"Himoya Academy" Lights Up New Stars: A Corporate Lawyer Training School Held in Dushanbe.
12 senior-year students and graduates of law faculties completed their training at Himoya Academy. Over the course of a month, they studied the practical aspects of corporate lawyers' work under the guidance of leading specialists from Himoya Law Firm, the Tax Committee, and the Patent Information Center of Tajikistan.
Over the 4 years our company has been operating in the corporate law market, we have conducted many interviews and learned from experience that there are very few specialists who understand corporate law from a practical standpoint. The law faculties of Tajik universities steadily graduate new specialists, but most of them go into government agencies, bypassing private companies.
Himoya Academy is a practical training program for lawyers in the field of corporate law. The theoretical foundation gained at university is important, and a legal education was the main requirement for Academy participants. However, the practice of corporate law involves many nuances and challenges that universities do not prepare students for. It is precisely this kind of training that we have tried to provide at Himoya Academy.
Participants gained an understanding of what they might encounter when working with tax and patent authorities, straight from employees of those very institutions. This is the kind of essential minimum without which a graduate would find it difficult at the start of their practice. It is possible that in future cohorts we will add a course on labor law to this minimum and increase the number of hours for other courses.
Every weekday evening for a month (from September 14 to October 14), 12 young people — graduates and senior-year law students — gathered at our company's office. Under the attentive guidance of specially invited lecturers, they studied the fundamentals of corporate lawyers' work.
Our project was supported by the British Embassy, and the embassy's PR specialist even conducted 2 elective training sessions for Academy students: "How to Write a Successful Resume" and "Fundamentals of Public Speaking." Overall, the training program included sessions on corporate and tax law, intellectual property protection, and English for lawyers. We received more than 40 applications, and the selection process was quite rigorous. The application included a resume and a cover letter, after which each shortlisted candidate went through an interview. There were many strong candidates, and in the end we selected 12 people. It was important to us that as many young women as possible had the opportunity to study at the Academy. In the end, we managed to maintain a gender balance: 6 young men and 6 young women took part in the training.
Before the training sessions began, Himoya obtained a License "For Conducting Educational Courses" from the Agency for Supervision in the Field of Education and Science under the President of the Republic of Tajikistan. Corporate lawyers constantly interact with government agencies in their work. That is why we decided that representatives of those agencies would be the best people to demonstrate the practical side of the job. We sent an official letter to the relevant agencies asking them to assign specialists to conduct the training sessions, and they appointed the specialists themselves. To some extent this was a risk, since we did not know who would be sent to us. But our concerns turned out to be unfounded. Farkhod Boirzoda, head of the legal department at the Patent Information Center, is simply a rare kind of specialist. I myself learned a lot of new things at his sessions. Nazirjon Nazirzoda, a senior specialist at the Tax Committee, also proved to be a great professional and handled the task we set for him excellently. When preparing the training program, the lecturers followed our main requirement — not to dwell too much on theory, since the Academy participants were already well acquainted with it.
At the end of the course, participants took an exam, and upon completion received graduation certificates.
According to feedback from our Academy participants, many were able to decide on their future specialization and plan to continue specifically in the field of corporate law. This is encouraging, because we were counting on this when creating the project. This field is significantly underestimated by university graduates, yet it is precisely here that capable lawyers can earn a decent income honestly, without bribes.
Some decided to delve deeper into patent law. They certainly will not become corporate lawyers — such specialists are called patent attorneys. This status must be obtained from the patent office itself. Patent attorneys are independent and essential players in the legal services market. For example, under Tajik law all foreign organizations are required to register their trademarks and products through such attorneys. A top-class specialist in this field also earns very well.
Besides taking the right direction in their profession, some Academy participants may have already found their first job. I personally have my eye on a few of them. Our company also felt the effects of the pandemic, and right now we cannot afford to expand our staff. But as soon as the situation stabilizes a bit, I want to invite them to come work for us.
Since the project was developed long before the pandemic, we had planned to invite directors of various companies to the final ceremony to present our graduates to them. Unfortunately, we had to abandon the large-scale event in order to observe safety measures. We are often approached by people looking for specialists, and now we can offer them our graduates' resumes. The very fact of their employment and subsequent work will help us understand how effective our course was.
Himoya Academy also brings longer-term benefits. The more qualified corporate lawyers a society has, the easier it is to fight corruption. Of course, it is too early to talk about eradicating it entirely, but we can move toward reducing it. Many companies do not have their own lawyers — they do not know what the law says on various issues and cannot protect their rights from those who take advantage of that. A qualified lawyer will protect a company both from unauthorized inspections and from the various schemes extortionists resort to.
