Pinsent Masons marks 5-year partneship with QU

Qatar Financial Centre (QFC) - licenced law firm Pinsent Masons (PM) has marked the 5-year anniversary of its partnership with Qatar University (QU)’s pioneering externship programme, which has tangibly contributed to the development of the nation’s young lawyers legal skills.
The comprehensive programme, in conjunction with QU College of Law, runs over an entire semester. Uniquely, during the 16 weeks of supervised learning, students attend bi-weekly seminars and work alongside Pinsent Masons’ lawyers, gaining valuable, real world legal experience.
Intern Mohammed Ali recounted his own personal experience: "I am grateful to have been part of this training opportunity and I strongly encourage everyone, particularly my fellow students and recent graduates, to engage in QU's externship programme at Pinsent Masons."
Pinsent Masons have been regular participants in the on-going programme, having accepted eight students over the last five years.
Students have the opportunity to find out first-hand the areas of expertise of the international law firm. For Pinsent Masons’ part, they have a chance to connect with Qatar’s young legal talent, while contributing to developing the Qatari legal knowledge base, both in QFC and Qatar as a whole. The programme for Qatari students is an essential part of broader initiatives of the law firm to develop Qataris including legal roundtable meetings and secondments.  Roger Phillips, Legal Director at Pinsent Masons Qatar Office said: "I have been very impressed with the students’ enthusiasm and I am delighted to have received positive feedback from a number of the interns on how the experience has helped them going forward. I am confident that the students have impressive futures ahead and I look forward to meeting them again in their successful careers.”
Nasser Al-Taweel, Chief Legal Officer at the QFC Authority welcomed the programme and said: "The externship program of Pinsent Masons is an important factor towards supporting the development of the State and realizing the potential of young Qatari lawyers.”
QU Externship Programme Director, Melissa J. Deehring, commented: “QU College of Law’s externship programme is a pedagogical course for the region, designed to teach students real life lawyering skills and encourage their pursuit of legal careers while balancing Qatari history, identity, traditions, and customs. The externship programme has hosted around 450 students during ten semesters and is now the “Capstone” graduation course for all senior law students. The College of Law and externship programme are extremely thankful to the lawyers and staff of Pinsent Masons who donated their time and organizational efforts helping our law students. It is only because of this support from Doha’s legal community that the programme has been a success.”