Ekkehart Reinelt (*1943) is the son of Sabine and Alfred Reinelt, who was a journalist and diplomat. Ekkehart Reinelt attended compulsory schooling in Echterdingen near Stuttgart, then the “German School” in Belgrade and in Tokyo, earning his university entry qualification at the Birklehof School in Hinterzarten, Germany in 1963.

He completed his studies in law at the University of Marburg with the “Erstes Juristisches Staatsexamen” in 1967. From 1968 to 1971, he was a teaching and research assistant at the chair for private and comparative law at the University of Regensburg. He earned his doctorate in 1969 with a thesis on comparative tort law. He completed his “Zweite Juristische Staatsprüfung” before the responsible office at the Ministry of Justice Bavaria.

He ran his own law firm in Munich from 1971 to mid-2007. He was co-founder of the law firm Stock, Strohm, Reinelt (later Reinelt & Kiefer) and, from 1989 to 2007, he was active as an assessor for the “Zweite Juristische Staatsprüfung” at the Ministry of Justice Bavaria. In 1997 he founded the “Ständiges Münchener Bauschiedsgericht” to arbitrate claims in the construction industry. In 1999, he became an instructor at the University of Regensburg, where he was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2008. He has acted as a specialist attorney for construction and architecture law and as an arbitration judge at the German Association for Construction Law (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Baurecht) since 2006. In addition, he is co-editor of the journal ZAP, former member of the examination committee for the “Zweite Juristische Staatsprüfung” at the Ministry of Justice Bavaria and, since April 2007, lawyer at the Federal Court of Justice, Germany.