LLM Corporate and Commercial Law postgraduate personal statement example

Personal statement example

Last spring a tiling contractor who owed the builders' merchant where I work just over four thousand pounds went into administration. Two pallets of porcelain tiles we had supplied were still sitting, unopened, in his unit. My manager asked whether we could simply collect them. I was able to answer because I had read our standard terms closely: there was a retention of title clause, but it was a simple one, and the tiles were identifiable by batch number. That afternoon, spent matching delivery notes to the clause and then to the administrator's letter, is a fair summary of why I want to study corporate and commercial law at postgraduate level. The questions that interest me most sit where contract wording meets insolvency, ownership and the practical realities of a business trying to get paid.

I graduated with a 2:1 in Law. My dissertation examined retention of title clauses in the standard terms of small and medium-sized suppliers. Starting from Aluminium Industrie Vaassen v Romalpa, I traced how the courts have treated simple clauses compared with those claiming proceeds or mixed goods, and why the more ambitious versions are often recharacterised as unregistered charges. I collected the published terms of fifteen regional suppliers and categorised their clauses. Most attempted to claim proceeds of sale, which suggested that many businesses rely on wording they may not be able to enforce. I did not claim this proved anything about outcomes in practice, but it showed me a gap between drafting and enforceability that I would like to understand more rigorously, particularly in light of the moratorium and restrictions on termination clauses introduced by the Corporate Insolvency and Governance Act 2020.

My undergraduate modules in company law and commercial law gave me a grounding in directors' duties, separate legal personality and the sale of goods. I found the material on directors' duties in the zone of insolvency especially absorbing, and reading the Supreme Court's reasoning in BTI 2014 v Sequana helped me see how creditors' interests come to weigh on directors as a company's position worsens. I would like to build on this with closer study of corporate finance, security interests and governance.

Since graduating I have worked full time in accounts receivable at the merchant. The job is not glamorous: I reconcile payments, send reminder letters, set up payment plans and pass persistent arrears to our credit insurer. It has taught me how commercial relationships actually work. Most customers who pay late are not dishonest; they are waiting on their own clients. I have learned to read a customer's account history, to write firm letters that keep a trade relationship intact, and to explain contractual terms to colleagues on the trade counter. I suggested we add batch references to every delivery note, a small change my manager adopted, which now makes goods easier to identify if a customer fails.

Outside work I sing tenor in a community choir, where I have taken on the job of organising music hire and keeping track of the scores we borrow from other choirs, a duty more administrative than artistic. On Sundays I help my grandmother with her shopping and post, which has made me patient with forms and good at explaining letters in plain words.

I am applying for an LLM because I want to move from applying terms that others have drafted to understanding, critically, why commercial law takes the shape it does and how it might balance the interests of suppliers, lenders and companies more fairly. I bring a solid academic foundation, a dissertation that taught me to work methodically with primary sources, and two years of seeing commercial disputes from the inside of a small business. I am ready to study at a more demanding level and would hope, after the course, to work in commercial or restructuring practice.