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Kinga Hetényi
MANAGING PARTNER, SCHÖNHERR HETÉNYI ÜGYVÉDI IRODA
BACKGROUND Kinga Hetényi has been the managing partner of Schoenherr Budapest since 2010. She has more than 25 years of experience in advising international clients on corporate, M&A, commercial and labor law issues. Her real specialty is advising on complex corporate restructurings, including cross border mergers, and solving “insolvable” corporate problems. She interrupted her carrier as an attorney in 2004 and worked for one and a half years in-house as general counsel of the Hungarian subsidiary of an FMCG company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. This has given her insight into how large commercial organizations work and what general counsels and businessmen really need in terms of legal advice. She speaks German as her second mother tongue, and is fluent in English and French. OF WHICH ACHIEVEMENTS ARE YOU MOST PROUD? I am proud that I am well known in the international legal business, and that clients with whom I have not had contact for many years suddenly pop up and remember that I solved a problem for them several years before and contact me again if they encounter new issues. I am also proud of the team that I work with, and that colleagues like to work with us and our team. It has always been very important to me to have a coherent group of devoted people who think alike and pull together in the
same boat. We all spend way too much time at work; it would be a big mistake and a waste of resources if the work atmosphere was not joyful and constructive. I always strive to create such an atmosphere because only that can be inspiring and attractive for talented and ambitious lawyers.
WHAT DREW YOU TO LAW AS A PROFESSION? I had many compelling reasons, but the loudest reason was probably that there were no lawyers in my family at all, and I wanted to learn something and become professional in a field in which nobody of my family could assist. This is how, at that time, I intended to strengthen our family: by contributing something that nobody else could contribute. My father was a businessman and my mother was working in the healthcare industry. Thus, business school and med school were excluded. As a woman, I did not think of engineering either but I wanted to choose something that was useful also in my private life.
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Name of law firm Schönherr Hetényi Ügyvédi Iroda
Name of associate non-Hungarian law firm or cooperation network Schönherr Rechtsanwälte GmbH
Address 1133 Budapest, Váci út 76.
Managing partner Kinga Hetényi
In charge of position since 2010
Year of Hungarian law firm's establishment 2008
No. of attorneys with license to practise in Hungary on Sept. 15, 2020 18
No. of partners of Hungarian law firm on Sept. 15, 2020 2
HOW DID YOU PICK YOUR LEGAL SPECIALTY AREA? I was always fascinated by business law, an area that consists of helping businessmen to navigate their matters. From among the legal areas, I consider business law and corporate law the most complex and the most exact science. This is the area in which I can best use my knowledge of foreign languages and foreign cultures. I have also had the chance to study the law of other countries and to practice law in another jurisdiction. Hence, I gained knowledge about how businessmen and lawyers in other jurisdictions think and work, which is one of the most fascinating experiences for me. WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE TO IMPROVE THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT IN HUNGARY? Firstly, I would change the legal education and make it much more practice-oriented. Students should not be required to learn the text of the law by heart, they should rather be allowed to use them during their exams. The focus should be on teaching law students how to think as a lawyer, what questions to answer and equipping them with tools and the ability to analyze and solve cases in a systematic manner. I truly believe that, after a few years, this change in itself would cause an avalanche of changes in all genres of the legal profession, from which the entire society would benefit highly.
