You don't know where your horizon is

One of the significant events on the legal market in 2014 came when Roman Bevzenko left his post as head of the Private Law Division at the Russian Supreme Commercial Court to join Pepeliaev Group as a partner. Moving from public office into private practice is far from unknown, but this transfer made waves in the legal community. None of the Court's employees of a comparable level, from among its 'stars', had yet made the leap to a top law firm. The example of Roman Bevzenko demonstrates that working in Russia's senior courts is not a barrier to returning to a private practice or in-house role, in other words to 'the market'. We asked Elena Barinova, the expert and author who runs the seminar 'Managing your legal career effectively', to talk to Roman about how he came into the profession, the main stages of his career development, what success and excellence mean for him, and what he expects in his new surroundings.[1]

I came into the law by chance. I made my choice by cutting out the sectors in which I definitely couldn't have made any headway. Having ruled out anything relating to exact and natural sciences, I understood that I am more inclined to the humanities, and that I should take a legal path. In my first year at university, it was incredibly tough and I even thought that I may have made a mistake. Then I happened to get hold of Professor Pokrovsky's wonderful book 'The Main Problems of Civil Law'. This opened up for me the surprising world of the law, and I understood that it was for me. Then I gave up my hobby as a bass-guitarist in a rock group that played hard rock n' roll. I decided once and for all that I'd become a lawyer.

Starting from my second year I was an attorney's assistant in a bureau of attorneys at law in Samara. It all went pretty successfully. By the end of my studies, I already had almost three-and-a-half years under my belt. One of the clients whose matters I had handled asked me to join his company as a legal adviser. It was a major regional business entity in Samara. I quickly moved up to head of the legal department. At the same time, I started to be involved on the academic side and that also caught my interest. In my fifth year, they suggested that I stay on in the faculty to do postgraduate research. For two years, I wrote a thesis about protecting possession in good faith, and in 2000 I started to teach in the law faculty at Samara State Economic University. — So it turned out that, by this stage, you had already had the dynamism to establish yourself in both the academic and practical branches of the law. Did you have a clear understanding of where your priorities lay? I doubt that, back then, I understood that I wanted to be an academic, and considered that everything else was just on the side. Nor, on the other hand, did I want to mainly be involved in practice, with academia only being a labour of love. I believe that you can't achieve a precise understanding of what matters most to you when you are 25, 27 or 29 years old. It's something that comes with age.

Evidently, my attraction to academia predetermined everything that happened to me later on. Eight years after I graduated from the law faculty, I was given the opportunity to go and work at the Supreme Commercial Court. A vacancy had appeared there for a head of department in one of the analytical divisions, and it was suggested that I put myself forward. I thought: "Well, why not?" So I entered the competition and took up the post of head of a department in the analytical division that was called the 'Legislation Division of the Russian Supreme Commercial Court'. It wasn't the biggest of jobs, but there you go. From that point, everything moved forward at a great pace. — How did the Court seem to you back then? What did you like about it? What did you expect from it? What ambitions were you looking to fulfil? When I had just agreed to move to the Court, of course I had no way to tell what this would lead to three, five or seven years down the line, what horizons I had or at what stage I would reach my limit. I was terribly attracted by the very form of the Supreme Commercial Court and the great aura it has, by the high-level, serious jurisprudence and the opportunity to work with people whom I had looked up to as icons. The fact that I would be working in the same building as them, would run into them in the corridor, would speak to them and discuss things with them - this gave me a burning motivation to make the move.

No, I had no fear. This was because I always understood that I was taking a step up, and it would be an obvious advantage to mention in my CV that I'd worked in the Supreme Commercial Court. Yes, it was quite a radical change in terms of the work I was doing, and maybe also in my mentality. You end up not on one side of the barricade, but above the fray. You find yourself living with a feeling of stress for around a year, but then the result is wonderful. We like to say that we have no legal community. In fact, we do, and the Supreme Commercial Court is at the peak of it. I had no sense that I'd entered a different universe.

The Supreme Commercial Court had an analytical unit that was responsible for coming up with abstract legal positions in the form of resolutions of its plenary sessions, overviews and information letters. I headed the unit that did this in the area of private law. For the whole four years I worked in this unit, I was amazingly driven, because you know that when you've got to grips with a problem and know how to solve it, you can solve it. It's a major advantage specifically of a resolution of the Plenum of the Supreme Commercial Court as a form of influence over practice that I didn't have to find a compromise with people who were adhering to the interests of their own clan or the interests of a client. I had contact with people who were engaged in high-level jurisprudence. I argued with them, convinced them, prevailed in some discussions but not in others. These were legal compromises, though, and not compromises deriving from a current political point or economic situation. That mattered a lot. In other words, it was understood that I was engaged in jurisprudence, pure law. — In the Russian Supreme Commercial Court, you headed a division where, in essence, rules were devised whose application then became binding. Were you not afraid if making a mistake. It wasn't frightening because I wasn't doing that on my own. I had colleagues and friends who were absolutely first-rate lawyers and intellectuals. What's more, the decision-making system was as follows: at the outset, an analytical unit worked on a project; then it was discussed by the deputy chairman of the court who was overseeing it; then came a discussion at the Presidium level together with academics and the community; and then it went to the Plenum. Having such a system of filters allowed us to cut out incorrect decisions. On a personal level, I was never daunted by the fact that I’d state something which would later be applied in practice. It seems to me that the Supreme Commercial Court never made any serious mistakes in the area of private law. I stand ready to debate that in public with anyone who wishes![2].

