For newcomers to the profession after the second state examination, their career with us begins in a permanent employment relationship as an associate. In approximately four to five years, you will get to know the professional side of the legal profession. You will be involved in direct client care from the very beginning.

Over the course of several (usually three) years, successful associates advance to the status of senior associate. At this level, you will be responsible for your first projects and consulting cases, provide increased support in client acquisition and sharpen your professional profile.

No less important than a sound education is sufficient room for individual life planning – which is why Hoffmann Liebs also offers the option of part-time work, regardless of the career path chosen and at all levels of development.

The next career step following a successful associate period is the counsel status or a junior partnership.

The next career stage following a successful associate period is counsel status or junior partnership. Counsel status is suitable for associates who wish to work as comprehensively trained lawyers with a high degree of personal responsibility at the highest professional level, without having to bear the full entrepreneurial responsibility of a partner.

At our firm, counsel status is not automatic after the associate period, but is seen as an alternative career path parallel to partnership. If a senior associate meets the requirements to become counsel at Hoffmann Liebs, the partnership decides whether a change to counsel status is offered.

As an alternative to Counsel status, we offer the opportunity to become a Junior Partner after a successful Associate period for committed attorneys who wish to develop their entrepreneurial skills. As with counsel, the partnership decides whether a (senior) associate meets the high standards required of a junior partner and is offered the opportunity to switch to this status.

Junior partnership at Hoffmann Liebs differs significantly from the usual “non-equity partner” status offered by other law firms, especially large law firms. This is because even our junior partners – irrespective of the further support they receive from a full partner – are genuine entrepreneurs. They, too, are already partners in our partnership firm and have a share in the firm’s capital, albeit to a lesser extent than the senior partners.

They also have a considerable say in all fundamental matters of the firm, as they already have voting rights to a certain extent. Our firm therefore differs – also in lived reality – from the situation in many other law firms.

After a successful junior partnership, there is finally the chance to become a full partner. The full partner has a full share in the firm’s capital and has unrestricted voting rights from the outset. Hoffmann Liebs strives to create a climate of cooperation and to work together as a team.

The distribution of profits among the full and junior partners is therefore based on a fixed points system (so-called lock-step system), so that the individual profit absorption is always also measured against the total profit of the partnership.