Confidently, I can say, based on my own participation, that work experience in a law firm offers you great insights into the legal system in regards to legal system and businesses. Recently, I have thankfully found myself engaging in a two week work experience with an 8 hour day during my easter holidays in a law firm named “Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek Part GmbH which has offered my various perspectives on the structure of the German law system and other universal components which I want to share with you.

To contextualize, I got a range of perspectives from fields such as labor law, to competition and adversity law. Luckily, I got to follow fields which I am interested in as they merge with finance and business such as Corporate law/M&A, Private equity/venture capital and commercial and tax law. If you are especially interested in these fields, I encourage you to keep reading as it only gets more exciting from here!

The tasks in my eight-hour schedule were broadly conducting research for clients, giving 10 10-minute speaking presentations to improve my communication skills such as -reading and editing files. Specifically, I was able to get a look in fields dealing with court processes, powers of attorney and annexes. You might wonder what “annexes” are, I did not know it too! But that this a positive side of the work experience. I got to know the legal words and abbreviations and how to use them in context. A list of the most prominent which I came across to me were;

(Note: The definitions and abbreviations may vary based on the language and legal system. For example, I worked in a partly German law firm with a civil law system.)

• Annexes: Added as an extra part to a document
• Balance sheet: A financial document that provides a view of what a company owns and owes
• GF: Manging director
• InsO: Insolvency Code
• IV: Insolvency law
• Liquidity: Financial metrics which assess a debtor’s ability to pay debts
• Powers of attorney: A legal authorization that gives a designated person the power
• Submuntion: Organization of a matter
• ZU: Insolvency

It is important to note that I have gained a considerable amount of pre-knowledge based on this list. Essential skills for this work experience in general however includes: Communication, research, critical thinking, problem solving, adaptability, organization, time management and the list goes on and on. Further, I believe that it is important to dress and behave appropriately in order to get the recognition and respect of colleagues and ot get the best out of the experience. In my closing statement, I strongly encourage you to do a work experience in a law firm as it gives you a practical exposure which helps you to develop transferable skills and clarify your outlook for you future!

Trust me, things are about to get even more interesting.