When I came to understand that I could no longer have the career I'd assumed I would, I was faced with a choice. Should I be purely an academic scholar, giving lectures, teaching (and if I'd done only that, I'd have been very comfortably off), or should I return to practice? Because of the way my character is, I don't want to deal only with abstract things, but with applied jurisprudence, a blessing my skills, knowledge and experience allow. And I decided that if an offer came my way that would satisfy both my ambitions (the academic one and the practical one), then I'd take it. I had quite a number of interesting offers, and the one I took was the one that seemed most interesting to me. It offered just the right combination of practical and academic jurisprudence. I can't imagine myself being only in private practice or being only in academia. I know that some of my colleagues have settled on one or the other of these areas. Of course, those who choose scholarship are real devotees. To teach people is an extremely valuable and noble investment, but I couldn't do that alone.

I find it much more interesting to be in practice not on my own but to have a well-structured and expertly organised law firm behind me. I mean one with assistants and secretaries, that has a brand and legal technologies it has made. I like to be able to turn to professionals from other areas for assistance - customs, tax and so on. I can't claim to be an expert in everything. It seems to me that the age of the all-rounder is already in the past. I'm a narrow specialist. I can navigate my way through some other areas fairly well, but then there are those that are completely beyond my scope. In such a case, a properly organised legal business is a major help. It's great to work in a team. In an academic environment, a lone wolf has his or her place. In legal practice, teamwork offers greater prospects. 

I had a few offers to move in house, but I absolutely don't see myself these days in a head of legal role where you're responsible for the work of a large legal department. You have to organise everything, prove that you're effective, and defend yourself before the board of directors. I don't rule out that my career may develop in that direction at some point, but more probably it won't. I like the position of an adviser more.

When you move into the role of a partner in a commercial law firm and, in addition, are fairly well known, this to a large degree irons out any difficulty with being 'saleable'. I'm not worried about any need to make myself better known. By being so active in the public eye over recent years, I already have a good grounding for moving into the role of a partner in a law firm. To put yourself forward is absolutely fine, because you always have to make the first move. When you've just graduated from college, just entering the market and no one knows you, and then when you've accomplished something and are making your way, and even when you already have standing, but someone still doesn't know you ... I don't understand why you should be afraid and hold back from taking the first step of telling people about yourself, especially when you have something to tell them about. It's another story if you have nothing to tell them about and you need to invent something. I believe that a lawyer, as a public figure, should know how to communicate with the public and to use to good effect basic methods of self-presentation.

I am convinced that for a lawyer, the most important thing is communication skills - to be able to win people over and to explain complex things in simple terms. Problems with communication is the main reason behind difficulties that arise in the relationship between a lawyer and a client, a lawyer and an employer and so on. For example, you say: "It's an abstract dispositive transaction," and the client doesn't understand. It shows the utmost class when you can explain the same thing using simple words. There are no bad or stupid people. There are people who are resentful about something or don't understand something. The lawyer’s job, when communicating with someone, is to ensure that the person understands and to find, even if that person is aggressively inclined, the right buttons to press to bring him over to your point of view. In court, it's the same. As someone who has dealt with the judiciary from the inside for almost seven years, I know the mentality of a judge. I understand that if I talk about an abstract dispositive transaction, the judge for various reasons won't understand me. However, if I simply say that the transaction has been invalidated but I'm the owner even so, he'll get the point right away. It seems to me that this is what a lawyer should work on as a top priority. Of course, if you don't go out in public but sit at your computer using the Internet or in a library and just write, this may be number two or three in the list of skills. But if you're a public person, then it's the number one skill. You have to learn to explain complex things in simple terms. The more public appearances you make, the more this skill develops. Probably the best way to develop it is to appear before a public that either does not have a particularly great grasp of the law or is even a long way from that. Try somehow to attend an event where there are business people and try to tell them about piercing the corporate veil. If you manage to convey the sense of this doctrine to them, they'll be surprised and become interested: "Wow! That's great. We want it too." But if you tell them about the effect of identity, piercing the veil and the fact that in such a case such a decision was reached, they'll say politely but with no enthusiasm: "Mm, yes, very interesting." In other words, complicated explanations don't interest anybody.

