Tamás Fehér is a partner with Jalsovszky Law Firm, the Hungarian member of the International Lawyers Network, where he practices tax litigation. In this episode, Lindsay and Tamás discuss the challenges and opportunities of AI and technology, how he came to practice both tax and litigation, and the unique issues that non-native English-speaking countries face in upskilling a modern workforce.

You can listen to the podcast here, or we’ve provided a transcript of the highlights below.

Lindsay: Hello, and welcome to the Law Firm ILN-telligence Podcast. I’m your host, Lindsay Griffiths, Executive Director of the International Lawyers Network. Our guest this week is Tamás Fehér from Jalsovszky Law Firm in Budapest, Hungary. Tamás, we’re really happy to have you with us this week. Thank you so much for doing this podcast with us. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself, and your practice, and your firm?

Tamás: Hi Lindsay. Thank you so much for inviting me to join. I’m really happy to do this. I haven’t done many podcasts in guests, so it’s a new experience for me. My name is Tamás Fehér, as you said. I’m a partner of our law firm, Jalsovszky, which is 19 years old this year, so we’ll soon have an anniversary. I haven’t been with the firm that long; I joined in 2014. Previous to that, I used to be with another law firm, a big international law firm here in Hungary.

And my background is a bit strange. In university, I was very much focused on private law, and I didn’t really care too much about tax law. But when I joined this firm that I was referring to as a paralegal, I accidentally was bombarded with some questions regarding tax law, which I had no idea about at the time. But then gradually, it really became… Tax law became what I did most of the time, and trained lawyer, I was also doing tax law most of the time. So that’s my basic background. But I also did quite a bit of litigation in the firm as a training lawyer, and so it became sort of a strange combination between tax and litigation.

So, I remember I had a partner who said when I… Because we were supposed to transfer, as trainees, we were supposed to transfer between the various practice groups, and after having been part of the tax group for a few years, I had the opportunity to choose to where I wanted to transfer, and I said, “Well, I wanted to go into dispute resolution.” And I had this partner, and he was a banking partner, he was quite influential at the firm, and he called me to his room, and he told me, “Tamás, I really don’t understand. I mean, you should do banking, because tax law and litigation really doesn’t have anything to do with each other, it doesn’t make sense for a tax lawyer to suddenly venture into dispute resolution.” And well, I told him, “I don’t really have an interest in banking and finance, but I really wanted to learn a bit about litigation and arbitration and stuff.” And so, it was accepted, that’s how I ventured into dispute resolution.

But I understand that this is sort of a strange combination, but as years passed by, I guess I really found the niche, or the perfect combination between tax law and litigation, which is actually tax litigation, so that’s what I was then sort of doing after having joined Jalsovszky. Because I actually was supposed to join as a tax lawyer, I was supposed to join as a tax advisor here at the firm. And at the time I joined, in 2014, we already had a wonderful and very strong tax team, but we didn’t do much tax litigation. But it just so happened that after I joined, tax litigation became a major part of what we did at the time, and I had a deal with my managing partner, Pal, who accepted it, besides doing tax advisory, I would be the one doing tax litigation at the firm if the opportunity came. And then, of course, as we had more and more tax litigation cases, more and more of my time was doing tax litigation, and less and less was spent doing tax advisory.

So that’s really my journey. That’s how I ended up being, first and foremost, a tax litigator, but then eventually, we figured that because we’re doing tax litigation, and because we are pretty good at doing litigation, we should maybe also do some solid kinds of litigation at the firm. So, we then decided to do commercial litigation, arbitration, that was around 2018 or 2019. And so, at this stage, I’m heading our dispute resolution team, and we are pretty unique, I would say, on the market, because we sort of have two branches. So, we have maintained our tax litigation capabilities, and I would say, we are pretty well-known on the Hungarian market for that, but we have now also grown quite a substantial commercial litigation and arbitration practice. So that’s sort of representing my interests over the years, and I could honestly say that it’s sort of the perfect place where I could be, doing some litigation, some commercial litigation, as well as some tax litigation, and deal a bit of tax advisory as well.

Lindsay: That’s very cool. It worked out perfectly for you.

Tamás: Yes, it did. I agree.

