Our member Veikko Toomere (EJ Estonia) managed to create a pan-Nordic market for himself and his lawfirm starting from his small country. Here are all his insights.
Veikko Toomere started in a country barely more populated than the city of Brussels, and now he is at the centre of a galaxy of lawyers spreading all around the Baltic Sea. From his office in Tallinn, the capital city of Estonia, Veikko works with international lawyers for international clients with an interest in the entire Nordic region. 'We are a middle-aged lawfirm in Estonia compared to other lawfirms here,' he says. “We started in 2005, with only six lawyers. Now we are fifteen, which is impressive considering how small the market is in our country!'
Veikko had to build his career constantly facing the problem of a narrow market and still he managed to make his way into quite an enviable situation. 'Estonia and other Baltic states are still in a development phase', he explains, 'in the nineties we had a lot to catch up on to match Scandinavia or Western Europe.'
Estonia at first developed faster than its two neighbours Latvia and Lithuania, but they have since followed up and now all three Baltic states stand pretty much on the same level. 'There were a lot of reforms in the nineties', explains Veikko 'the legal environment changes here much faster than in older legal systems. So it is very challenging to keep up to date. In such a small market, lawyers are mostly generalists; it is difficult to concentrate on one legal field.' This makes the problem of staying up to date even harder when every area of law is your speciality.
To tackle these challenges and find his way, Vikko identified the best thing about Estonia: a high ethic, a high transparency, and a very favourable environment for free entreprise in general. 'If you focus enough', he says, 'you realize everything is very transparent in Estonia. All the changes in law are made available very quickly and electronically. Every Supreme Court decision is made public within hours. All you need to do is to find the time read them. I never had any difficulty with that! The good thing is, legislation changes are taking the right path. We mostly followed Scandinavia and Germany, countries with a very strong notary system. Notaries have several functions, one of which is making sure that everything is done properly. No parties in a transaction enters it without properly knowing what they are doing. It probably prevented a lot of disputes!' Veikko obviously paid a lot of interest in his legal system. Over the course of years, he managed to specialise mostly in corporate law, restructuring, and mergers and acquisitions.
So how did Veikko make it? 'Be patient: that would be the most important thing for a lawyer, everything will come at the right time'. For him, patience was rewarded with a strong presence in the Nordic and Baltic law market.
