Interview with trainee: Finnish lawyer Tony Koivula. He joined our office in Tallinn to gain insight into Financial and Banking law in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania

Tell us a bit of your background, what do you study currently?

I study in Tallinn Technical University. I will graduate from Tallinn in 2015 spring. My study program differs a bit from the regular law program, as the program is international and is taught entirely in English. I study at TTU European Union Law (for example Internal Market law and Competition law) and comparative law. The reason why I decided to study in Estonia is that as the program is taught in English, it gives possibilities for future career to work abroad, as today’s legal issues are global. I also wanted to have good view over European Union Law as it has major impact over Baltic countries as well as Finland.

How was it like to do internship in our firm for the first time?

It was very beneficial for me. In our school internship is mandatory part of our studies, secondly, in legal world, and also when applying to master’s studies, so the internship gained for me a lot of valuable experience and thirdly, even after my first year of studying I was admitted to work with the lawyers of the firm and assist them. The difference is significant for other law firms where the first year students are only admitted to do office support work. In this case my first internship at Gencs Valters was really helpful for me, it gave also a lot of self-confidence and deeper knowledge to my studies.

Why you decided to come back to our firm?

As the first experience was so gainful, I decided that I would like to work with the firm while I don’t have studies and I’m able to work full time. Also, I consider that after studying now two years, I’m able to provide more information for our lawyers and clients. I also consider this as an opportunity to learn more skills that might not be possible to obtain from University.

How did the internship affect your study plans?

I have a vision of what do I want to study after I graduate from Tallinn. My interest is in financial law, banking law and in M&A sector. However, during my studies I have also got interested in tax law. Because of the interest to these specific sectors I considered that Gencs Valters Law Firm was beneficial experience for me. I’m also interested in working with rising economies and Baltic Countries can be considered to fall in this category.

On what area would you like to concentrate later?

I’m interested in working in investment fund legislation also telecom legislation is something that interests me a lot. Both are international fields of law and needs lawyers who have wide experience in domestic law but as well in international field. I’m also really interested in energy law, as it is in all aspects global. Also, working in energy industry is going to be more and more regulated, and I think people who have knowledge of global legal issues are going to be really worth of gold in the future. This of course applies to many other legal fields as well, but I think energy law and legislation is going to develop a lot in the upcoming years. I’m also interested in competition law, in domestic and in EU level. I think it’s one of the fundamental rules of the free markets and without legislation to avoid unfair competition it wouldn’t be possible to have business life as we have currently. I’m happy to do my internship in a firm that is able to provide services in all these areas, providing services from complex commercial activities to legal solutions that are needed for example founding a company in Baltic States.

 Tallinn Technical University, Tallinn, Estonia.