Thoughtful, decisive, pays attention to detail, an “achiever”. Does this sound like you? It probably does if you’ve chosen a career in law. The law has a habit of attracting certain personality types and rewarding their hard work with status and financial success. But have you stopped to think how these lawyerly personality traits might manifest in your supervisor and the way in which he or she supervises you?

Once you stop being a Legal Practice Course student and become a trainee you are, of course, still learning but you also need to be useful. Your understanding of being useful may be a bit different to that of your supervisor.

From his or her point of view you are an untested human resource and you need to be brought up to speed, fast. Your supervisor (more than likely a perfectionist by nature) cannot afford to let you cut your teeth by making unsupervised mistakes. You will be watched by someone who has a long list of urgent work-related and personal priorities, so don’t be a demanding or whinging trainee.

When you are set a task, take a careful note. If you are not sure what you are being asked to do, seek clarification there and then — but if you sense that this will reduce your supervisor to tears of rage, then don’t. Go away and find someone in the office who can help you and who isn’t so stressed — this could be your secretary, a professional support lawyer, an associate or the librarian, for example.

Once the firm starts billing for your time, do not look at your hourly rate and assume “I’ll have more than earned my annual salary after a few months”. What you generate in income is a drop in the ocean compared with the firm’s overheads. These not only include lawyers’ salaries, national insurance and pensions payments, but also the wage bill for the receptionists, secretaries etc.

There are other overheads, too: the rent, IT support, heating, lighting, telephones, photocopier service contracts . . . the list goes on. Your supervisor is probably acutely aware of the firm’s financial balance sheet and you should be, too. Be wise to the firm’s business and financial imperatives, it will make you a better lawyer, too, because you will have a clearer understanding of your clients’ needs if they are in business.

Fact: sometimes trainees make mistakes. What should you do if, for instance, you send out the wrong contract or miss a court filing deadline? Supervisors, especially when under pressure, can be very harsh on those who do not measure up to their high standards. Do not count on anyone being concerned about how you feel — but do own up as soon as you mess up. Standing at your supervisor’s desk all watery-eyed and wringing your hands is just about the worst thing you can do. Instead, make a composed, full disclosure of the facts — not your feelings. Your supervisor will be looking to rectify the mistake and limit damage to the firm and the client. Help him or her to do that.

Back to overheads. It’s not only the damage that a mistake can do to the client relationship that your supervisor will be thinking about. One of a law firm’s most consistent overheads is the cost of insurance, and a proportion of this will be computed on its previous claims record in the same way that your car insurance is. Solicitors are asked to fill in forms stating whether they know of any matter in which they are involved that is likely to give rise to a claim. It is no wonder that many supervisors are slow to loosen the reins of supervision.

So if supervisors take a demanding or even a controlling approach, remember that their personality also contributes to their success as lawyers. You could do worse than have those same traits yourself. If things get really bad, seek help. Never struggle on alone.

* Apart from family and friends, there are other networks that can provide support and information. The Junior Lawyers Division (www.lawsociety.org.uk/juniorlawyers.page) brings together the national Young Solicitors Group and national Trainee Solicitors Group and provides a forum for those starting their law careers to get help and advice.

The Junior Lawyers Division also has a freephone Helpline (08000 856 131) that provides confidential advice on issues relating to training contracts and problems at work

The author is associate dean of The City Law School

Times Recommends

• PM to sue Icesave to get savers' money
• Former UBS lawyer pays $6.5m to settle probe
• Test case over non-dom told to pay UK taxes