About every fifth of the approximately 165,000 lawyers licensed in Germany does not work in a law firm, but in a company or in an organization. The German Institute for Legal Departments and Corporate Lawyers in Frankfurt (DIRUJ) has almost 5,000 members and claims to be the leading provider of publications, training courses and conferences for this target group. Michael Henning, managing partner of the institute, explains why corporate lawyers in particular currently have hardly any access to further training to become a specialist lawyer.
SZ: Company lawyer, legal advisor, in-house lawyer – what do these job titles stand for anyway?
Michael Henning: Corporate lawyers, the synonym for this is legal counsel, have at least completed their studies with the first legal examination and are employed in the legal or compliance department of a company or organization. They only advise their employer. However, most of them are not allowed to represent them in court. In-house lawyers, on the other hand, require the second state examination and must be admitted by the bar association. That is currently around two thirds of the 30,000 to 35,000 corporate lawyers in Germany.
How useful is further training to become a specialist lawyer for legal advisors?
In the medium-sized economy, where lawyers work more as generalists, you can get by without them. However, in some sectors of the economy, in-depth knowledge of a legal area is very valuable. Banks value lawyers specializing in banking and capital market law. Large corporations need specialist lawyers for employment law. Specialization is progressing everywhere.
Is it even possible to do the course alongside the job?
In terms of workload, definitely. In-house lawyers, however, often face formal hurdles. Because in the context of the admission as a specialist lawyer, you have to prove a large number of practical cases, especially court proceedings. And company lawyers are not allowed to represent their employer in court. This limitation makes it difficult, if not impossible, for syndici to prove the required number of cases. Then the specialist lawyer remains a dream.
Would more in-house lawyers like to become specialist lawyers?
I have the impression. A specialization would help lawyers in large legal departments in particular to gain more skills and thus visibility.
What would have to change so that in-house lawyers have easier access to the specialist lawyer certificate?
It’s primarily about case evidence. As an in-house lawyer who wants to train in an area with which his employer has a lot to do, such as construction and real estate law, you can hardly meet the requirement because you are not allowed to represent your own employer in court. For in-house lawyers, there should therefore be a correspondingly adapted case record regulation.
Which training for lawyers pays the most in terms of career and income growth?
The doctorate is still number one in Germany, followed by the LL.M., i.e. the Anglo-Saxon Master of Laws, or the MBA. It can be advantageous to acquire these titles abroad. Only then does the specialist lawyer come in third. In addition to these time-consuming further training courses, further training courses in the areas of legal tech and digitization are useful for in-house lawyers. The growing interdisciplinarity demands a lot from the in-house lawyers today, which is not or hardly taught in the course. One must not overlook the fact that legal education in Germany has remained unchanged for decades.