Lindsay: So, what is your biggest challenge at the moment?

Tamás: Well, I think my biggest challenge is really keeping track of all of these very different cases, and all these very different types of cases, really. I mean, I have a wonderful team, we are around ten lawyers within our dispute resolution team, some of whom are also tax lawyers, and some of whom are commercial lawyers. Plus, I do a lot of work with other colleagues within the office. So, I still work a lot with our tax advisors, and some of the people.

And I suppose the biggest challenge for me, I mean, from a professional perspective at least, is to just keep track of all these various issues. I mean, it’s a challenge, but it’s also a very nice challenge to have, and it’s a very nice experience to have, to really use what I would say is different parts of your brain, really, because you need to have a bit of a different mindset when you’re providing, let’s say tax advice on the one hand, and doing some litigation work, or figuring out negotiations prior to the litigation. So, I think it really requires different skillsets, different ways of thinking, and it’s probably my biggest challenge, but it’s also what I enjoy the most.

Lindsay: That’s great. What does the current state of the market look like for your clients?

Tamás: Actually, it’s a bit difficult to answer. I think the current market in Hungary is pretty complex, it’s also a bit difficult to read. Just to give you an impression of what the market looks like in Hungary, I mean, on the one hand, the government, and its, let’s say the businesspeople around the government, have become quite influential on the whole of the Hungarian market. So, it’s a peculiarity or a specialty of the Hungarian market, if you will, that a lot of business, either directly or indirectly, comes from political actors, or maybe the circle of those political actors. It’s just a reality of Hungarian politics, I suppose, and Hungarian economics.

Our law firm, I think has done a very good job to have a very strong business approach, meaning that we are not perceived, and we are also not actually engaged with those political actors or that circle, but it’s still just the reality of the wider Hungarian economy, that that circle is quite influential. So that’s one part of the economy.

Now, you have the other part of the economy, which is just the normal actors in the market. And I would say that the market is generally doing well. I mean, even in that part of the market, which is independent from those political circles, but we are already seeing some turmoil beneath the surface, it’s very difficult to read. But on the one hand, we have a huge deficit in the state budget. So, this means that the government is raising taxes, it introduces new taxes all the time, and this puts some pressure on market players. Then secondly, we have seen a decline in the property markets especially, and the construction industry, and I just heard that there have never been as many liquidations, forced liquidations on the Hungarian market as there are currently.

Now, if you look at the general figures, I mean GDP and stuff like that, you don’t see that at the moment, but it’s something which is sort of boiling beneath the surface, and it could actually come to the surface eventually. And we already see some of that happening, I mean, we are heavily involved in dispute resolution, and obviously when you have problems with meeting payment schedules, when you have issues with companies going into liquidation, you will have an increased number of disputes, you will have an increased number of anxiety, basically, in the market. And maybe people are quicker in deciding to go to court, or to try to recover their debts that way. So, we already see that happening.

I mean, you could say that for dispute resolution practice this is great, and for a tax practice as well, because when there is a deficit in the state budget, the tax authority tends to be more aggressive, and we already see that happening as well. So I would say that if you look at the overall figures of the economy, you don’t see much which is very interesting, but if you look beneath the surface, and you sort of look at the movements in the market, then you can actually see that there are some issues, and obviously, a lot of our clients are somehow affected by those.

Lindsay: Of course. Yes, I mean, but it certainly will keep lawyers busy for a while.

Tamás: Yes, it will.

Lindsay: What challenges do you think are facing the legal profession in general today? I know that’s a tough one.

Tamás: That’s a tough question. We’ve been traveling around, well, certainly Europe a lot lately, and what’s interesting is that I sort of encounter the same problems, or the same sort of issues from my colleagues across Europe, really, from very different countries, and very different economies. And I think that the first thing that pops into my mind, and also the minds of my colleagues it seems, is the difficulty of… Well, of recruiting, of finding the right people, and retaining the right people. I think there has been a real shift in that, at least here in Europe.