I can't say that I've consciously courted publicity. When some of my colleagues and friends jokingly reproach me for this, I laugh it off: all publicity is good publicity, unless it's an obituary. With the job I had in the State Commercial Court, publicity came with the territory. This was due to the general trend of open, public influence on the legal environment. The law should not be hidden away in the quiet of back offices, but should be in the public eye. This stance of Anton Ivanov, former chairman of the Supreme Commercial Court, has taught us to be open. I always gave comments to the press, and accepted invitations to take part in any events. Of course, I also used new media: zakon.ru, Twitter, and Facebook. Once you've become addicted to publicity, you can't do without it. You have a strong desire to explain, for example, what's written in the preamble, the Code or the law and why you think this is so. It becomes an integral part of life in the law: using new media to help you to explain things to the public at large. I understand perfectly well that my popularity specifically ties in with my frequent public appearances. Obviously they've enjoyed some success and have ensured that I am recognisable. However, when I was working in the Supreme Commercial Court, my objective was not to sell myself but to explain. The fact that in those days I explained quite a lot makes my life easier now that I've moved across to another branch of the legal market.

In Russia, it's often said that: “An ounce of practice is generally worth more than a ton of theory.” I believe that such a judgement is fundamentally incorrect. Over-emphasising one's own craftsmanship in this way is not evidence that one will reach the heights of the legal profession. A lawyer nonetheless needs a solid grasp of theory. I have already been practising law for 17 years. I am convinced that eminent Russian attorney-at-law Konstantin Sklovsky was right when he said that, "Any practical situation, even the most complicated one, has a practical solution if you know theory well." If you master doctrine, understand legal policy, and have at least a rough idea when it comes to comparative jurisprudence, you'll get by far more easily. It's now easy to top up one's store of learning. The world has become so open, with a plethora of sources from which knowledge may be derived. When I was twenty and wanted to plunge into jurisprudence, I'd go to the Samara Region Universal Academic Library and order the dusty pre-revolutionary tomes of Duvernois, Krivtsov, Trepitsin and the like. I would sit there on weekends, leafing through the folios. There's no comparison with how simple and quick it is to do that nowadays. In my student days, it was difficult to get hold of any book in English about law. Now if you want to, you can buy an Amazon Kindle device, go to the Amazon site and buy yourself the latest work by, for example, van Erp or Zimmerman, then download and read it. 

It's vital to keep your finger on the pulse of legal life in the broad sense of the term. You need to know what's happening in the highest court, what's going on around you, what lawyers in law-making circles are talking about, and what those with the ear of the highest court - the Constitutional Court - are saying. Now, thanks to the way technology has developed, that's easy. And there's a separate question that's vast in scope: how does a lawyer develop using the help of modern technology. The answer to that is very simple. In all probability, everyone knows it, but not everyone does so. You always need to strive to be among people who know more than you do. My example with the Supreme Commercial Court really illustrates the point. I didn't know much when I moved there, but when I became immersed in that environment, I started to soak up knowledge like a sponge. And now I also am desperately keen to be among people who know much more than me.

To attain excellence, one needs to work every day. You can't say: "Well, on Saturdays, I think about law." You need to think about it all the time. Of course, that's a monstrous exertion, and you can burn out. But you need to think, look, read, listen and speak with colleagues. If you lack that internal desire, then it's your affair, but you will reap the results. It's true that you need to understand that if you do not burn with this desire, you will fall short of excellence. Of course, there are many good, smart people in the law who perform to a fine level and then switch off at six in the evening. After that, their computer is shut down and they turn to being just a father or mother, husband or wife. There's nothing wrong with that at all, but it isn't how I am. For example, I will travel home from work and listen to a recording of a session at a seminar which I didn't attend. For the whole of that hour while I'm on the move, I'll delve into the arguments there were among people better versed than I am in some topic or other, so that I understand what I don't know myself. If you live like this, then success awaits. — How do you see your professional future in the long term? Are you drawing up any plans? I can't say that I have any objectives that reach far into the future, or that in 25 years' time I must be in a particular place. In the present, I'm happy, I know something about law and there are people who need that knowledge. I breathe deeply and the store of knowledge I have accumulated is applicable to the tasks I currently face. Nevertheless, I can't rule out that at some point I'll become tired and will head back to academia. Time will tell.

[1] The interview was prepared based on video materials recorded for the seminar designed by Elena Barinova on 'Managing your legal career effectively', which is carried out on the base of the 'M-Logos' Legal Institute.

[2] Roman Bevzenko discusses his work at the Supreme Commercial Court in more detail in his blog, which is at: http://zakon.ru/Blogs/UserList/1499