Interview questions: How to become a qualified legal attorney

Legal lawyers are mostly legal workers working in enterprises or institutions (hereinafter simply referred to as "enterprises"). Enterprises need not only legal services, but also need to proceed from the standpoint of the enterprise to which they belong. From the perspective of enterprise operation and management, combined with the actual situation, we consider the legal issues faced by the enterprise and related management issues, and provide professional legal support and appropriate management and decision-making suggestions.

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To give a simple example, there have been rumors in the industry of various domestic tax havens, such as Linzhi in Tibet and Horgos in Xinjiang. . I once encountered a senior executive who inquired about the tax preferential policies in Tibet. The entire legal work process is as follows:

First, request financial assistance to provide a comparison of tax rates and preferential tax policies between the company's location and Tibet, as well as taxes and fees. Return method;

Secondly, analyze the main types of beneficiary enterprises together with financial personnel;

Thirdly, combined with the industrial characteristics of the manufacturing industry to which the enterprise belongs, we draw the conclusion: Although Tibet is It is a tax haven, but it is not suitable for this company, and it may bring tax audit risks for a series of reasons.

Finally, make a PPT report to senior management.

In this simple legal consultation, after receiving the instruction, the legal department initiated a request for cross-department collaboration. While researching and interpreting regulations and policies, it also drew an assessment conclusion based on the characteristics of the industry and the actual situation of the company. Communicate with management via email and PPT. Behind this series of actions actually lies the legal counsel's familiarity with the company and the industry it belongs to, as well as insight into the intentions of the top management. That is, the management's concerns are not limited to what preferential policies there are, but also how decisions should be made.

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2. The trust of management is the most precious asset of legal affairs

Western management theory It is believed that the reason why one party trusts the other party is determined by multiple factors, such as ability, reliability, candor, etc., which are the factors most frequently mentioned by management scholars, and trust is significantly positively related to relationship maintenance. .

The identity of legal counsel determines its value in that the opinions and decision-making suggestions it provides can be adopted by the management and actively prevented or controlled, thereby reducing the risk level of business operations or controlling risks to a certain level. within the range. Whether management trusts legal affairs determines the effectiveness and value of legal affairs within the organization.

Therefore, legal affairs should attach great importance to establishing and maintaining trust relationships with management. If after joining a company, the legal staff finds that no matter how hard they try or debug, they cannot agree with the value orientation of the management and cannot adapt to the management's style of behavior, it is recommended that they consider finding a better place to stay. I just happened to read an article on the headhunting industry recently, which mentioned that legal firms are generally cautious about job-hopping, and not many take the initiative to change jobs, usually through headhunting channels. Management factors are also an important reason.

Whether you are a member of the legal professional community or an employee of a company, you should cherish your professional identity, keep yourself clean, and not make short-sighted decisions based on utilitarianism that will affect your career. Image behavior is not only the protection of one's own career, but also a basic requirement of legal professional ethics.

3. Legal ability requirements

(1) Legal professional ability

Legal professional ability includes legal knowledge, legal research ability, legal logical thinking ability, and legal ability. Humanistic qualities, etc. I won’t go into details here, but only provide the following case.

I have a job where I joined an established law firm as a partner paralegal after passing the written test and interview competition. The experience of applying for the job, especially the written test plan, was also used as a reference when I recruited team members. The details are as follows:

1. (Fresh graduates) provide a graduation thesis, and conduct a thesis statement and simple defense during the interview;

2. Written test 1: logical single choice or indefinite items Multiple choice questions, required to be completed within a limited time;

3. Written test two: contract modification

4. Written test three: case document writing

5. Interview

Experience has proven that all team members recruited through this method are as expected.

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(2) Business thinking

As a member of the legal professional group, the legal profession Knowledge, legal logic, etc. are the core competitiveness of legal professionals and the foundation of our lives. This is a common knowledge that everyone has. However, as a legal professional, you must also possess an ability that cannot be ignored, and that is whether you have business thinking and keen business insight. Why do we say this? There are at least the following reasons:

1. Legal affairs should assist the company’s business team in solving management or business practice problems.

2. Legal affairs must conduct 360-degree communication on the aforementioned management or business practice issues. Why is it 360-degree? Because it starts from the company’s senior management, down to the front-line business managers or persons in charge, and includes all relevant parties. Parallel units or other support teams (such as HR, finance, IT, import and export departments, etc.), and this communication is likely to start from the product development or project preparation stage until project negotiation, contract signing, project implementation, later settlement, etc. etc., involving the entire process of business practice.

3. Legal affairs personnel not only need to assist in evaluating possible solutions and provide risk warnings for different solutions, but also need to provide suggestions on solution selection based on their own professional knowledge and assist management in decision-making.

Business thinking and where does business insight come from? In addition to innate talent, it depends more on personal efforts. For example, when a company gets involved in a new field or develops a new type of customer, from the time it learns about the relevant plans, or at the latest from being invited to participate in a meeting, the legal department should collect relevant product, industry and customer information, and make necessary decisions based on this information. Regulatory research. On the one hand, these preparations can prevent the legal team from falling into the dilemma of not understanding professional vocabulary or industry terms when communicating with the business team. More importantly, they can understand the current status and scale of the industry based on research on products, industries, and customers. The client's profit model, the business logic of the industry, etc., combined with legal knowledge, legal thinking and practical experience, provide legal support to the business team.

As legal professionals, if you can properly demonstrate your understanding of the business logic related to the project when participating in commercial projects, you will not only easily gain the trust of your business team, but also win the trust of external third parties (such as clients, suppliers or other external professionals), which is conducive to the development of legal work.