I would say that back in the ’90s and the beginning of the 200s, it seemed that young lawyers, they were really… How should I say it nicely so that you don’t have to cut it? So, they were very eager to work a lot, because they had this prospect of building their careers, and this was sort of the expectation, and it was part of the general culture, I would say. And on the one hand, they were ready to work a lot, and put in a lot of hours, and had a real drive to go forward, but they also saw some great examples, partners in law firms who were very young, or have succeeded in becoming partners at a very young age, and this was sort of a motivation for them.

What I see currently is that younger lawyers, they do not necessarily want to work that much, because they don’t really have the motivation to do so, because they tend to, I don’t know, reap the rewards if there are any now, in the present, and not wait for those to come to them later on in life. And frankly, it also seems that some of the avenues that were open to, let’s say the generation before me, are not necessarily open for younger lawyers. So, I think it’s definitely a challenge, and it means that it’s… I think we, as partners, or as seniors, we just need to do more to motivate people to find the right ways to motivate young lawyers, and we have to find the right balance as well, as to the things that we could expect from them, and the things that we are able to provide them with.

And this is not necessarily just money, because I think that the real positive about it is that I think younger lawyers tend to expect more, or other things than just remuneration for their work, I think. And that provides us with a great opportunity to be more creative in how we motivate them, be it in terms of training, in terms of hybrid ways of working, in terms of the team that we put together, in terms of ways to educate them, and to have a great team spirit at work. So, there are a lot of things, but it’s definitely a challenge, I think.

Lindsay: Absolutely. And I think you’re speaking from the experience of a European lawyer, but I certainly think that’s a universal, global issue that’s being faced. And I took a really interesting survey yesterday from the Diversity & Flexibility Alliance here in The U.S., that was talking about companies that offer a sabbatical as part of their compensation package. And that’s not something we offer, but reading about companies that offer this sabbatical opportunity, and the ability to take a significant amount of time off to explore other passions and opportunities, that, as you said, is an opportunity to be creative in your compensation package, that has nothing to do with remuneration, and is something that I think a lot of firms and companies are exploring. I don’t think they do it anymore, but there was a period of time that our New Zealand firm was offering, I think every three years, you had to take a six-month sabbatical, which was really fascinating to me. But I think their workload now, the client demand is such that they don’t do that anymore.

Tamás: Yes, that seems a bit over top. We do offer such an opportunity to our colleagues, but it’s nowhere near the amount that you just mentioned, it’s actually a one-month sabbatical that we offer. I’m not sure after how many years, maybe five. It’s very funny, I told this to a colleague who works at another office, they don’t have the sabbatical, but he told me, “But one month, it’s not really a sabbatical, is it?” And I said, well, “Yes, you could say that, but at least it’s a start.” Having looked at some colleagues who have already taken the sabbatical, I think it still is really useful, it’s something to look forward to, and it’s also something to… It’s a way to have the time and the mental capacity, really, to just view yourself from the outside, and sort of think about where you are in life, and what you want to do, and how you want to go about.

You were talking about challenges; I think one real challenge in our profession is that you can really never completely switch off. I mean, yes, you can finish the work that you have for that particular day, or week, or whatever, but it’s not like you can go home for the weekend and just forget about all of your work, because you know that the next day or in two days, you have to pick it up again. And there are still clients waiting, and there are still things to be answered, and submissions to be made. And I think that’s the real benefit of such an arrangement, such as sabbatical, is that you are allowed to completely switch off, and I’ve seen that, and I think even if it just lasts a month, it still allows our colleagues to completely forget about their work, and the clients, and the client work. And I think that’s the primary benefit, and I think it’s really valued at least by our colleagues.

Lindsay: Absolutely. I can 100% see the benefit of doing something like that. As you say, even for a month, in The U.S., that would be a miracle. As you know, we have a very limited vacation policy here.

Tamás: Yes, I’ve heard. I’ve heard.

Lindsay: Okay. Let’s talk about, what is the biggest area related to either your practices, or the legal industry in general, that you’re curious about?

Tamás: Well, certainly curiosity, and in terms of exploring new areas, is really legal tech. I think that’s the one area where I’m still very curious as to where that will end up. I know we’ve made a lot of efforts, a lot of investment into legal tech over the past two or three years, and we are now really starting to reap the benefits of that. But it’s still a work-in-progress, and I think that it’s something which I’m really curious about as to how that will evolve the legal profession, and where that will lead to. We do have some ideas, we are talking a lot about this within the firm, because we have really strategically decided to put a lot of effort and money into this area, so we are really very active and eagerly talking about it.

