Welcome to ILN-terviews, a series of profiles of ILN member firm attorneys, designed to give a unique insight into the lawyers who make up our Network. For our latest interview, we chose ILN member, Jonas Forsman of our member firm Hellstrom in Stockholm, Sweden.  

In one sentence, how would you describe your practice?
My practice is within company law with focus on M&A, structural and managerial issues.

Who would be your typical client?
My clients range from listed companies to one-man-holding companies. In essence the typical client is a mid size shareholder-driven Swedish limited liability company with an international business, market and/or ownership.

What would you like clients and potential clients to know about you?
I strive to add value, not only invoices! I put the legal issue into context with the clients’ business for a legal and business-oriented way forward.

What has been your most challenging case? Why?
Probably the first court case when I joined the law firm. I came fresh from working at the local court and a couple of law suits waited on my desk to be handled. I had to do well with the cases to prove my worth.

What has been your proudest moment as a lawyer?
At the crash of the IT-boom I was defending a managing director, on a multimillion law suit from a shareholder claiming for his personal liability. It was a demanding case with unreliable documentation and many witnesses against us stating obvious lies. It was difficult to foresee the outcome of it all but my client never hesitated to rely on our strategy. When we received the verdict from the arbitration committee my client looked at me and said slowly that I had saved his and his family´s life.  I was unable to get any work done for two days just babbling around feeling good.

What do you do when you’re not practicing law?
I carry stuff home, mostly milk and groceries. The best days I spend time with my wife and family and/or do sports. I love to go to hockey and soccer practice with my son and to go swimming with my daughter. I very much enjoy water and alpine sports.

What would surprise people most about you?
Probably that I hold a silver medal from a national snowboarding championship (well, from a hundred years ago). And that I take a jump into the ocean just about every morning. Right now it is about four degrees Celsius, so you can see that my wife thinks I am losing it.

What has been your most memorable ILN experience?
The Singapore Conference: Me and my wife and a couple of ILN delegates were sitting outside the hotel in the warm evening having cocktails getting to know each other. Simon Ekins from London, Anad Krishnan, from Kuala Lumpur and Michael Samuel and Marie Macdonald from Glasgow struck us to be some of the funniest guys we had ever met.

What career would you have chosen if you weren’t a lawyer?
Alpine off-piste guide would not be too bad for a couple of years. Or an industrial designer.

If a movie were made of your life, who would you want to play you?
Arnold of course… But I would settle for a skinny Chandler in Friends, as they say I resemble him. But I don’t.

How would you like to be remembered?
With a laugh and a tear, and as a caring and active father, that at least tried his best to come home from work in time, with all the stuff.