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Step-by-step development: the best young lawyer Dmitry Borisenko on his work for Vecherny St. Petersburg

Vecherniy St. Petersburg summed up the results of the 2023 lawyers rating. The case presented by Dmitry Borisenko, the project manager of Prime Advice, allowed him to win the nomination "Best Young Lawyer".

— Why did you choose the profession of a lawyer?

— I have always been attracted to this profession. Even before I entered the university, I imagined lawyers as very successful and professional people, and generally engaged in useful work. During my school years, I liked solving law problems, and especially the fact that most of them were solved absolutely on any general principles of justice. Perhaps, somewhere on a subconscious level, this became the criterion for choosing a profession for me. But I wouldn't say it was a conscious choice.

— So you didn't know what was waiting for you?

— Probably, like many of the law students. In the early stages of my studies at the university, I wanted to become a judge, but later my professional activity developed in a completely different direction. In general terms, I understood that there are courts and judges, lawyers, prosecutors, and so on, and that jurisprudence is primarily about disputes. When I entered this profession, I just liked the image of lawyers.

— What is it like to look for a job after university? What advice would you give to current law students?

— This is a very good question, because even in strong universities, where theory is well taught and they provide a strong base for graduates to work well, they do not always talk about what the market is. And therefore, many graduates leave universities in complete ignorance even of what areas exist within this specialty. My advice to all students is to go to practice — in consulting and In-house — and see which of these is more to your liking. Because when a person enters the market after university without understanding where to go, he can get into the wrong company and lose time. He will realize this only after a year or two, when the market understands. Therefore, it is better to start understanding this while still studying. In turn, it would be nice for universities to teach not only disciplines, but also to talk about the market.

But we should not forget that law is an area that needs to be studied at the university, as, probably, medicine. And you need to immerse yourself very well in the environment. Practice, of course, can bring you closer to the right level of immersion, but some things need to be understood at a fundamental level.

Justice in general is based on the principles of integrity and fairness. You may not know any law, but if a specialist understands how these basic principles work, then he will select the rule of law for them. But in order to understand them, I think you need a good base, which can only be obtained at the university. Therefore, it would be nice for students to do internships, but do not do this to the detriment of their studies. If there is such an opportunity, then I would advise everyone.

— How did you look for a job after university?

— I started my employment at the stage of studying at the university. I can say that I was lucky. Although I did come across one of the unreliable companies, which turned out to be pseudo-legal. But I left there on the very first day of my employment, when I realized this. Otherwise, everything worked out well for me in terms of the people I had to interact with at the initial stage. I got a job in a small consulting company, which gave me a strong start.

Small firms are good because a lot of responsibility and skilled work immediately falls on a beginner. It was very helpful for me. When a person gets into big consulting, the development as a specialist, as a rule, takes place in stages. In a small consulting business, you have to work with everything at the same time: immediately go to the courts, work with complex documents, etc. Therefore, I started with a small company, but after working there for a couple of years, I wanted larger-scale projects and left, although I already had a good position at that time. As a result, I decided to sacrifice this and move into a serious large-scale legal consulting, where I now work. I don't regret it a bit. Here I got interesting projects, a great team of professionals and good friends.

— Can we say that with the transition to the current company, the direction of your work has narrowed?

— I would say that it has just changed. I used to work in a small consulting company that occupied a certain niche — mostly it was the resolution of contract and other disputes in the courts. This does not mean that things are simple in such companies, no. There are also difficult disputes and very important projects there, and you worry about them as if they were your own. I just got tired of the things we did every day. When you move to a more serious company, projects there are both more responsible and, in some ways, more interesting.

— What exactly do you do at your current job?

— We have a wide profile, but each specialist has his own basic qualifications, his own strengths. As for me, these are mainly corporate conflicts (disputes between business owners), M&A transactions and corporate business structuring. Regulation is currently changing very actively in this direction, so we constantly have to look for new solutions for our customers, which always fuels interest in this area. A few years ago, a significant part of my projects were related either to business bankruptcy or to dispute resolution in the courts. The latter, however, has not gone away, this category of cases is always there and will be. But as for the deals, it's just the market situation right now. The case itself, which participated in the Rating of lawyers, is one of the examples of transactions that occur in practice. As a rule, these are transactions related to the purchase and sale of a business.

— Do you have time to rest? Do you have any hobbies?

— It is necessary to have time to rest, because without rest it is very difficult to concentrate on more significant things. I am very active in snowboarding. In winter, several times a month I try (alas, it does not always work out) to go somewhere to enjoy nature on a mountain slope. I like to travel in the summer. And when we can't travel, we take a bike and go for a ride.

Dmitry Borisenko's case

1st place, 180 points

Client: owners of a large St. Petersburg financial company.

Project capitalization: 500 million rubles (potential investment value of assets).

Dmitry accompanied the acquisition of an Indonesian company, which was controlled by one of the largest transport companies in Russia.

For the client, this transaction was an investment project. At one time, the acquired company was implementing a railway construction project in Indonesia. However, it was subsequently frozen, and a number of problematic assets remained on the company's balance sheet, the value of which, with properly structured work, could be significantly increased.

In the interests of the client, Dmitry proposed and implemented a transaction structure in which a Singapore company acted as the buyer.

As a result, it was possible to conclude a deal in a short time and ensure a smooth transition of control over the company to the client.

Link to the interview

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