And so far, what we feel is that it’s not going to put an end to the legal professions, it’s not like there will be no need for lawyers anymore if AI and other legal tech solutions come in, but it will certainly change the way that we do our work, and it will likely lead to a differentiation, maybe, between lawyers, and the sort of lawyers that a law firm will need. So just to give you an example, we are already well underway with the contract and document automation in our firm, which is really… It’s sort of a low tech solution in a way, because it doesn’t really need or involve any AI, the technology has been there for, I think, decades to do this, but nonetheless, lawyers, they’re quite conservative, so I think lawyers are very, very… Usually, they’re very difficult to adopt new things, which is an opportunity, I think, for those of us who are willing to do that.

We have really achieved quite a lot in contract automation, and it’s quite wonderful to see that a company formation, which previously has taken two, three, four hours for a trainee to do, filling in all the forms, and all the documents, can be done in 20 minutes. And also, some other more complex documents like agreements or whatever, it just takes a lot less time. But it also involves that whoever is doing the work, what she really does is just filling in a questionnaire. So, there are a lot of very thought-through questions being asked by her, and she just fills it in, and completes the questionnaire, and at the end, she gets a complete agreement, or document, or whatever.

And what we believe… It’s a sort of fear, but it’s also just a matter of fact, is that this will lead to the need for lawyers, or maybe even not lawyers, just legal assistance, whose only job will really be to fill in questionnaires like this, and who will not really be expected to understand the contents of what they’re producing. It will just be about asking them to fill in those questionnaires, and putting the data in a meaningful way, of course, but they will not necessarily be expected to understand what they’re doing, and why they’re doing it that way.

So, it could lead to sort of a differentiation between lawyers, in the sense that there will be some who will still understand the logical all of those documents, and the contents of all of those documents, and they will understand why certain clauses appear, and why they appear as they do. But then there will be the need to have people who really don’t necessarily understand the contents, but they’re actually just doing the work of putting in the data. Another example of that is our growing reliance on translation software. I mean, you may not have this problem, but here in Europe, we frequently encountered a problem that we have a document in one particular language, and we need to produce it in another one, either because we have to go to court and litigate, or just because of the needs of the client or whatever. Whereas the working language is usually English, but we do need to translate documents either from or to English rather frequently.

And previously, this was done by trainees or paralegals, and this was a great way for them to learn the… Particularly in English, to just learn the legal language, and the phrases that you would usually use in a contract, or in some the legal documents. And now we are not doing that anymore, because basically what we do is to use quite advanced translation software, which does the work for you, and really, all you need to do is just look through the translation and make sure that it’s accurate and correct any mistakes.

And this is something which can be done, and it is usually by more senior people. And this leads to an issue that the trainees and the paralegals are no longer required to translate documents, so they will no longer have the opportunity to learn by doing this, and to learn the legal terminology by doing this translation work. And this is not something we can go back to, so this is not something which we can pretend as if it’s not there, so we can’t really say, “Well, don’t use the software, do it yourself.” It’s not the way it works. But still, we will miss an opportunity to teach some aspects of the work to younger lawyers.

Lindsay: Yes, that’s always been my question, because… I mean, I am fully behind moving forward with technology, but I think it has… While I agree with you, it will never replace lawyers, I think the question becomes… The lawyers it won’t replace are the senior lawyers who have the sophisticated knowledge to give the legal advice that clients really want, but the question becomes, how do the trainee lawyers who need to figure out how to get that knowledge, how do they gain that knowledge? Because what you used to do to gain that knowledge is the part that it’s replacing. And so it is that they then start to learn it either through videos, or some kind of other training.

And I think what we’ve seen too, with the increase in more remote working, a lot of the people who take advantage of the remote working are the more senior lawyers, so then they’re not in the office to be interacting as much with the training lawyers, so that sort of folds in on itself. So, I think it creates a lot of questions about how trainee lawyers really get the institutional knowledge that they need to become the senior lawyers that we need and want them to be.

