is not just a proactive step toward achieving your professional aspirations; it's a powerful tool for gaining clarity and direction in your career journey. By defining your goals, assessing your skills, and exploring potential career paths, you can build a roadmap tailored to your ambitions. As we begin 2025, embrace this year as an opportunity to take control of your professional development and turn your aspirations into achievable milestones.