An insight into different text types in the area of law has been gained by combining quantitative (an online questionnaire) and qualitative (semi-structured interviews) research methods. The quantitative data in the preliminary phase showed that contracts are the most frequent specialist text type in the professional daily life of legal trainees. Consequently, internal and external text features of this text type were thoroughly discussed in the interviews. The research results confirmed that highly conventionalised elements of this text type have a facilitating function, when drafting a contract and working on its legal and linguistic aspects (bilingual text version: German – Croatian).