Commercial Law Academy

Laura Brunnen's career in the City spanned over 20 years. She started as an all-round M&A lawyer at Slaughter and May, before becoming a private equity specialist at Kirkland & Ellis. She then spent a decade balancing life as a private equity partner at three international law firms alongside raising her family, whilst (just about) managing to maintain her sense of humour. In 2021, after a year of lock-downs and WFH, Laura had an epiphany and left the City to found her own business, The Legal Strategist. This has allowed her to focus on doing what she loves most: mentoring solicitors and corporate law consulting. As a mentor, Laura draws on her vast experience to offer unique, honest and highly personal insights, and to provide practical and actionable advice that enables mentees to become the best versions of themselves. After all, she has personally trodden the path to promotion on many occasions, and as a partner, she was responsible for the hiring, training, appraising and promoting of other lawyers. In other words, she’s now spilling the magician’s secrets… For more information, connect with Laura via linkedin.com/in/laura-brunnen, instagram.com/iamlaurabrunnen and https://www.linkedin.com/groups/12702854.

Jake Schogger is a qualified lawyer, career coach, entrepreneur, author, copywriter and consultant. He is the founder and CEO of City Career Series, a publishing company that has sold ~50,000 handbooks designed to help students secure City careers, including the critically acclaimed Commercial Law Handbook and Training Contract Handbook. He also founded Commercial Law Academy. He trained at Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP and now acts as a legal adviser to start-ups and scale-ups, whilst also working as a career coach and delivering career-related presentations at universities across the UK. In addition, Jake works with tech start-ups and runs a variety of his own businesses. Connect with Jake on LinkedIn via www.linkedin.com/in/jakeschogger