Areas of practice

Mrs. Oetjen specialises mainly in criminal law.

Her practice areas are:

  • Law relating to economic offences
  • Law relating to fiscal offences
  • Law relating to medical malpractice
  • International criminal law
  • Law of appeal
  • Civil service and disciplinary law

Today clients increasingly prefer to seek competent legal advice from lawyers specializing in specific fields of law. Legal specialization ensures that these lawyers have acquired specialist experience and training over a number of years in the field for which they are awarded the qualification of a specialist lawyer.

The qualifications of a specialist lawyer are regularly checked. Specialist lawyers have to prove their special legal qualifications in a written examination. Their knowledge and further education are checked every year by the relevant Chamber of Lawyers.

Criminal law is interrelated with a large number of other fields of law. This applies particularly to the law regarding economic and fiscal offences, where it is often necessary to be familiar also with company law, tax law, private law, accounting principles and the preparation of balance sheets.

In cases of fraud relating to tenders or offences of bribery and corruption in commercial transactions the lawyer must be familiar with the various contracting regulations and the rules for the award of public contracts.

Even secondary fields such as the law on the liability of doctors, which is part of the criminal law relating to medical malpractice, the drug law and the medical law are of importance.

For appeal proceedings lawyers must constantly keep up-to-date on all decisions by the German supreme courts.

When working on cases of international judicial assistance lawyers must be familiar with the mutual conventions concluded by various countries and the foreign criminal law including the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Communities and the European Commission on Human Rights.

As the disciplinary law is closely related to the law of criminal procedure and usually entails legal consequences, there are certain parallels with criminal law, so that Mrs. Oetjen is often entrusted with cases of disciplinary and civil service law.

The law on the execution of sentences and the law of prison administration are also subject to criminal law.

The same applies to administrative offences and traffic law, and last but not least parts of the law concerning foreigners and social law also belong to the fields of a specialist in criminal law.

In addition specialists in criminal law must have a knowledge of interdisciplinary sciences such as psychology, psychiatry and medicine (for example in homicides and sexual offences or in cases dealing with medical malpractice), natural sciences (for example in cases of environmental offences) and pharmacology (in offences against the narcotics act and drug law).