(3) Communication skills

1. Be concise and plain, and use language that the communication partner can understand.

2. Make good use of empathy and start from the point where the communication partner can accept, understand or easily respond.

In a merger and acquisition case, our side and the other party’s external legal team disagreed on the choice of a transitional disposal plan, and the negotiations reached a deadlock. Since it was late at night, the parties decided to adjourn the meeting and agreed on a second settlement. The day goes on.

After the meeting, our legal counsel considered that if we did not change anything according to the other party’s lawyer’s point of view and strong communication style, I was afraid that the next day’s negotiation would still not be optimistic, so we took the initiative to write a proposal and send it to the acquired party. An email from the person in charge of the project, who is also the person in charge of operations of the acquired party. This email fully demonstrates sincerity and respect, and at the same time, from the perspective of actual operation management, kindly reminds the other party to follow the current plan suggested by the other party’s lawyer. Some practical problems may arise in management. Are there any legal solutions to these problems? If they cannot be solved well, what adverse effects may they have on the progress of the project and mutual trust between the two parties. This email is completed, reviewed by our business and project leaders, and then sent to the other party's project leader and legal affairs in the name of our legal affairs. The next day, the other party's external lawyer team was eliminated from the negotiations between the two parties, and the acquired party agreed to our plan and opinions. In the end, the merger and acquisition case was successfully reached, the project was smoothly advanced, and the factory was handed over in an orderly manner. Through this cooperation, the legal affairs team and the business team established a good working relationship.

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3. Be kind to others and leave room for others

In a business negotiation with a customer, Although the two parties' legal affairs often confront each other, when there are major errors in the documents provided by the other party's legal person in charge, our legal department will deliberately send a private message to the other party as soon as possible after receiving it to remind them in good faith, so that they can make timely corrections to avoid negative consequences caused by the previous mistakes. Subsequently, in the implementation of all projects, although the respective positions and interests of the two parties were different, they always maintained good communication, and this good interaction also effectively promoted the cooperation between the two parties. When the business team disagreed, they could Utilize their respective professional knowledge and legal status to provide timely and effective assistance in resolving disputes.

4. Careful screening

The information obtained in each communication must be screened based on the information medium, information source, identity of the communication object, etc. If not screened, it is very likely that Fall into a trap. Especially in the context of business negotiations, the information obtained by one party through communication, especially informal communication, may be accidentally disclosed by the other party, but it is also likely to be information consciously conveyed by the other party. Whether it is deliberately misleading needs to be carefully screened. At the same time, it can also be used for reverse communication to convey one's own information.

5. Pay attention to prior communication

Before a discussion meeting or decision-making meeting on major and complex matters, necessary prior communication can allow relevant parties to fully understand legal opinions and reduce information asymmetry. For misunderstandings, we can investigate the concerns or ideas of all parties to help further improve the legal assessment opinions and decision-making suggestions. We can also find legal allies through prior communication, and can also help improve meeting efficiency.

(4) The ability to withstand pressure with ease

The legal department is a relatively special place within the enterprise because:

1. Legal affairs do not directly create benefit.

2. The value orientations of legal affairs and business departments naturally complement each other. The business department prioritizes efficiency and effectiveness, while the natural functional attribute of legal affairs is risk prevention. The business thinks that the legal affairs are getting in the way, and the legal affairs thinks that the business is reckless.

3. Due to the nature of legal work, legal affairs require frequent management communication. We often see that newcomers who have just joined the company often need to communicate directly with the heads of various business departments and even the company's senior management.

Therefore, every member of the legal team will directly face various pressures from business departments, other department heads, and the company’s senior management. How to face pressure, withstand pressure, deal with pressure, how to resolve pressure, etc. are very important.

I think that as a qualified legal practitioner: principles must be adhered to, no matter who the other party is, you must say what you need to say, and you must give hints when needed; your posture must be soft, no one will like you if you are tough; your mind must be flexible Be creative, there are many roads to Rome; don't talk too much, everyone has more or less limitations in knowledge, thinking, experience or experience, and it is absolutely easy to get slapped in the face if you go too far.

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4. Legal workplace interaction

Legal affairs will meet with the management in the company, each specific Business departments and others interact frequently, so here are some suggestions:

1. Exceed customer expectations: Management, specific business departments, etc. are all internal customers of the legal department. If the legal department can exceed customer expectations, It is conducive to establishing a professional image of the legal team within the enterprise and helping to increase the influence and voice of legal affairs in corporate governance.

2. Be loyal to your profession: The nature of legal work determines that it is inevitable that legal staff will obtain information that is difficult for ordinary employees to know or face various conflicts of interest, which require legal staff to keep secrets during their work. , be loyal to your professional duties, be impartial, and treat the competition of various forces in the company with a normal mind.

5. Become an interesting person

People say, "There are thousands of good-looking skins, but only one interesting soul can be found." In my opinion, curiosity is a very valuable quality. , an interesting soul must be someone who is always curious about the world. Zhang Dai, a writer in the Ming Dynasty, also said, "Don't make friends with people without quirks, because they don't have deep affection; don't make friends with people without flaws, because they don't have true energy." Legal affairs, especially those practiced by girls, are particularly prone to stereotypes, such as being conservative, serious, too serious, rigid, not fun, etc. We might as well take it in stride, let ourselves go appropriately, continue to learn, and be an interesting person.

In fact, as long as legal professionals are curious about unfamiliar fields, there are many opportunities to learn and explore. Because legal affairs are often involved in specific industries