How is commercial contracts practice different from m&a/pe/corporate? how would trainees' and lawyers task differ and what different skills would be required? I am struggling to understand the difference cause don't all practice areas deal with contracts and commercial works?
I don’t think all firms have distinct corporate and commercial contracts practices. If a firm does not have a distinct commercial contracts team, the corporate dept will review commercial contracts.
I assume that a commercial contracts practice focus on drawing up, analysing/interpreting commercial contracts e.g., supply/distribution agreements, joint venture agreements etc.
A corporate practice deals with M&A/ PE transactions (dependent on how a law firm organises its practice areas). It focuses on facilitating transactions/deal execution/advising on sales and acquisitions. For example a clear separation that I can think of is if there is a purchase transaction of a business, as part of a due diligence process, a corporate practice would review documents relating to a target’s ownership structure (shareholders’ agreements/articles of association, statutory books etc), whereas a commercial contracts practice would review documents relating to the target’s commercial agreements as listed above. Others included service contracts, franchising, technology arrangements, advertising contracts etc.