That's what it says on my business card:

• Dr. Marc Philipp Kolpin
• Lawyer / Associate Partner

Department:
Litigation, professional and management liability

What do you consider particularly important in mentoring?

The most important cornerstone of any mentoring programme is, first and foremost, a willingness to invest time in training and to treat your counterpart as an equal. Mentoring is about teaching personal responsibility and a structured and precise way of working. I am a fervent advocate of the principle of positivity: the focus should be on promoting strengths and potential, although honest and transparent criticism should not be neglected, of course. A good mentor recognises the individual needs of their mentee and responds to them.

What excites you about your job?

What excites me about my job, and professional liability law in particular, is the great diversity of the underlying circumstances and areas of law involved, which make the work particularly lively and challenging. The job requires analytical depth in reconstructing the respective circumstances, which already makes forensic work a ‘mental high bar’. Legal work in this field requires a mastery of the entire spectrum of liability law. As a lawyer, representing clients' interests also requires a certain degree of creativity on my part in order to best serve their interests. All of these aspects combined are what make professional liability law one of the most fascinating areas of law for me.

How do you recognise talent and how do you promote it in concrete terms?

Talent in the legal field is primarily demonstrated by the ability to ask the right questions, curiosity about understanding legal contexts, analytical acumen and linguistic precision. The ability to comprehend and structure complex issues is essential. Those who also think in a solution-oriented manner demonstrate skills that are indispensable for the legal profession.

What personal strength has been particularly evident in your professional life?

One personal strength is definitely my ability to work well under pressure. Even when facing deadlines, I remain calm and organised and trust in my analytical skills. The high expectations I set for myself also help me to stay focused. These qualities enable me to deliver reliable results even when under considerable time pressure.

How do you build lasting client relationships?

Lasting client relationships are not built on grand words, but on consistently delivering the best possible professional quality. Trust as a legal advisor is built by offering economically and strategically sound solutions while keeping the client's specific needs in mind. The legal profession is and remains a ‘people's business’.

What questions do clients ask you more frequently today than in the past?

In this age of modern mass media, reputation risks have become significantly more important. Whereas clients' questions used to be limited to purely liability issues, PR topics are much more prominent today. Reputation issues can have long-term economic consequences, so we lawyers now take such issues into account as part of a coherent overall strategy and risk analysis.