Dr Franziska Rinke studied law in Jena and wrote a dissertation on the Environmental Information Directive. She completed her legal clerkship at the Regional Court of Frankfurt am Main, and partly in Brussels and at the Consulate General in Los Angeles. She was admitted to the Frankfurt am Main Bar Association in January 2012 and initially worked as an in-house lawyer in the compliance unit  at  ThyssenKrupp Group both in Germany and abroad.

Since August 2015, Dr Rinke has been working at KAS on legal policy issues. In January 2017 she took over the coordination of the International Rule of Law Programmes.