Germany careers
Career
A career at our firm
We don't expect you to be a qualified lawyer or a specialist in a particular field of law when you arrive at our firm. When you start working here, you will be assigned to one or more partners according to your personal, professional and geographic preferences. This way, you can be part of a team of lawyers and benefit from their personal experiences.
This team will provide both co-ordination and support during your first few years at the firm.
Personal responsibility from the very start
It is an essential part of our corporate culture for young lawyers to take personal responsibility for handling and managing their cases very soon after they begin their career with us. Initially, you will handle bigger and more complex cases with experienced lawyers. As you become more familiar with these cases, you will be able to handle them with increasing freedom, depending on your level of qualification. In our view, direct contact with clients helps develop your legal skills rapidly.
Your path to partnership
In Germany, lawyers are listed on a firm's letterhead after about two years. You may become a partner around five years after starting with the firm if the co-operation has been successful from both a personal and a professional point of view and if there is a positive vote by the partnership. Distribution of profits is based on the so-called lock-step system. In Austria, law firms decide whether to continue working with their employees between their law exams and their registration as a lawyer. The decision to invite them to be partners is made some two years after registration. For all partnership candidates, the decision-making procedure is launched at an early stage by a regional committee in direct talks with the candidate, the responsible partners and the practice members.
Before affiliation as a partner, you will be posted to other Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer offices for a limited period on a rotating basis so you and your new partners have the opportunity to broaden your experience of collaboration and to develop personal contacts.
As a partnership, we will continue to promote lawyers from our own ranks to strengthen our market position. The prospects for future partnerships depend on a wide range of factors, including professional and corporate skills. We are a firm where all new recruits have a real chance of becoming partners.