JOB OVERVIEW One of the types of lawyers according to setting and specialization is a corporate lawyer. Corporate lawyers are advisors and advocates of companies, corporations and the corporate officers. They are mainly tasked to help out corporations in all the legal matters that are involved in starting up and expanding business, proposing projects as well as facilitating different corporate processes innate within the corporate environment just like tax arrangements and filing and accounting issues. This is where the career of a corporate lawyer revolves, providing legal advise not to lay individuals but to corporate officers and owners.
EDUCATION, KNOWLEDGE AND TRAINING REQUIREMENT
An aspiring candidate to be corporate lawyer must first take a pre law degree. Pre law degree are courses that can be useful should one wants to advance to a Law school after. This includes BS Business Administration, BS Political Science, BS Communicaton Technology, BS Economics, and many others which will vary on the state law and specific country of application. After passing a pre law degree, there is another gate to pass which is the law entrance examination which requires a minimum of satisfactory rating before being recommended to a specific law school. Upon entering the law school, all the instructions, and the trainings will be learned, As a partial fulfillment of the requirements for graduation, an on the job training wtih a certain number of hours of training on a law firm must be completed. This will also correspond to the number of cases handled and dictate how prepared the applicant is to take the bar examination. The bar examination is required to obtain a license. Law school classes already teaches subjects related to corporate taxation, corporate finance and other areas of corporate law. If one desires to become a corporate lawyer, the training that he should pick should be ina corporate law firm setting as well.
ABILITIES AND SKILLS
In different corporations, people interact with high profile professionals. It is a must that a corporate lawyer have the following skills: interpersonal skills, oral and written communication skills, skills in dealing with stress/stress management skills as well as the overall expertise in the corporate law and related fields.
DUTIES
A corporate lawyer focuses on cases that involve implementation and issues pertataining to laws and regulations tha apply to corporations. Included within their duties are providing legal advice on companies, business firms and its projects as well as to corporate officers about their legal duties, responsibilities or obligations, rights as well as possibilities of violations. He should be more knowledgeable on the following areas: laws on taxation, zoning laws, contract laws, accounting and securities laws, licensing as well as bankruptcy laws and insurance. He also drafts documents for the corporation in several business trasactions of all sorts.
EARNINGS AND JOB OUTLOOK
As estimated, corporate lawyers with at least one to at most four years of working experience are given a salary around $65,200 on the average. Those who worked for private firms may also gain a salary rate per anum of about $82,855. For who are working on a freelance basis or are self employed, the estimated annual earnings is about $78,621. Bonuses and comissions are being given as incentives for a job well done. Corporate law firms nowadays are indeed looking for licensed and highly trained and educated candidates who can begin working with them with minimal training and who can start immediately. The trainings will then be embedded within the tasks being given to them with specific instructions for further guidance.
Paula Hiz is a researcher and a human resource specialist who helps newly graduates, job applicants and post graduate professionals be aware of the opportunities and trainings for skills and practice upgrading.