Pál Jalsovszky

MANAGING PARTNER, JALSOVSZKY

BACKGROUND Pál Jalsovszky is 51, and has been practicing law since 1997. Prior to his legal studies, he obtained a university degree in economics and he also holds an LL.M in international taxation. He set up Jalsovszky Law Firm in 2005 and has been running it ever since. Beside his professional life, Jalsovszky is also a member of the Supervisory Board of the Budapest Festival Orchestra.

OF WHICH ACHIEVEMENTS ARE YOU MOST PROUD? My biggest achievement is, without doubt, the creation and the development of our firm. When I started in 2005 as a sole practitioner, I could not imagine, in my wildest dreams, a firm of more than five lawyers. Now we are more than 20 and we are still growing.

What made us so successful? There are several answers to that. Obviously, the primary is the personal factor. I was at the perfect age (35) when I started the firm: I was young and dynamic, full of ideas and enthusiasm but, at the same time, I already had wide professional experience. It also helped that, in addition to being a lawyer, I had a businessmindset which clients highly appreciated. I had, further, a unique product, taxation, which, combined with corporate legal skills could produce a lot of benefits.

This was a good recipe for a successful start but would not, probably, have been enough to build up a really sizable firm. I was able to hire smart and talented colleagues who shared my vision of a good law firm.

Without the right leverage in the system, a good law firm cannot work. I still remember those days when I believed that I had the deepest knowledge in all of the professional areas that we advised in. Now I am far from it. But this actually makes me really relaxed.

My role has changed a lot during the years. While in the first phase it was me who gave the advice and ran our transactional teams, now I am more involved in the strategic direction of the office. For 20 years I acted as a lawyer. Now I am acting as a manager. I could change job while staying within the same organization.

WHAT DREW YOU TO LAW AS PROFESSION? My first experience with law came as early as the age of six, when my mother studied law. On certain days I attended primary school in the morning and accompanied my mother to a lecture on law in the afternoon. Also, my first books included my mother’s legal textbooks. Surely, I did not have a clue of anything that was written there, but it injected in me some interest towards the law. Regardless of all this, after secondary school, legal studies did not even emerge as an option; I joined the university of economics. But the third year,

“My first experience with law came as early as the age of six, when my mother studied law. On certain days I attended primary school in the morning and accompanied my mother to a lecture on law in the afternoon.”

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Name of law firm Jalsovszky

Name of associate non-Hungarian law firm or cooperation network International Lawyers Network

Address 1124 Budapest, Csörsz utca 41.

Managing partner Pál Jalsovszky

In charge of position since 2006

Year of Hungarian law firm's establishment 2005

No. of attorneys with license to practise in Hungary on Sept. 15, 2020 15

No. of partners of Hungarian law firm on Sept. 15, 2020 4

when we studied law at Közgáz, was a turning point. Under the influence of the hilarious lectures of professor Sárközy, I started law in parallel to my economic studies. But it was still a close call between becoming a businessman with legal knowledge or a lawyer with a financial background. Finally I opted for the second. I believe I made a good choice.

HOW DID YOU PICK YOUR LEGAL SPECIALTY AREA? Tax came as quite an obvious option very early my career: I was obtaining my economics degree with a specialization in accounting; I was studying law; I was good at mathematics; the result of the equation was tax. I wrote my thesis about the corporate tax system in 1994. And I realized at every corner where I worked that this knowledge is special and can generate a lot of financial benefits. The only problem was that the tax education in Hungary war rather poor. Further, at the places where I worked, there was no one to learn from in terms of tax. I became therefore a half educated, self-made tax guy: I understood certain tricks in taxation but I did not see the entire building. This is why, in 2002, I spent one year in the Netherlands studying international tax. I was absorbing tax knowledge there like a sponge. I finished the studies with an extreme level of knowledge and solid confidence.

WHAT WOULD YOU CHANGE TO IMPROVE THE LEGAL ENVIRONMENT IN HUNGARY? The Hungarian legal and tax system is still full of unnecessary bureaucracy and paperwork. Just think about the amount of data that an invoice must contain. Also, while it takes just a few days to establish a company, it is still a nightmare to terminate it. I know that it is controversial, but the lawmaker should trust better the participants of business transactions. The other area is digitalization. Many aspects of our daily legal routine is already digitalized but the systems are complex, difficult to use in practice. Each authority uses its own electronic system. The digital signature is still a reality more on paper than in practice. It would be desirable to have a global picture on all such developments.