Why do you want to become a commercial lawyer - As a non law student with no legal experience/ events/ opportunities

[Dervise2001]

Hey everyone! I just wanted to post a new thread since I am struggling with the question, "why do you want to study commercial law?" As a non-law student, this question is much harder than expected. I do not have any legal experience that could have sparked the interest. I am struggling to answer the "why" without being too generic, such as "I enjoy the intellectually stimulating aspect of commercial law." My degree background is in Psychology, so should I find ways to link them together? I also thought of finding ways to link my work experience of working as a cafe assistant, shop floor assistant, charity volunteer, and tutoring into this answer. However, it was too generic of an answer that had no relevance to commercial law. I have tried to find some books to widen my understanding and use them as part of my application, but I did not find any unique commercial law books.

I would be very grateful for ANY advice on how to tackle this question, coming from a psychology background and as someone who is working to widen their commercial awareness.

 

[Runner]

Hi Dervise2001,

I too struggled with this question when I was stating out my law application and before securing a TC with a US firm. I studied business management at university and had hardly any legal experience, except for an open day and a diversity scheme with a public legal body. What I was able to pull out was my volunteering work at my university's student conduct and appeals office where I undertook quite a bit of procedural type of justice work. That gave me transferable skills I thought were core to being a lawyer (e.g. document review, witness and evidence analysis, navigating complex procedural rules and regulations etc.). I was then able to leverage this with my interests in commercial law by comparing my past business related experiences (e.g. internships in consultancy). More specifically, I pointed to the fact that I had a lot of project management experience as a student consultant and running a couple student societies. Despite the similarities with consultancy/project management to commercial law in terms of overall business aims (e.g. in a M&A or deals timeline), I nuanced that my motivations and passions were more aligned to the stages where I was helping clients execute on their goals.

Personally, I don't think having lots of legal experience is the key to application success. Rather:
(1) a good understanding of what the target law firm do - what they are well-known for, their practice areas, their achievement publications etc.
(2) how they assist clients achieve goals as opposed to other high level service providers (like accountants, consultants, banks etc) - e.g. in a deal to buy something, what type of advisers does a client instruct and for what purpose? Remember, commercial lawyers are just one feature of that panel of advisers in enabling the success of a deal-making.

Then matching those nuances from your career research to your reasons/motivations for pursuing law. These motivations should always be backed-up with your decision-making process from experience and examples of skills.

If you need any specific advice, feel free to DM me.

I hope all the best with your applications!