Language Skills as a Foreign Legal Consultant Abroad Forum

[chessgosu909]

I am a US-based 3L getting ready to graduate and work on the corporate side of the US office of a top international biglaw firm with a significant presence in East Asia.

My long-term goal is to live and work in East Asia, so the plan is to get trained at our law firm's US office for ~3 years, and then transfer to the East Asia office after that and work as a Foreign Legal Consultant / International Attorney.

I am a native English speaker who is fairly fluent in the foreign language of the country that I plan to work in. My speaking and listening skills are advanced, while my reading and writing skills are intermediate. My language skills are not high enough to read academic papers or newspaper articles about finance or law. I am not able to read or draft contracts in the foreign language yet. I could deliver presentations or meet with clients in a foreign language, but would struggle if the conversation drifted towards more technical legal/business matters.

I started taking some advanced language lessons and I am feeling a bit overwhelmed as learning *legal* vocabulary and that way of speaking feels like a whole different language compared to the more conversational level I am used to using in everyday life.

Trying to master legal, business/finance, and everyday conversational language skills while also learning how to practice law is a bit overwhelming so I am trying to figure out the most efficient way to utilize my time/resources.

Could any FLCs or multilingual people in biglaw give me some advice as for the best way to study this foreign language?

In order to not boil the ocean, what aspects of a foreign language do you think would be best to focus on as a biglaw attorney?

Should I prioritize reading, writing, speaking, listening, grammar, or vocabulary?
Should I focus on learning business and financial terms, technical legal vocabulary, or just try to get my everyday conversational skills as high as possible?
Would reading news-related articles be useful?
How valuable is being able to read and draft contracts in the foreign language?

Thanks!

[totallylunar]

Full disclosure, I'm not a Biglaw lawyer, nor am I even a law student yet (deferred @ HYS and have similar goals of international law). However, I am a huge language nerd, and speak three languages (natively English, and have spent the past two years studying two other languages to fluency and now use them professionally). My biggest recommendations are to avoid the focus on learning language for "legal contexts" or specifically for "Biglaw purposes". The unfortunate reality with language learning is that it's impossible to take shortcuts to specific areas you'll use more frequently, as in order to do so, you need an overall level of comfort and familiarity with the language which only comes from hundreds of hours spent with more simple material. While it could be helpful to start reading academic papers and journals in your target language, I wouldn't do it if you have to look up a heavy amount of words while doing so. Rather, I
'd recommend trying to evaluate on the various language learning scales (CEFR is a good one), and then trying to find graded reading materials and grammar exercises to work through. Once you progress in the late B2 / early C1 stages (this is going off the CEFR scale) I'd recommend starting to think about incorporating vocabulary and exercises specific to your work, but until this stage it likely won't be very helpful and might be somewhat of a time-sink. I know it's frustrating, but the reality is that the most efficient way to learn a language, is simply the most time-intensive. Any other methods that touch on "shortcuts" or "fast-fluency for specific purposes" likely are just wastes of time. Lmk if this is helpful, and if there's anything more specific I can offer!

[Anonymous User]

Hi, I assume you're talking about Korea. Probably off topic, but given Korea's strictly two-tiered legal market (Korea-barred attorneys versus FLCs who are not really lawyers in the country), I think it is absolutely necessary that you are fluent in Korean. Although the Korean legal market opened to foreign law firms in 2011, my understanding is that foreign firms remain fairly limited in the legal work they can do. Specifically, a bulk of your work could be helping Korean clients on international capital markets or M&A matters or foreign clients tap into Korea. English-Korean interchangeability will be important work this line of work. Korean fluency is very important and many U.S.-barred Korea FLCs will be fluent in Korean.

It's great that you are headed to a U.S. office of an international firm. But I would recommend moving to Korea as late as possible. I think clients value substantive legal experience in the U.S. way more than any number of years spent in Korea, even if it is with an international firm's Seoul office. For example, a U.S.-barred FLC who spent 3 years in the U.S. and 7 years in Korea may not be as highly regarded as someone with 5 years in the U.S. and only 3 years in Korea. For local firms, there seems to be a huge gap between K&C and other top tier local firms. Also, you should note that Korean legal culture is significantly more statutory and motions-based. No Perry Masons there.

There seems to be consistent in-house demand for U.S.-barred FLCs. This is where your Korean skills (or the lack thereof) will make a huge difference. As a multilingual lawyer myself, I would recommend reading Korean books and following financial news. Start with the accessible stuff, but you definitely should ramp up to higher-level content eventually. For instance, you should try to understand what the Korea Economic Daily is reporting. Not only what the words on paper mean, but what's actually going on and why a salient issue is being discussed at any moment. And this should help understand the local economy because it is quite different from how things work in America. I hope I was right in assuming you were considering Korea. Good luck!