Dea Dehari
As a Kosovan-Albanian student studying in the UK, I had an eye on ALSA and the amazing opportunities that they have had on offer in the hopes that one day I too would get the chance of attending an event that suited my interests - Law.
I decided to attend ALSA’s “Commercial Law Decoded” event at A&O Shearman without prior knowledge on the commercial law sector or even on what being a commercial lawyer looked like due to my interests lying more on the criminal side. Nevertheless, when I first saw the tickets for the event pop up onto my Instagram feed ‘I’m going’ wasn’t necessarily my first thought. If anything it was quite the opposite – ‘I have work so I can’t attend’. I brushed away the opportunity before I even gave it a chance. As the days went by, I kept seeing ALSA’s posts about the event on numerous platforms and I came to the realisation that this was an event that I actually did not want to miss out on. I told myself that not knowing something didn’t mean that I should deny myself the opportunity of finding out but alas, it was too late – the tickets had sold out.
Despite all this however, I was fortunate enough to secure myself a last-minute ticket on the morning of the event which I was exceptionally grateful for. It was a complete privilege to hear from the incredible legal professionals which included Alban Brahimi, Benisa Krasniqi, Chimi Shakohoxha, Fortesa Kastrati, Anisa Morina and Andri Boda who very kindly shared their experiences and knowledge on various areas of the commercial legal world. From competition, litigation, corporate and real estate each speaker offered a fresh perspective and told us truthly about their experiences – the good and the bad. It was particularly refreshing to hear about the different pathways that each one of the panellists had taken in order to get where they were today. Fortesa had started off with interests in criminal law and is now an Addleshaw Goddard associate specialising in Social Sustainable and Green Finance. Andri on the other hand, spoke to us about his experience as a trainee Solicitor but with a non-legal history student background. This made me think about my own legal pathway and where I hope it’ll take me and I realised I was nowhere near to having this figured out but for once I wasn’t daunted by it – I knew that with time, research and experience I would figure it out and I knew that I had already taken a step towards this by attending the ALSA event.
After the speakers had shared their insightful knowledge the networking stage began and after speaking to Alban Brahimi and Lorisa Ibrahimi I realised that ALSA’s “Commercial Law Decoded” event was most definitely going to be the first of many ALSA events that I would attend. Seeing the Kosovar-Albanian community come together in a professional and sophisticated manner inspired me to volunteer at ALSA knowing that I wouldn’t ever have to feel alone In our wonderful community.
Some advice from me to you – please don’t disregard opportunities simply because you don’t know enough about the topic for that’s exactly the reason why you should attend!
Here’s to learning and growing together :)
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