Our team of high-caliber lawyers has a successful track record of providing professional legal services with the emphasis on globally oriented Swiss commercial law. Our aim is to be as large as necessary and as small as feasible.
We welcome applications at any time from ambitious, motivated individuals who meet our exacting requirements. If you are interested in joining us as an associate or junior associate or wish to take part in our summer trainee program, please send us your application and curriculum vitae.
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Our expertise
We draw on a century’s experience of training lawyers in the practical and theoretical aspects of our vocation. During that time, we have educated hundreds of legal professionals who have gone on to pursue great careers with Pestalozzi and elsewhere.
We provide our lawyers with mandates and assignments that enable them to build on their skills and expertise every day. We offer all our people, from junior to senior associates, a unique and challenging learning experience that combines intense, on-the-job training with extensive formal legal and non-legal education.
On-the-job training
Pestalozzi attracts the best legal graduates from the world’s best universities and provides them with the training and hands-on experience required to turn them into the best lawyers.
We ensure that our junior lawyers do not merely emulate the firm’s more seasoned lawyers, but rather that they connect their legal knowledge with the demands of commercial reality. We encourage our lawyers to become more and more creative, the more experienced they become. Our aim is to help them develop the skills and attitude they need to think outside of the box and provide the customized, innovative solutions our clients expect. By doing so, we nurture lawyers who create value for our clients and, ultimately, for Pestalozzi too.
On-the-job training
Pestalozzi attracts the best legal graduates from the world’s best universities and provides them with the training and hands-on experience required to turn them into the best lawyers.
We ensure that our junior lawyers do not merely emulate the firm’s more seasoned lawyers, but rather that they connect their legal knowledge with the demands of commercial reality. We encourage our lawyers to become more and more creative, the more experienced they become. Our aim is to help them develop the skills and attitude they need to think outside of the box and provide the customized, innovative solutions our clients expect. By doing so, we nurture lawyers who create value for our clients and, ultimately, for Pestalozzi too.
Formal legal education
Our formal legal education program consists of training both in-house and outside the firm. We believe that the less experience a lawyer has, the greater the need for more formal legal education.
As a result, we offer our junior associates the most extensive and intensive formal legal education, not only to lay the foundations for a great career but also to ensure that they are well prepared for the bar exam. Other lawyers in the firm are also encouraged to participate in our extensive in-house legal training sessions and to attend external seminars and conferences in Switzerland and abroad.
Our formal legal education program comprises two pillars:
- Bar preparation sessions: We want our junior associates to pass the bar. To achieve this, they need a combination of legal expertise and technique. We have therefore devised an intensive bar preparation program that enables our experienced senior associates to discuss and explain examples of written bar exams in detail. Our junior associates are required to prepare written bar exams individually and to present their solutions.
- The "What Law School Doesn‘t Teach You" lectures: Working as a lawyer requires more than the legal knowledge gained at law school. Experienced and senior associates from our different practice groups provide the first-hand input that prepares our junior associates for the real world of law in practice.
Associates
When joining our firm, new associates provide an indication of their primary fields of interest. We encourage them to specialize in these areas while developing their global expertise and maintaining a view of the "bigger picture".
As a rule, they work on cases within their practice groups, but may also work on other cases. We delegate responsibility to our associates at an early stage in their professional careers, always under the supervision of an experienced partner.
Understandably, associates who have contributed to our success for a substantial period may be interested in a partnership. Our semi-annual evaluation process provides an opportunity for structured feedback and for a frank discussion of an associate’s chances of becoming a partner in the future.
Our firm is not a "closed shop". The requirements for becoming a partner are well established, and all candidates must meet them in like manner. In addition to an outstanding record and exceptional performance, excellent professional skills are essential.
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Junior associates
Our future depends on having a pool of highly qualified individuals interested in the workings of the law. We hire law school graduates with outstanding academic backgrounds and a solid knowledge of English.
Join us as a junior associate, and you will receive twelve months (Zurich) or eighteen months (Geneva) of intensive training that will give you an insight into our various practice groups. You will work as a member of a team, rather than being assigned to a particular partner or associate. You will normally share an office with other junior associates. In the course of this one-year period, you will learn how to negotiate, draft briefs and conduct interviews: in other words, the skills every junior associate needs to become a competent lawyer.
You will attend court alone or with other Pestalozzi professionals and have ample opportunity to make use of your foreign language skills. You will have contact with our clients. We will teach you how to communicate effectively and establish a good working relationship with them. Learning about a client’s business is a good starting point. Your preparations for the bar exam will run parallel to an institutionalized training program specifically tailored to the needs of our junior associates.
We treat our junior associates as individuals and team members, not merely numbers. We firmly believe that your training depends as much on you as it does on us. If you express an interest in a particular area of the law, we will encourage your interest and provide you with excellent training. We leave it up to you to take advantage of the opportunities presented to you.
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Students
Every year we offer law students at an advanced stage of their studies a one-month practical course at our Zurich offices. The traineeship comprises formalized and practical training blocks.
Our next traineeship program will be held during the summer 2025 semester from 7 July 2025 to 31 July 2025 and from 11 August 2025 to 5 September 2025. Applications will be accepted until end of October 2024.
Our aim is to give trainees an insight into the business lawyer profession. Contacts with clients, visits to authorities, negotiations and working group meetings are likewise part of the program, together with a formalized juridical training block (drafting of memoranda, statements of claim, etc.).
To ensure that trainees profit 100% from the Pestalozzi practical training course, they are assigned a lawyer who is available to answer questions and to coordinate their work.
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Other positions
Our continued success also depends on having a reliable and flexible support staff.
We offer attractive job opportunities for receptionists, secretaries, and accounting assistants. Job requirements include German or French mother tongue as well as a sound knowledge of English. Additional languages such as Italian are highly valued.
Candidates must also possess expert user-end knowledge of standard PC programs and the ability to work independently.
