Pál Jalsovszky, founder of Jalsovszky Law Firm — Hungary’s fastest-growing commercial law firm — shares how he built a top-tier legal practice by challenging tradition and creating a firm that reflects his values of professionalism, creativity, and clarity.

We explore Pál’s journey from international firms to founding his own, and how his Straightforward Legal Advice Framework—being Practical, Specific, and Risk-Weighted—reshaped the client–lawyer relationship. Instead of theoretical opinions, Pál believes lawyers must take responsibility, quantify risk, and give actionable answers that empower clients to decide with confidence. He also discusses building a culture of collaboration, training lawyers to think like business partners, and how AI will transform the legal profession—from due diligence and analysis to redefining what young lawyers should focus on next.

Good day, dear listeners. Steve Preda here with the Management Blueprint Podcast, and my guest today is Pal Jalsovszky, the owner of the Jálsovszky Law Firm in Budapest, Hungary, which is the fastest growing commercial law firm there, with a special focus on tax and the mergers and acquisition law. Pal, welcome to the show.

Thank you. Nice to speak to you. 

Yes. We go way back with Polly, 20 years probably. We were one of your first clients when you started the law firm in 2005 and we’ve worked together on many ideas and I, we met recently and I thought that would be a great guest on our podcast, sharing your journey of how you built up this very successful market leading law firm in Budapest. But before we go there, I like to ask my favorite question, what is your personal why and how are you manifesting it in your practice upon it? 

Well, to tell you honestly, I didn’t have a personal why for quite a long time because if we just go back to my history, I worked for international law firms and 10 years ago I made the decision to separate from the international law firms and start up my own venture. It was an incidental decision at that time, and it was not a well thought and well elaborated, decision and step. I can tell you the story. The story is quite short that  I worked for Linklaters and I was working for the legal industry for seven years and eight years, mainly in the tax department, and I still believe that I need some more improvement in tax, so I wanted to go to an international advisor firm. And then I started my interviews and one of them was very positive to me. And we finalized the deal or this early we said that, okay, I would start working with them. So I was just leaving Linklaters, and, I believe that I would join that firm but there was a turning point when that firm started with the new head of a department who didn’t want to increase the number of employees. And then from one day to another, they said that they are not able to offer me a job. It was actually 20 years ago. And then, from one day to another, I quit a law firm and I didn’t have a new job. So it was just a decision what to do with myself. I start my own career. So it was not a very, well thought and well elaborated decision to start my career. So I didn’t have ‘why’ at that time. So I was just going with the flow. I was giving advice, I was trying to attract clients, and it came up that I’m valuable and I was needed by the client. So I just had one more client and one more employee, one more colleague. So I broadened my spectrum. I broadened my expertise. So when I started my law firm, I didn’t have any such type of a goal or specific vision. But since then, so I’ve been doing this firm for 20 years now. So in the meantime, such type of wise and such type of impact or answers have in fact elaborated in my life and in my way of thinking. And now just starting, so preparing for this discussion, I just put together all the things that I have in the back of my mind that really just may be the idea or the drive  to come to this point. And one was actually to be the law firm that on one hand is professional, but which is also out of box, which is actually reflect my own personality, which is on one hand, services clients in the highest professional manner. On the other hand,  a law firm that is creative, that is exceptional, that is unique, that is actually the corporate myself. So how I behave, how I work, how I think, how I manage my own personal life, which is not definitely the mainstream, which is a bit unique, a bit out of the box way of thinking. So one hand to create a law firm on my image.

Yeah. 

The other is to build a community, because a law firm is a bunch of people and the most important asset of a law firm are the people. And, it was so lovely to see that I started to hire people under my own methodology. I wouldn’t say that I have a very good sense of creating personal relationships and in my private life I had some problems with that, but it turned out to be that I had quite a good sense of feeling to select those people around me who fit together each other and who can work in a combined manner and who can cooperate efficiently and who can create a society, can create  a common workshop. And creating a set of people, just the community became a very important part of my goal and my achievement. And then third came the market impact so that it’s not only an impact that I can create for 20-30, and now we are 60 people, but we can create something for the society, for the community, for the country, for professional community so that to create something which can also add something in a bigger manner. Either university students, we started our academy three years ago, which targets university students, providing them with practical knowledge and practical expertise, and also with the legal community. And also making a footprint, making a type of a brand, an image on how to run a law firm in the modern time, in the 21st century and how to a bit, adopt a new manner in old fashioned and very traditional industry. 

Yeah, yeah. No, I love it. And, when we first met, it was actually an interesting story because the building where we met turned out to be located on a plot of land, which was owned by my great-grandfather. So that was kind of a very interesting realization. But what really struck me when we first met was that you were a really good listener and you were very thoughtful how you gave advice and you had some really good out of the box ideas at the time. It was the tech structuring for an M and A transaction. And I was very impressed with your creativity there. And then we started working together on different projects and I remember you were hiring some people who were kind of picking things up and tell, and really following the style that you introduced. So what I’d like you talk more about at this point is your process. So, how is your approach different and what is it that you do differently? And you talk about being, providing straightforward legal advice. Maybe you can call it the straightforward legal advice framework. So what does that framework look like and what are the elements. 

