The author of the blog is a Legal English specialist. Jeanette Buis works with legal practitioners, professionals, and interns, building their confidence to speak, read and write in English in various professional environments, especially when dealing with international partners, colleagues and clients. With more than 25 years of residence in Germany, she deeply understands the issues, concerns and uncertainties German speakers have when they need to engage in English with foreign clients, colleagues, and legal practitioners.

Jeanette is a native English speaker who grew up in South Africa. Her first major challenge in life was as a girl from a rural town, having to deal with attending ballet school, part-time and then full-time, in a cosmopolitan city. Jeanette demonstrated resilience, eventually receiving the Mignon Furman Medal in her final year, 1989, at the University of Cape Town Ballet School. In her first job, she was tasked by Professor David Poole (1925–1991) to take ballet into the townships of Gugulethu and Nyanga on the Cape Flats, where she had to build young people’s self-confidence despite the challenges of poverty and prejudice. In this context, ballet became a tool for expressing self and culture for these young students.

Jeanette proved her academic ability when she completed a B.Soc Sc degree in Industrial and Organizational Psychology and Industrial Sociology, followed by a law degree at the University of Cape Town. This was followed by completing a pupillage and passing the Bar Exam of the General Council of the Bar of South Africa as the only woman of her cohort of pupils and one of two persons of colour. In 1997, Jeanette was admitted as an Advocate of the High Court in South Africa. However, shortly after that, she relocated to Odenthal, Germany. She learnt German with such ease that she attended an 18-month computer programming traineeship presented in German, even being elected as class representative by classmates.

Dr Jeanette Buis is qualified to teach English to non-native speakers. She holds degrees in law from South Africa and Scotland — LLB (Cape Town), LLM (Robert Gordon University, Scotland) and LLD (University of Pretoria). Her master’s degree is in International Commercial Law. Jeanette’s doctoral thesis (approved by examiners from Germany, Belgium and South Africa) focused on international legal initiatives and national legislative acts dealing with human rights in supply chains of international companies’.

Jeanette is married, with two adult children and lives in Bergisches Land (east of Cologne), Germany. She enjoys cooking and finds the town-rural interface both challenging and inspiring. She enjoys reading, meeting and working with people of all ages and backgrounds.

Jeanette is a published opinion writer and continues to work as a trainer, researcher and translator.