"I enjoy getting to know our clients to better understand their needs and interests in the dispute"

When my interest in law sparked, I was enrolled in the International Baccalaureate programme and had already decided that I wanted to study for my degree abroad. At first, I was uncertain about what a foreign legal degree would mean for a legal career in Finland, but I decided to take a leap of faith and apply for universities in the UK. I was accepted into the University of Oxford to study for a Bachelor of Arts degree in law. I was very excited (and quite nervous). The move came with a sense of culture shock. My studies were demanding but also incredibly inspiring and rewarding. After graduating, I wanted to experience London and enrolled in the Master of Laws in Transnational Law programme at King's College London.

I first joined Krogerus as an Associate Trainee in the Dispute Resolution practice group in 2021, a few days after moving back to Finland from the UK. The team made me feel welcome not only at Krogerus but back in Finland as well, which helped me cope with the (this time reverse) culture shock. To become a qualified lawyer in Finland, I had to complete some additional studies for my foreign degrees to be recognised here. During this time, I continued to work part-time in the Dispute Resolution team, and after completing my studies I joined the team as an Associate lawyer – a role I felt I had grown into during my time as a trainee.

I am a part of our Dispute Resolution and Compliance, Investigations & Corporate Offences practice groups. I work on commercial litigation and arbitration. I also advice clients on, for example, compliance incidents, anti-money laundering and sanctions compliance. The choice of practice group was quite intuitive. During my studies, I was always interested in a broad range of fields of law and enjoyed researching, analysing, and arguing legal questions and problems. I had a sense that working in dispute resolution would involve all these things that I loved about studying law. This has proven to be the case: our assignments are incredibly versatile and often involve complex legal and factual issues that we get to dig deep into. In addition, during my LLM, I focused on corporate responsibility and economic crime, which has made working on compliance questions alongside more traditional commercial disputes feel natural.

I find that I have benefitted from having studied abroad in many ways in my work. At Krogerus, we often work with international clients, and the communication skills learned abroad when meeting and dealing with people from many different cultures come into good use. I also find that the experience of learning to navigate within a strange and different culture (academic and overall) boosts professional self-esteem. In addition, legal studies in UK universities focuses heavily on argumentation skills, which has been useful while working with dispute resolution.

The best thing about my job is getting to learn something new every day. Curiosity and an eagerness to learn about the law drove me to initially choose the Dispute Resolution practice group and support me in my everyday work now. It is also inspiring to work with colleagues who are excited and passionate about their work. As a young lawyer, there is much to learn from more senior colleagues, who are already experts in the field. I have also understood that there is always a human element behind even commercial disputes, and I enjoy getting to know our clients to better understand their needs and interests in the dispute.

My advice for those contemplating their paths is to trust your intuition on what feels interesting and motivating at any given moment and go towards that – you can always change course later if needed, but most likely you will find yourself doing something you really enjoy.