While studying law in UCD, Leinwather completed her Erasmus year at the University of Vienna, and returned to the city after graduating for the UN internship.“I didn’t really want to go into a law firm straight away, I wanted to do something more international,” she says. “The UN was an obvious choice. I did an internship there and then I actually got a job at the Irish Embassy because Ireland was in the Council of Europe at the time,” she said.
I think Irish people underestimate that, in comparison to other cultures, we are very charming and persuasive. You win over people relatively easily“After two and a half years in a law firm, you can sit the Austrian bar exam, which I hadn’t really intended on doing, it wasn’t part of my master plan. It’s a difficult exam, it’s very intense, I didn’t really know what I was in for. But I did it and then I qualified, and did international arbitration in Freshfields for 10 years,” she said.
“When I was approached about this job, they perceived it as a huge advantage that I was not Austrian. I think it’s a combination of just being international, because it’s the kind of role where they want somebody who’s not necessarily from the region, and also probably a bit of the Irish charm as well,” she said.
It’s an absolutely beautiful city that has so much to offer. There are a lot of international elements to it, the UN is here, the OECD is here“The advantage of working in Vienna is you get a department completely focused on arbitration, and you can really get immersed in it and do really international transaction-processing whereas, in Ireland, it just isn’t as developed. People end up going to London or Paris or somewhere if they really want to immerse themselves in it,” she said.