BUSINESS EDUCATION Legal education and training for lawyers in the UK and continental Europe is very different. You cannot become a lawyer in Germany without studying law at university. In the UK, lawyers are taught to specialise early and have a formal requirement to maintain their practising certificates. In Germany, lawyers receive a more general legal education and have no formal requirements for continuing professional development.
Harald Gesell, a corporate partner at Linklaters in Cologne, studied law for four years at Cologne University before sitting his first state exam. After that, he became a “referendare”, the name given to students undergoing the two-and-a-half-year legal training course run by the Ministry of Justice.
