About

What are the most important transactions and litigations that you have been involved in during the last two years?

I joined the SocialTech team in November 2018, and among the projects that already stand out in our portfolio, I can name two successful settlement negotiations, which allowed us both avoid lengthy and costly litigation, as well as to improve our service to customers – our top priority across the business.

Additionally, we have launched a corporate restructuring in multiple jurisdictions of our operations (still ongoing) to be better positioned for business growth.

Finally, I would say that, probably, the most important achievement was hiring – we expect to close two positions in our legal team by the end of 2019, and aim to welcome at least two more team members next year.

How important have “soft skills” or personal attributes outside of technical legal skill been to the team’s success, and which “soft skills” do you feel are most important for an in-house lawyer to possess?

Saying that soft skills are critical to the team’s success is an understatement. As an in-house legal team, our primary job is to help the ideas of our technical and business colleagues work – and it is here that soft skills enter the arena.

We may do our job well only if we explain the legal requirements or legal concepts in a clear and comprehensive and manner. This is only possible if a legal counsel has superb communication skills (both written and oral), is able to adapt to ever-changing circumstances, and is empathetic. The ability to understand a position of your colleague is critical, since you are actually one team and must rely on one another to achieve great results.

What are the main qualities you look for in a potential new hire?

We have opened our first legal counsel position to the team this spring, and I have been talking to potential candidates ever since – the HR function has immediately become a part of the job.

The things that I value most in candidates are a “getting things done” approach, a refusal to give up, a great sense of humour and honesty. These are the indicators of a great addition to our team.

What advice would you give to any peers or colleagues working in the Ukraine market for the first time?

I would say that Ukraine is a great field for doing business and living in general. Ukraine has recently introduced substantial amendments to corporate law, which are aimed at alignment with the best Western practices. Ukrainian corporate income taxes – especially for private entrepreneurs – are very attractive and many international IT companies prefer Ukraine as a set up jurisdiction for their offices and R&D locations.

What can law firms in Ukraine, and the wider CEE region, do to win more business from you?

I would say that expanding knowledge outside of local law is one of these things. As a business gets more mobile regardless of the industry, it becomes less tied to a single point on the globe, which makes a lawyer’s job so much more interesting and versatile. Thus, I would recommend firms think “out-of-borders” in advising international clients.

An additional point is a good understanding of client’s business on a technical level. This is extremely helpful as it assists an external counsel in spotting things actually requiring attention. It also helps to build trust between the client and their outside counsel in the long run.

GDPR is a great example of implementation of both of the above points – it is a major piece of regulation, but what lies beneath it is an even larger scope of technical, logistical and operational matters. The understanding of such matters on a technical level is key to achieving compliance from legal standpoint.

FOCUS ON… TECHNOLOGY

In the modern legal environment, where law, technology and business are inseparably intertwined, the key to be a great legal counsel is to understand how the technology works instead of simply how it is regulated. It has been a great revelation to me that once I changed from my law firm career to an in-house position, the success of a legal team was determined by their expertise and overall success in terms of knowledge of technology. Within an IT company, it goes as deep as email marketing mechanics, how backend developers work with the code, why one system technically works better than others in terms of data retention – obviously, there is more of a technical side than legal to such matters.

I think that this mutual link will get more blurred with time – in a way, that decisions necessary from the legal perspective will become almost completely dependent on the technology, and legal teams will transform into cross-functional ones for legal and compliance purposes. However, this still leaves us lawyers with a huge space for improvement and development. In my view, there are three key elements of success of future lawyers.

The first is famous and straightforward – one must never, never, never give up. Although Churchill’s words applied to times of war, lawyers have a great challenge ahead – to grasp ever-developing technology, understand it to the very core and gain the ability to apply it for the benefit of the client or the company.

The second is another personal revelation of the previous year – the ability to learn. This is somewhat derivative of the “never give up” approach – if you’re not willing to give up (hopefully not!), you must be able to roll up the sleeves and dig into the work. For me personally, it is the work related to intellectual property matters – as a law firm associate, I spent little to no time dedicated to few selected IP matters due to my involvement in other practices. Now, as head of legal and team manager, I must be at the forefront of IP regulations and have substantial knowledge to support company’s operations.

Finally, the first two points are not viable if you’re not having a great team standing shoulder to shoulder with you to achieve common goals. Team work makes the dream work, after all.