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Luminita Elena Procopie talks to Legal Women about her dual qualification journey
"What is written in the law? How do you read it?”
Two different legal systems, one justice
I qualified in two very different jurisdictions: Romania – a civil law country and England & Wales - a common law jurisdiction. My intention was to work in international law, to get to know both sides of the legal justice story, to build bridges between two different worlds.
Dual qualification journey
The idea of studying and eventually qualifying in a second jurisdiction came naturally when I was challenged by the bulky English law contracts that were presented by the international clients who demanded that I localise such contracts.
When I could finally afford to get a loan to pay for my studies (i.e. after 10 years of practice in Romania), I came to study in the United Kingdom (UK), and completed an LLM in International Finance and Banking law at the University College London (UCL) in 2007- not a good year as the financial crisis had just started.
After the graduation ceremony in 2008, I returned to Romania, with no money and in debt to all my friends. Unfortunately, in Romania there was no real interest in my newly acquired LLM degree. So, I got a job in private practice, (the only one I could find) paying half of the money I had when I left for the UK to complete my LLM studies.
Subsequently, I got another job at the biggest bank in Romania, Erste Bank, where I could utilise some of my acquired knowledge in syndicated loans and derivatives, with an increased salary increased but I still owed a huge debt for my LLM studies that needed repaying.
In 2012, I was admitted to the Solicitors Regulatory Authority (SRA) as a Solicitor in England and Wales, after completion of the Qualified Lawyer Transfer Test (QLTT) (for which I prepared in my spare time-with no holiday and no free weekends for about nine months). I was hoping that the second qualification would increase my chances of securing a job that would enable me to pay for the debts incurred during my LLM studies, (although this meant additional costs for the England & Wales qualification fees).
Once admitted as a solicitor, I came back to England, and secured an ISDA negotiator position where no one among the colleagues doing the same job was actually qualified as a lawyer in any jurisdiction. The ISDA Negotiator and the Derivative Lawyer jobs have enabled me to pay off my debt and provided a reasonable standard of living, but there was hardly a reward for the effort invested in my dual-qualification journey. History repeated itself in a way, as in London there was no interest from employers for my legal education and experience as a Romanian lawyer and therefore no job remuneration reflected that.
Similarities between the two jurisdictions (Romania and England and Wales)
Sources of laws
After studying and practicing in both jurisdictions, I noted that they comply with the same principles, considering they were part of the same European Union (EU) family at the time I achieved the second qualification. Moreover, although Romanian legislation is based on the written laws and the precedents are not binding, there is an increased reliance on superior courts’ precedents, and the European Courts of Justice (ECJ) jurisprudence is also binding on Romanian courts. On the other hand, the abundance of new statutes enforced in England especially after Brexit, seems to point to a trend that goes to an increased reliance on written law and case law is losing its main role in setting the legal norms for the public.
Similar solutions
In many respects, both jurisdictions’ legal systems have achieved similar solutions, and the same principles apply, although in the case of England and Wales, the principles might be stated by the case law, whilst in Romania such principles might be stated in the civil code or other statutory legislation, but the principles are ultimately similar, which is why I find it easy to navigate the legislation in both jurisdictions.
Reforms
Furthermore, a common element is the fact that both systems are going through substantial reforms. In Romania, there has been an influx of statues drafted as a result of a change from communism to democracy and a change in its historic civil code, and similarly in England as a result of Brexit.
Differences between the two jurisdictions (Romania and England and Wales)
Legislation Perspectives
In Romania, the legal norms are built based on the “future” perspective as Parliament decides the population’s behavioural standards which are more prescriptive in this respect.
In contrast to England and Wales, I would say their perspective is more oriented on the past (case law as the primary source of legislation) with the aim of adjusting the behaviour for the future in case similar situations need to be avoided.
Drafting expertise
The volume of statues and reliance on official publications is greater in civil law countries such as Romania where legislative drafting is sophisticated and aligned with EU legislation and more prescriptive in nature.
On the other hand, the culture of the contract and the development in contract drafting skills is much more advanced in common law jurisdictions such as England and Wales, which is why the Loan Markets Association (LMA) and International Swaps and Derivatives Association (ISDA) standards have had such a big impact in their respective industries.
AI solutions for legal industry
In Romania as the legal framework is going through reform, the solutions to similar cases differ consistently, depending on the time when the case was litigated and the applicable legal framework.
Statistics cannot accurately predict the likely outcome of a case as past cases might not be relevant, especially if the legal framework is under constant change.
Moreover, such changes are not reflected in cases brought to court at the respective moment and used for training AI models. AI solutions to replace the judges might be more difficult to implement in such countries and it is likely that the AI solutions for the legal industry might develop in a different direction, i.e. to support more admin tasks than for generating a court decision.
In England on the other hand, the pilot programs have already been exploring the extent to which AI solutions can replace some decisions that are currently made by judges.
Advice to those considering dual qualification
A piece of personal advice I would give to other lawyers considering dual qualification is: “Don’t do it for money!” as you might not get the expected return on investment. However, it might help to deepen one’s understanding of the legal world.
Luminita Elena Procopie
Lawyer (Avocat)-Romania
Solicitor -England and Wales
https://www.linkedin.com/in/luminita-elena-procopie-9241a68/