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Thank you
Many thanks to those people who responded to our advert below (here is the link to the original site). We’re pleased report that we now have appointed quite a few additional writers, as requested, but please feel to contact me on Twitter should you be interested in writing with us.
Hi
Applications are now open for occasional article writers to a blog on corporate law. There will be no fixed demand for articles. If you’re generally interested in law, and like to read relevant media such as the BBC Business page, the Times Law Reports, Legal Week, The Lawyer, or Lawyer2be, this might genuinely interest you.
We are looking above all for good communicators.
The blog has just been launched, but posts are regularly advertised on Twitter to our 560 followers. Followers include law firms and legal journalists.
The blog is here: http://legal-aware.org/
Whilst this blog is the official site of the independent Legal Awareness Society run by student members at BPP for all members of BPP, we welcome applications from law students at other schools.
This is a student-run society of BPP. BPP is one of the leading legal education providers in England. Our blog emphasises core strengths of BPP education, including law, finance, business and extra-curricular activities such as pro bono.
The aim of the blog is to raise awareness of commercial law issues to a business community and to law students themselves.
Immediate start.
Applicants are welcome from any law student, particularly those doing the GDL or LPC, or LLM.
If you’re interested, please provide us with an email address with a brief description of your motivation and educational background ; we’d be grateful if you could make any applications as soon as possible. Please also don’t hesitate to contact us if you should like to make an informal enquiry.
It would be helpful if you could state whether you have any preference for writing on any of the following topics:
general law news
arbitration
climate change and the law
competition
corporate social responsibility
debt finance
e-commerce
employment and pensions
insurance
intellectual property
IPOs and rights issues
Islamic finance
joint ventures
share aquisitions
technology and the media
We are particularly keen to involve law students who wish to demonstrate commercial awareness and/or teamwork skills in corporate law training contract applications this year. However, please do contact us also if you’d rather be a barrister than a solicitor, or if you have a stronger interest in other areas of law. For example, we regularly post on privacy, so an interest in human rights would be desirable by us.
Thank you.
Commercial awareness
This is an educational video, an animation of two people interested in business and law talking about commercial awareness. All characters appearing in this work are fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely coincidental. Note that they are not promoting any product, service or cause.
If you have any complaints about the video, please free to comment freely below.
Transcript:
Frank
Hi Bill. Good to see you again. What are you doing here in Rugby? What have you been upto?
Bill
Hi Frank. I thought Rugby wold make a nice change from Ipswich. I know you set up that e-learning business some time ago, as you fancied a change from being a mini-cab driver. Look, I know full well you’ve always wanted to study law and to becme a corporate lawyer one day. I admire you for that. Honest I do. Instead, I’ve been pottering around in management of a local shop. I’m launching a new range of pottery. Don’t forget, I’m quite a bit older than you, and I’ve been around the block a bit.
Frank
Bill, as a business professional with your company, what do you do to keep up your commercial knowledge of the rest of the world?
Bill
Frank, that’s not too difficult to answer. I have a lot of extra-curricular interests these days like reading, going to art galleries and the theatre. But for commercial awareness, I think it’s useful to read the financial headlines. I tend to get my information from the regular broadsheets, and the trusted sources of news on the TV and internet. Often, I also look at the textbooks from my University course many years ago! Luckily I can pop into a good local academic bookshop.
Frank
Bill, first thing’s first, what do you think that “commercial awareness” actually is?
Bill
Commercial awareness can be simply defined as staying updated on daily happenings and developments in the business and commercial world, I reckon. It’s probably fair to say that a significant portion of law today revolves around business and commerce, in the marketplace, between cities and regions and on a larger scale across entire cultures and countries. It can be fun to have an understanding of different cultures and countries in my opinion as I love travelling. Hence, commercial awareness is one of the key requirements a good and competent solicitor needs to master apparently.
Frank
How do you obtain commercial awareness, Frank?
Bill
We’ll this can’t happen overnight, but can be built over a period of time, starting early during your basic education and then honing up your expertise as you grow into starting a career and climb the ladder. It is critical to know of the overall framework within which law operates though in my opinion.
Some of the methods by which you can familiarize yourself with the idea of commercial awareness can be categorized as follows:
Number 1. Kearning and research – this is the most basic and easiest way to gain commercial knowledge. Reading newspapers, business publications such as magazines, company newsletters or watching or reading business-oriented programmes and discussions through various media.
Number 2. ??It also means staying updated on the latest deals, transactions, legislative changes and other relevant developments over a significant period of time, such that you are able to understand and appreciate both the big picture as well as contemplate micro-level analysis. ??Putting such developments into perspective with the way the economy and society are currently progressing will help you understand the implications of change and how it might affect you or the environment around you or different industries and business segments.??
