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Most solicitors would be acutely familiar with the technical skills required to be part of the legal profession in 2026. Be it in-house or corporate, commercial or criminal, family law or wills and estates, lawyers need to be well-versed in their specific role or area of practice.

But what about the non-technical skills regularly deployed by solicitors throughout their careers? Solicitors may acknowledge the importance of these skills but might not have considered their current skill level in a particular area, or ways to develop those skills over time, to the benefit of their professional life.

In 2025, the Law Society of NSW developed and launched the Solicitor Capability Framework, supported by project consultants The Institute for Working Futures and Capability.Co and legal consultant Dr Pamela Hanrahan, with significant input from the NSW legal profession.

The Framework is divided into primary and secondary capabilities, with detailed descriptions and skill levels. Sarah Malcher is the Legal Education Manager at the Law Society of NSW and will be among speakers at a panel discussion at the Law Society’s 2026 Annual Conference in March (Panel: Thriving in practice – A Capability Framework to support the legal profession into the future).

Malcher says the focus is on human-centric capabilities. “We’re looking at not just the skills, but the behaviours that are associated with best legal practice.”

The key capabilities highlighted in the resource are Critical Thinking and Decision-Making, Solicitor-Client Relationships, Professionalism, Problem Solving, Communication and Influence, Integrity and Ethics and Adaptive Mindset and Resilience.

Asked if solicitors would be able to ‘see themselves’ in the Framework, Malcher agreed. “This was very carefully developed to apply to all solicitors regardless of their level of experience … their practice area, their segment, it really was designed from the bottom up with input from the profession to apply as broadly as possible.”

Malcher will be joined on the panel by Chair of the Specialist Accreditation Board and Law Society of NSW Councillor and Senior Vice President Jacqueline Dawson, and Chair of The Institute for Working Futures, Dr Marcus Bowles.

“I think [solicitors] will have the opportunity to hear a little bit more about the Capability Framework itself, how it was developed, and most importantly, how they can use it for their own professional development and the ways that it can be integrated into their own learning,” she says.

Malcher, who has been intimately involved with the development of the Framework, says her fellow panellists have been integral to the initiative. “Senior Vice President Dawson has championed this Framework from the beginning as a member of the project’s Steering Committee, which helped us to set the parameters and the goals of the project from the outset,” she says.

As Malcher explains, Bowles “has many years of experience developing similar frameworks across a variety of professions”.

Asked about practitioners who might not be sure that the Capability Framework is about them, Malcher says the resource is deliberately broad in its application. “[T]here are always opportunities to further develop their own skills, even if they are not managing a team, or a large team, this is about their own personal development and it’s about their own ways of practice and the ways that they can identify and grow their proficiencies.”

The Law Society of NSW 2026 Annual Conference – Uniting the Profession, will be held at ILUMINA, 1 Elizabeth St, Sydney on 11 March 2026. The full program can be seen here.