By reducing the level of corruption and bringing companies' operations up to international standards through having lawyers on staff, we directly and indirectly influence Tajikistan's standing in various investment attractiveness rankings — positively, of course. Here is an example. A foreign investor opening a company that has even one foreign employee is required to obtain a license for activities related to hiring foreign labor. A condition for obtaining this license, established by law, is mandatory legal support. In practice, this means that a foreign investor who opens a company in the Republic of Tajikistan with even one foreign employee, upon obtaining this license, simply needs a lawyer on staff.
Of course, 12 Academy graduates cannot fully meet this need, but a start has been made. We plan to make this an ongoing initiative. We do not yet know whether training at the Academy will remain free. But since the project has real social significance and impact, we are counting on the support of donors.
This is truly a pilot, in a way an innovative project. I have not seen an alternative in Tajikistan yet. Usually narrowly focused trainings are held, but there has not been a law school like this before. When we were finalizing the training program, we decided to supplement it with electives on resume writing and cover letters, as well as the fundamentals of public speaking. I conducted these sessions myself. I had something to share: I studied public speaking in America using a methodology developed by one of Barack Obama's speechwriters, and I have ten years of speaking experience.
Over the two days I spent with these young people, they truly managed to surprise me. It was, perhaps, one of the most demanding audiences I have encountered. The overall level of education and intelligence among the participants was high — they had gone through a fairly rigorous selection process. I was very pleased that they were engaged and understood the value of this knowledge, which made it especially rewarding to receive positive feedback from them about the training. I also attended the sessions of the other instructors (as part of monitoring the program) and came away impressed. The core idea behind the Academy — more practice, less theory — was fully upheld. Only practical knowledge and real-world insights from professionals working in the field.
I very much hope that Himoya will continue this initiative, whether on a paid basis or with donor support. Because one of the main criteria for the projects we support is sustainability.
Our agency is often approached to provide training for entrepreneurs. That is always interesting, but the organizers of Himoya Academy had specific requirements for the training program. So both the preparation and the sessions themselves were a new and interesting experience.
The training sessions were intensive — we had to cover many topics: patenting, trademarks, inventions, geographical indications, plant breeding achievements, copyright, and others. The participants were very active. Some already had some understanding of our field. But this field is very complex for lawyers. Across all of Tajikistan you can find only 10-15 good patent law specialists. They are needed at Tajikstandart, at the anti-organized-crime department, in the prosecutor's office, in customs agencies, and at the Ministry of Justice. Not to mention commercial enterprises.
Half of the Academy participants became interested in patent law. Of course, the three sessions I conducted are not enough to start practicing in this specific field. Additional courses are needed, and our agency offers such courses. But this is a good foundation for a recent graduate. I think some of these young people will become good specialists in the field of patenting.
If there are new Academy cohorts in the future, I would be happy to take part.
I learned about the Academy itself from my university professors, and only later found out from social media how to get in. During my studies I attended many different trainings, but our city did not yet have a school focused on corporate law. I submitted my application without hesitation.
Our instructors went through the training material with us using real case studies from Tajik practice. Now I understand how to advise correctly, how to point someone toward the right legal provision, and what to do in general when someone comes to me for help.
I have amazing memories from Parviz Jamalov's courses. It is so important to write your resume correctly. It turns out the rules can differ depending on the profession. And nowhere do they teach this! In the English for Lawyers course taught by Sino Safarov, we studied specialized terminology and used games to overcome the language barrier.
I became very interested in patent law. Our instructor showed us some of the nuances of the profession, and I wanted to learn more about it. When the Patent Information Center starts offering courses, I will definitely apply.
I really enjoyed all the courses. It was pure practice — the kind you don't find in textbooks. For example, we were shown how to register a company with the tax authorities online.
I specialize in administrative law, so the training sessions led by the specialist from the Tax Committee were especially useful.
After the Academy we became more confident. Now we know more about what we will encounter daily at work, and we can do more. The sessions were led by representatives of government agencies, and they showed us exactly how to interact with them. We were taught how to write a resume that a future employer would not throw away. This is a good start for graduates.
"Practical Aspects of Tax Legislation of the Republic of Tajikistan" taught by Bahrom Nazirzoda, Leading Specialist of the Tax Committee under the Government of the Republic of Tajikistan;
"Intellectual Property" taught by Farkhod Boirzoda, Head of the Legal Support and Special Department, National Patent Information Center under the Ministry of Economic Development and Trade of the Republic of Tajikistan;
"Practical Aspects of Corporate Law" taught by the General Director of Himoya Law Firm;
"Public Speaking" and "Resume Writing and Cover Letters" taught by Parviz Jamalov, Public Relations Specialist at the British Embassy;
"English for Lawyers" taught by Sino Safarov, Director of the "Polyglot" Language Center.
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