Tamás: Yes, exactly. I quite agree. And what you raised about remote work, it’s really another challenge that we need to cope with, because on the one hand, I think the most frequent question I get from new trainees, or at the interview is, “Okay, do you have a possibility for remote work? How many days?” Home office and stuff like that. On the other hand, yes, there is the clear challenge that if you’re not there to actually interact with your colleagues, how would you teach them? How would you mentor them? As a senior, how would you be able to show how you solve legal problems and issues? How do you communicate with clients? And that kind of stuff. Yes, it’s a real challenge. And again, it’s something that we constantly need to be aware of, and try to figure out, and try to find the right balance between providing the opportunity for working from home, but at the same time, maintaining the interaction that we need to properly train the trainees.

Lindsay: Yes, yes. I don’t think that’s an easily solved question, but it’s something that we’ll have to, as you say, cope with over the next several years. Switching gears a little bit, can you tell us something interesting about yourself that most people don’t know?

Tamás: Wow. Well, by most people, I suppose you mean our listeners who probably don’t know anything about me. So, in that sense, it’s not that hard. Yeah, I can tell you a couple of things. One thing which could be interesting is that although I’m Hungarian, I spent a lot of years in Norway. I was actually born in Norway, so I also speak Norwegian. So that’s an interesting fact. Maybe another one is that I frequently attend go-kart races. So, I am an amateur go-kart racer, if I have the time, obviously. So that could be an interesting fact that most people probably don’t know. What else? I play the piano, which maybe is not that special, but to me, it’s certainly something which is… I mean, music generally, I think it’s a big part of my life, and it’s something that I really enjoy doing. And yes, even more interesting facts, I have a full-blown simulator rig at home, so it’s a race car simulator, so I’m also attending some sim races online if time allows. Yes, that’s probably the most interesting stuff that I can tell you.

Lindsay: That’s cool. And we always joke that we’re going to put together an ILN band, and I don’t think we have a piano player yet, so you can be our piano player.

Tamás: Well, thank you. I mean, looking at the size of ILN, I suppose that there are probably much better piano players out there than myself, but thanks.

Lindsay: I don’t know. We haven’t auditioned anybody yet, so we’ll have to find out.

Tamás: All right. Okay.

Lindsay: Okay. What would you say is the most important lesson you’ve learned over your career?

Tamás: You have such hard questions to answer. Well, firstly, I would say that I don’t feel that I’m very old yet, so I think that… I hope at least that I will learn some more important lessons in the rest of my career than I have in my career so far. But I think if I needed to say one thing, I think that the most important thing that I’ve learned is that people generally are the most important thing at the workplace, at the company, and the way you treat people generally at your workplace, the way you expect them to treat each other, the sort of the team and the camaraderie that you’re building within the firm, that kind of human aspect of the workplace, it’s probably the most important. Frankly, as lawyers, I think what we are selling is essentially what we have in our minds, and what we have in our minds is really influenced by the people who have those things in their minds. So, I think that maintaining a nice and good culture at work and having good relationships between people is probably the most important thing.

Lindsay: Yes, I fully agree with that. So, before we wrap up, I’ve got one final question. I always ask everyone this, what is something you’re enjoying that has nothing to do with work right now?

Tamás: Well, I would just say my son and family. I have a son, he’s almost 11 years old, and it’s probably… I mean, obviously I enjoy work, I enjoy my profession, I enjoy my professional life generally, I really enjoy the issues and problems that we are challenged with, and the things that we need to solve, I just enjoy that mental challenge. But what I enjoy the most is just being with my family and my son, and just experience of seeing someone growing and evolving from a baby who does nothing and knows nothing, and really just an empty sheet of paper, to becoming a funny, smart guy. I think this is probably the most enjoyable part of my life.

Lindsay: That’s amazing. I love that. Well, thank you so much. I really appreciate you joining us this week. And to all of our listeners, we’ll be back next week with our next guest. And in the meantime, please take a moment to rate, review, and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. It really does help us when you take a moment to rate, or send us a review, or subscribe to our podcast. So, thank you very much. Thanks so much.

Tamás: Thanks so much, Lindsay. Thank you.