When thinking of a career in law, it is common to imagine going through five years of undergraduate study, including a law degree which takes up three of those years. In fact, though, a number of alternative degrees are accepted by firms offering training contracts. “The amount of commercial and corporate courses in most undergrad degrees is not that large, firms are actually also looking for evidence of ‘soft’ skills, aptitude and those business skills, which are transferable across careers,” said Dianna Lee, foreign registered lawyer with Clifford Chance, Hong Kong.

Lee has an undergraduate degree in political science from Yale and masters in politics from Oxford, but now works on complex commercial transactions for Clifford Chance’s corporate and M&A practice group. Lee said she couldn’t tell the difference between the law graduates and non-law graduates during her two year training contract and every trainee was taught the legal basics the same way. “Actually about half the trainees in my London in-take were probably non-law graduates,” she said.

Lee also said that the legal element of her day to day tasks was not always the most obvious and wasn't the only one which helped her succeed. She was attracted to Hong Kong because the resilient market had a lot of the M&A and private equity work she had become interested in during her six month secondment there while training in London. “In terms of financial modeling and accounting, in addition to client skills, it helps to have a basic knowledge of accounting terms, and an understanding of the commercial drivers underpinning the deal to be a well-rounded transactional lawyer,” she added.

There is a place in law for those who are technically minded too, major law firms employ consultants from geo-tech, bio-tech and pharmacy backgrounds who can bring the hard technical skills clients of law firms often require. As an example, Clifford Chance employs energy consultant Merrick White, who worked for many years in the oil industry before training in law and working with the firm.