Legal career · NW–04
Nina Warken has been admitted as a lawyer since 2006. Her practice in medium-sized firms — in administrative law, social law and intellectual-property and competition law — preceded her parliamentary career and ran alongside it until she joined the federal government.
The profession
In Germany a Rechtsanwalt or Rechtsanwältin is, in the words of the Federal Lawyers' Act, an independent organ of the administration of justice. Admission requires the qualification for judicial office — both state examinations — and membership of a regional bar association. Nina Warken obtained that qualification in 2005 after her training in Heidelberg and Mosbach, and she has been admitted since 2006.
Her Bundestag biographies describe her as working in medium-sized firms (mittelständische Kanzleien) — practices larger than a sole practitioner's office but distinct from the big commercial firms of the major cities. The biography for the 19th electoral term, which is based on her own information, names three areas: administrative law (Verwaltungsrecht), social law (Sozialrecht) and gewerblicher Rechtsschutz, the German umbrella term for intellectual-property and unfair-competition law.
Fields of practice
The descriptions below explain what each field covers in German law. They do not describe individual cases or clients, which are not part of the public record.
The law of the relationship between citizens and public authorities: building permits, licences, public-service decisions, municipal charges. Disputes go first to the authority itself and then to the administrative courts. It is the field closest to local government — the decisions of councils and district offices are typically administrative acts.
The law of the social-security system as codified in the Social Code (Sozialgesetzbuch): statutory health and long-term care insurance, pensions, unemployment benefits, disability and accident insurance. Disputes are decided by the social courts. It is also, in large part, the legal framework of the health system she later oversaw as minister.
Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz covers trademarks, designs, patents and utility models, and protection against unfair competition. For small and medium-sized businesses it is often about brand names, advertising claims and the boundaries of fair commercial conduct.
Professional timeline
The professional record comes from three sources: the official CV, the biographies of the German Bundestag, and the disclosures every member must make under the Members of the Bundestag Act about professional activities before and alongside the mandate.
Second State Examination in Law, conferring the qualification for judicial office.
Admitted as Rechtsanwältin; work in medium-sized law firms begins.
Her disclosure for the 18th electoral term lists the firm Rechtsanwälte Reinhart, Kober, Großkinsky in Tauberbischofsheim as her professional activity before entering the Bundestag.
Bundestag disclosures list her as a lawyer with Rechtsanwälte Warken und Kollegen in Püttlingen (Saarland), a paid activity alongside her mandate, in the 18th, 19th and 20th terms.
Full member of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Consumer Protection in the 19th term; a deputy member of the Legal Affairs Committee in the 20th.
Elected by the Bundestag as one of the CDU/CSU's members of the committee that selects judges for the federal supreme courts.
One week after her appointment as Federal Minister of Health, her legal practice is recorded as suspended ("ruht").
Law into legislation
Parliament is a law-making body, and lawyers have always been strongly represented in the Bundestag. In her case, the link between profession and mandate is visible in the bodies she was assigned to.
The Bundestag committee responsible for civil, criminal and procedural law, the courts and constitutional questions. It also advises on the legal soundness of bills referred to it by other committees. She was a full member in the 19th term and a deputy member in the 20th.
Under the Judges Election Act it consists of sixteen members elected by the Bundestag and sixteen Land ministers. Together with the responsible federal minister it decides on the appointment of judges to the Federal Court of Justice, the Federal Administrative Court, the Federal Finance Court, the Federal Labour Court and the Federal Social Court. The Bundestag elected her a member in January 2022, at the start of the 20th term.
Inquiry committees take evidence much like a court. She was her group's spokesperson in the 18th term's inquiry into the activities of the NSA and deputy chair of the 19th term's inquiry into the federal car-toll project.
She was a deputy member of the board of trustees of this federal foundation in Karlsruhe, which promotes public understanding of the rule of law, until 13 June 2025.
Rules of office
Members of the Bundestag may continue to practise a profession, but they must disclose it. The Bundestag's rules of conduct require members to report paid activities before and alongside their mandate within three months, and the information is published on their biography page. That is why her work for a law firm appears in the official record for each term.
Members of the federal government are subject to a stricter rule. Article 66 of the Basic Law states that the Federal Chancellor and the federal ministers may not hold any other salaried office, carry on a trade or practise a profession. Her disclosure accordingly records her legal practice as suspended from 13 May 2025, shortly after her appointment as Federal Minister of Health; the same applies in her current office as Head of the Federal Chancellery. Other honorary roles — on the administrative council of Johannes-Diakonie Mosbach and the board of trustees of the Theodor Heuss House Foundation — are recorded as ending in May and June 2025.