You may well be asked during an interview to explain how the firm might support its clients in certain contexts. For example, in one commercial awareness interview, I was asked to talk through how each of the practice areas might be involved in the context of an acquisition, whilst in a business case study interview, I needed to recommend which core practice areas would most likely need to be brought in to advise a fictional client. I was also asked by numerous firms whether there was a particular practice area that I was drawn to, which can be a tricky question to answer if you’re unable to distinguish between the various specialisms.

To help you tackle these kinds of questions - and to broaden your understanding of commercial law firms more generally –  in this chapter of the course we have provided an explanation of the key commercial law practice areas, including a summary of the type of work each carries out and a few sentences explaining why each area might appeal to a trainee solicitor.

It's important to remember that firms organise and label their practice areas in different ways, whilst some firms have practice areas that others do not. For example, some firms might have dedicated private client teams to service high net worth individuals and families, or commercial law teams that focus on a variety of customer, supplier and other commercial contracts. However, some of the more expensive firms might be unable to compete for this type of work (given how much they charge and the number of “cheaper” firms able to offer those services), so might not have corresponding practice areas. With all this in mind, this chapter offers a general, simplified guide to some of the primary functions of the most common City law practice areas.