Insurance (and reinsurance - the insurance of insurers) is an integral part of commercial activity throughout the world. The insurance practices of top-end firms offer advice on a range of areas, including coverage disputes, investment management, documentation, mergers and acquisitions of insurers, and the transfer of books and business between insurers.

Regulatory law governs matters such as the establishment and regulation of insurance companies throughout the world. Clients include insurers, reinsurers and UK insurance institutions, as well as major insured companies and their captive insurers.

Lisa Peatfield is a solicitor at Edwards Angell Palmer & Dodge (EAPD), a US-based firm with a London presence thanks to its 2008 merger with Kendall Freeman. It is well known, among other things, for its strength in insurance and reinsurance. Lisa decided to become a solicitor after a brief stint working on the other side, as she originally trained as a barrister. "I did a social science degree at Birmingham University and when I graduated I decided to train as a barrister. I did the law conversion course, the Bar Vocational Course and then pupillage. After pupillage I decided to switch, as I think the solicitor's life is just more me. I joined the firm as a newly qualified with the title of employed barrister and after about five years I took the Qualified Lawyers' Transfer Test and cross-qualified as a solicitor, but I did the same job throughout."

Despite her initial uncertainty, Lisa has since found her vocation in insurance litigation. "I always wanted to do commercial litigation - hence the Bar - and you do get some very interesting, complex pieces of litigation in insurance that you don't necessarily get in other areas; I guess that was an attraction. I only do, and have only ever done, contentious work. At EAPD, we do very large pieces of complex, high-value litigation for corporate clients. The insurance litigation sector in general ranges from personal injury work right up to defending a billion-dollar insurance claim stemming from a defective drug or advising clients on a £500 million reinsurance policy. Obviously, different people like different aspects of the work; because the cases in our field of practice are so big, we don't get involved in lots of trials, which you would if you did the smaller pieces of work."

So what does the daily work of a commercial insurance litigator involve? "It's a mix of dealing with correspondence coming from either our clients or the other side, and taking instructions on that and responding," explains Lisa. "If you are at an advanced stage of the litigation, then you might be drafting witness statements or advising the client on settlement opportunities and approaches; if it's the early stages of a dispute, you might be meeting counsel to discuss the chances of success or meeting expert witnesses. There's also marketing. I don't think any lawyer in any law firm can go about their day-to-day business without marketing these days, whether that is writing articles, taking a client out to lunch or going to seminars or conferences. I think everyone coming into the profession has to understand that is a key part of the job. It isn't just sitting there pondering interesting questions of law or writing letters."

That said, Lisa agrees that this is one of the more considered legal areas, rather than one that throws new problems at you thick and fast on a daily basis. "The work I do tends to involve the sort of disputes which develop over time. You don't often need to run off to court to get an injunction - although you may need an anti-suit injunction from time to time, but the work tends not to require the level of urgency that more general commercial litigation can do."

Of course, such a level of involvement means that the issues being dealt with can be particularly challenging and absorbing. "Some of the work we do is pure contract construction, so the client will have a reinsurance policy, say, and will want to know what the effect of clause X is and that's usually a pure point of law," she elaborates. "But I do quite a lot of product liability work. A number of the claims coming through to my insurer clients are defective drug claims, and that's interesting because you tend to have to look at the underlying liability issues as well. You have to understand what the problem with the drug was and what the pharmaceutical company knew about it, for example. You get a bit of the pure insurance contract construction work, but you also get more of the liability work - so it's a nice mix."

While the legal work may demand a measured approach, the insurance industry itself can move quite quickly and Lisa suggests that young lawyers entering the field need to get used to keeping abreast of these developments. "The industry changes quite a lot," she says. "Companies go bust, get taken over and people move around, so you need to understand the sector of the business that your client is involved with in order to advise them properly. They may be in dispute with their insured, but they may also be trying to continue to do business with them, so you need to understand that they don't necessarily want to rip each other to shreds in court; what they really want to do is settle. You can't look at things in a vacuum and simply advise on the legal merits of the case - you have to be aware of the wider commercial issues as well."

If you do think this may be the area for you, Lisa recommends that you make sure you choose the right firm to pursue your career, and cautions that this can be done only once you are clear about your own preferences. "I think the best general advice is to get as much experience as you can in firms of different sizes and that do different work" she says. "Does the thought of being one of 100 trainees fill you with horror? Or do you think you would feel that way being one of four trainees? If you find the firm that is the right fit, you're more likely to succeed. It's a question of research and finding out what the firms do. There's no point going to a trade union firm that represents injured miners if what you want to do is act for multinationals and make billion-dollar claims against other corporate entities."