Frank
Why is it important for you? I get the impression that commerce and law definitely go together. In your opinion, is business important to lawyers?
Bill
Look I’ve never been a lawyer, but commercial awareness is a key competency for all city job applications for lawyers I’m told. Frank, to be blunt, I wouldn’t know about commercial law really as I work in a small pottery business. There’s not a shred of doubt that you should aim to know the business of your client inside out, if you wish to be a successful lawyer.
For all those individuals who are aspiring to becoming lawyers, commercial awareness is an important capability which can make the difference between becoming or not becoming a good lawyer. ??Clients expect their lawyers to know in-depth details on how a business is run, what are the key factors for profitability and growth and how best to make optimal use of resources at hand.
Frank
Can you give me an example of commercial awareness?
Bill
Commercial awareness in general is comprised of knowledge of current deals and transactions and issues faced in the business world. For example, the ‘Credit Crunch’ is an issue that businesses are now facing. We found things tough in the pottery industry. People viewed our mugs as luxury. People will expect you to know about the credit crunch, and know what implications it has for your clients and their business. ??You must have an understanding of the business environment and the operational grid under which business is conducted on a daily basis.
Frank
Should you develop commercial awareness sooner rather than later?
Bill
Frank, it is best to start early on the road to commercial awareness. You’re just a youngster really. The first phase where this requirement will crop up is when you begin applying for your training contract. Most application forms have sections that are devoted to gathering information on how tuned-in to the business atmosphere you are as a prospective solicitor. ??This does not mean that you should be a business and economic guru; at this stage firms are only interested in checking that you have some basic understanding and an aptitude for the concept.
Frank
How do you prove your commercial awareness if you’re applying for a job?
Bill
For a prospective person working in the City, apparently, displaying a keen sense of commercial awareness will constitute a major portion of the application and recruitment process. You can begin with the details you provide in your application forms, continue with gathering data on the kind of business and practice the law firm you are applying to is involved in, and provide final proof of your proficiency during the interview process where quite a bit of time will be spent on measuring your commercial awareness.
Frank
Can you give me examples of such questions in an interview?
Bill
A friend of mine went for an interview at a law firm. He’s a corporate lawyer in fact. Typical commercial awareness questions include:
1. Describe a company you think is doing well/badly and explain why you think this is so.
2. What do you think are key qualities for a company to have to be successful?
3. What significant factors have affected this industry in recent years?
Frank
Thanks Bill
Bill
Pleasure Frank
The importance of the MBA to my legal studies
This article was first published on the website BusinessBecause.
I am currently loving my MBA at BPP Business School. The mix of students, from all walks of life from public utilities to huge corporate industry corporates, are incredibly diverse in their views, but make the rich learning tapestry unique for me. Of course, the MBA is a very intense course, whatever anyone else tells you. There’s a lot of extra skills to learn, as well as reading textbooks and original papers (the ones from the Harvard Business Review are particularly high quality); such as giving presentations (such as marketing pitches), groupwork and teamwork, financial and managerial accounting, understanding (and appreciating!) the financial data of the FT and the WSJ, and much more.
In this intense competitive environment for law students, I would strongly recommend people to consider doing a MBA at some stage around their LPC. I will be doing my LPC at BPP in January 2012. I completed my LLM (Master of Law from the College of Law in International Commercial Legal Practice) between 2008 and 2010, across a wide range of subjects including international public companies law, international commercial law, international mergers and acquisitions, intellectual property, international arbitration practice, international joint ventures, and international capital markets and loans. Doing the MBA allows you to understand the huge amount of detail in the business drivers behind these commercial entities. I believe that such a learning experience is far more important than fulfilling the ‘commercial awareness’ box of training contract applications – it should be something engrained in the DNA of commercial lawyers, as the corporate finance departments subserve much of the other practice seats in other major corporate firms.
You appreciate very little of this when you complete the Graduate Diploma in Law, if you’re ‘converting’ from non-law to law; I suspect the amount of business and commercial law is not that huge in traditional LLB(Hons), including the one at the University I attended, Cambridge, some time ago. Learning how to talk to people and understanding the sectors of the clients you talk to are equally valuable skills to understanding the lex of the Romans, I’d humbly submit.
Being based near the Gherkin, you get a real sense of excitement of what the City contributes to London. I don’t say this from a political allegiance – in fact, my political sympathies lie elsewhere. However, seeing how the financial and legal words interact with one another makes me intensely proud of the work that the square mile does. This is revealed in the statistic that it takes around 16 different disciplines to produce a successful initial public offering (flotation) in London. England is incredibly lucky to have such a skills mix working very close to each other, which is clearly an inspiring environment to work in.
