Every year, around 42,000 Ukrainians graduate with a law degree. This makes the battle for a job at top firms fierce, particularly after the 2008 crisis led most firms to cut staff.
To win a spot at one of the elite international or local firms, graduates have to stand out, for example by having a Master of Laws degree from abroad.
“Basic legal education from prestigious university and good knowledge of foreign language does not impress anybody. Today it’s the basics. Without those qualities we won’t even consider an applicant,” says Serhiy Piontkovsky, partner at the Ukraine practice of Baker & McKenzie, one of the top law firms in the country.
Education is the starting point for a good career. Partners at top firms say not all Ukrainian universities provide the necessary education to get recruited at the leading law firms, because of the low standards of teaching and courses at some institutions. The best-trained lawyers usually come out of the Kyiv Mohyla Academy, the Institute of International Relations, Kyiv University of Tarasa Shevchenko, Kharkiv Law Academy and Lviv University, says Serhiy Chorny, also a partner at Baker & McKenzie.
But even a better way to stand out among other contenders could be foreign education. A Master of Laws, known as an LL.M., from a Western university, always draws attention of employers at top law firms.
“When you have an LL.M., employers take you more seriously,” says 22-year-old lawyer Marta Tsvengrosh. Last year she came back with an LL.M. in international dispute settlement from university of Geneva in Switzerland. She is now working at international law firm Integrites.
But a foreign law degree does not guarantee a higher salary or automatic employment. It took Tsvengrosh four months to find a good job. She says the reason is that the market is still recovering from the crisis.
“The salary will be the same for an applicant who has an LL.M. and for a Ukrainian university graduate,” says Chorny. But they have a stronger starting point as “usually an applicant with an LL.M. is more fluent in English and has a better understanding of the commercial side of how the operations work.”
With the economy recovering in many of its sectors to pre-crisis levels, the legal services market is still catching up.
“Law firms slowly start to hire, but nothing close to the scale of the pre-crisis 2008,” says Olga Shtil, a senior recruitment consultant at Brain Source International. She says that even though business has picked up, the situation varies from one firm to another. “There is no definite tendency – there are companies that have a lot of work, while others don’t.”
In those circumstances, competition among lawyers competing for jobs increases even more.
Bohdan Dmukhovskyi, who already had a law degree from Lviv University and experience at leading law firms, felt he should further his training. After winning a grant from the Fulbright program, he studied for a year to receive an LL.M. from Georgetown University in the U.S. Today he is an associate at AstapovLawyers, specializing in corporate law, banking and finance.
“I wouldn’t say that receiving an LL.M. is a necessity, but it increases the competitiveness of a lawyer on the Ukrainian market,” he says. Besides improved language skills, he sees the biggest advantage of the LL.M. in the opportunity to “understand different legal systems of the world, which is very important when you provide services for international clients.”
Among 58 lawyers at Baker & Mackenzie, around 80 percent have an LL.M. But a foreign degree on its own won’t build you a career, since a lot depends on the individual’s professional qualities. “The ability to analyze a client’s situation effectively in terms of suggesting an optimum solution, that’s probably the main quality [for a lawyer],” says Chorny from Baker & Mackenzie.
The ability to win clients, good communications skills while working with clients and the ability to work effectively many hours as well as expressing yourself clearly in writing are also crucial in becoming a successful lawyer.
“Good professionals are always in demand. No crisis affects that,” said recruiter Shtil.
Kyiv Post staff writer Maryna Irkliyenko can be reached
