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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Amma Usman" data-source="post: 182829" data-attributes="member: 36740">Hi [USER=29878]@ashwright[/USER], thanks for your great questions, I hope you’re having a lovely week thus far!1.  Being a law student myself, I totally felt the same way preparing for case studies as well! Basic principles from your degree do help, such as contract law principles. However, from my experience, I needed to do more outside my degree. To understand the content of case studies more, one needs to delve deeper into how businesses truly operate and how a law firm fits neatly into all that. Often times, these case studies are typically on M&A (mergers and acquisitions), PE (private equity), ESG (environmental, social, and governance), or even economic conditions such as inflation. I found that without foundational knowledge in business studies and economics, I would have struggled with case studies. The reason was simple - its all about the money! Businesses, law firms, and other profit-generating businesses are influenced by market changes, so understanding the rationales and effects of these changes, will position you well for case study discussions.In line with all that, what helped me further was practice, practice, practice! Attend as many mock assessments and case study workshops as you possibly can! You pick up a lot per session, and this is knowledge you transfer during the actual ACs.Pro-Tip: - If it’s a business in the case study, what would be the most important objectives to that business? Usually, this is profit maximization and consumer satisfaction.- If it’s a charity or social enterprise in the case study, what would be the most important objectives to that enterprise? Usually, this is transmitting a certain message or effecting a change within a certain field. An additional point worth mentioning here is that even charities will need money to function, so this should be another point discussed in such case studies (despite social change being their overarching objective).2. You’re on the right track with listening to podcasts and keeping updated on the news. Focus less on the breadth of information you retain, and more on your ability to talk about these updates in real-time. This is because having good knowledge on the key business updates is usually sufficient. To me, the remaining branch of commercial awareness comes from being able to relay those updates on a broader scope, such as how it applies to other businesses and the inner workings of a law firm. For example, say you read on the news this morning that inflation is on the rise. This short update is enough for you to draw connections with so many concepts.- The higher the interest rate, the higher the cost of borrowing. This will mean that economic agents such as individuals and businesses will borrow less because they have to give back way more money when paying back debts. Individuals may take out less mortgages to buy houses, and this decreases the spending activity in that given country. As a result, outward migration may occur as people will still want to buy houses but are finding this cheaper to do in other countries.- Let’s take businesses next. A private equity firm may engage in less private equity activity if the price of debt is higher. This is because a lot of the companies they purchase are bought using high amounts of leverage (debt).- A law firm itself may hold off on any internal projects as it will want to spend wisely during such times and wait till economic conditions are better. Connecting this with the PE point above, law firms that have a high percentage of PE clients will also see decreased work coming in, seeing as the businesses themselves are engaging in less activity.Therefore, you see how such a short business update has given rise to so many spillover effects. You’re on a great path with your commercial awareness journey!Another thing I would recommend is journaling. You could write a short memo/note every night before bed on all the things you’ve learnt that day and see if you can connect it to any other developments/ concepts. This significantly helped me in making my commercial awareness more of a natural personal trait. It’s something I’m also consistently working to improve on, as it’s like a muscle that needs constant flexing!3. Learning for my career was quite different to learning academically. I found that despite the career being legal, I needed to spend more time on understanding the business aspects. This is because university already taught me about the law, and I had to brush up on my economics. Furthermore, I actually still needed some legal knowledge. This is because I was only in first/second year and hadn’t studied company law yet. I didn’t know about the meaning of things such as NDAs, warranties, indemnities, M&A, etc. This was time spent outside university learning new concepts. Take it one step at a time and avoid overwhelming yourself with too much information!Hope this helps <img src="data:image/gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAIAAAAAAAP///yH5BAEAAAAALAAAAAABAAEAAAIBRAA7" class="smilie smilie--sprite smilie--sprite1" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)" loading="lazy" data-shortname=":)" /></blockquote>

Verification: Our company is called, "The Corporate ___ Academy". What is the missing word here?

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