So if you speak to lawyers in many countries and also for Hungary, lawyers tend to avoid giving you a straight answer. So in most of the cases, you receive an ambiguous answer from a lawyer telling to you that if you see from this angle you can get to this result. Come and other angle you can get to another result. And then nothing is black and white. Everything is great. And, I don’t believe that it helps the client in any way. I’m sure that you need to give a comprehensive answer to the client, so not just saying yes or no, but I believe that when you give advice, the advice is that what the client should do. So you need to assume the responsibility of providing clear guidance to the clients that in a certain situation where he should go. And, in doing so, it’s not only your gut feeling or your internal belief that you’ll need to take into account, but also the perception of the client because a certain advice is valid for one client, but it’s not valid for another client. I believe that there’s an art in that when you understand the problem of the client, you have the legal reasoning behind, you come to an understanding of what are the risks what are the circumstances, what are the legal aspect of a certain case, and then you dare to go to the client. Tell him that in your situation, I would do this, or I advise you to this, or I would advise you to do that. And, this is very rarely done in the legal profession. And most of the lawyers, they believe that this is an excessive responsibility. That if you say something to the client, then you assume bigger responsibility. If you just described the social situation and leave it to the client what to do, I don’t believe this is the case, especially if you tell the client that he or she should go probably to this direction, but okay, it has this type of, or this amount of risk, you do not just propose the client to take one road or one direction, but also tell him that, if he just opts for this decision that, what consequences it can have. Whether those consequences, they are deep, they are risky or they are negligible. Actually, I’m not only a lawyer but also an economist. And I have a very good mathematical background. And, what I just elaborated is to giving the percentage to the client that what is the percentage of the risk, or what is the percentage of the negative outcome, which is very rarely done by lawyers. Lawyers tend to say it is a significant risk or low risk or medium risk. So they tend to use certain words or certain objectives, which I hate because this really just a type of direction which can be open to many, many interpretation– I like to give percentages.

Sorry, I stop you. So how would you describe the right kind of advice? What are the elements to it? You know, this podcast, we are always trying to break things down so that people can more visualize what it is and how to do it and have a clearer understanding about it. 

So, on one hand you need to describe the entire situation to the client from a legal perspective. So, you cannot avoid just saying yes or no, such as saying that the final conclusion of your situation is A or B. But give a legal reasoning that in your situation, what are those legal elements that should be taken into consideration? Then the next step is that you evaluate this legal risk and this legal situation and come up to options to the client that actually you have two or three options. And then you clearly describe that, what their options are, and then give a suggestion to the client that in your situation, in your personal situation, in the business situation and, in my best legal and business opinion, you probably, you are best off with this option. Okay, this option, we have this and this risk, but those risks can be mitigated or they have just a low profile or they are not substantial. But, yeah, you should build up on one hand an understanding of the client that what his or her legal situation is, second part, the options, and then to go with options and to evaluate those options and probably give. A best option or what you believe the best to the client, but also give the implications of choosing that option.

Yeah. So what you mentioned to me earlier was that you really want to be practical in your advice, so not a theoretical, but a real practical thing approach that can be implemented. Then be very specific about, what to do. And then as you described, kind of a risk weighted approach that, okay, this is what I would do– it’s 80% chance that it’s gonna work out. These are the risks. 20% chance that we could have complications. Sometimes you go to the doctors and they tell you that, okay, your shoulder has to be operated on because you have this tear in your shoulder, and it’s an 80% chance that it’s gonna heal without any problem. There’s a 20% chance that we might have to go in and do some adjustment. But you still can recover. It’s just gonna take a little bit longer. So is this the kind of approach that you’re describing? 

It’s in fact the approach and parallel with the lawyer, with the doctors is extremely well because all profession is for many perspectives are very close to each other. And, yeah, what I expect from my doctor is to give me a clear indication what I should do. And obviously, when I go to a doctor, I just understand half of what he’s saying to me because I’m not a professional and even the best doctor can explain to me not a full extent that exact problem and it’s exact physical biological courses that I have at the moment. And me as a lawyer, I should take into account this example because probably for the clients that came, come to me, they have the same problem with understanding legal concepts. 

So, I should not start from a legal point of view or a lawyer’s point of view that you know what representation warranty is, you know it exactly. You know what indemnification is. You need to start explaining from the basics. And obviously the client will not come to the same level of understanding the laws where you are, but you should explain to him in such a manner and in such a simple way that he comes to an understanding of what is at stake, what are the risks and where he should go. One important factor is that what we are talking about at the moment is myself. And, they, honestly, I believed that I was a good lawyer and, I could have, to, lot of the clients like, I helped you and I helped your colleague. But real trick and real beauty is that to transfer this way of thinking also to my colleagues, and you can expect that I recruit colleagues from all over the country, from individual law firms or Hungary law firms, from the university. And what was a real challenge is to train those lawyers to have the same mindset that I have. And you can expect, and this is really a very funny story, that the lawyers are those ones who work with international law firms and who’ve been with international law firms for many, many years, and they got a type of ideology of those law firms of not assuming responsibility, not to give a clear advice to the clients and then try to limit the responsibility to the highest tax possible. And when I recruit a lawyer from international law firms the first couple of months go on with trying to persuade him that assuming risk or giving a clearer advice to the client is not bad. On the contrary, it is what the client wants, but it needs training, it needs exercises. And I’ve gone through many, many occasions, especially with senior lawyers who come to me, the 10 or 15 year experience and who had a completely different mindset.

Yeah, I love that. There’s a thought leader in professional services and who was actually a former lawyer, David Meister, and he wrote about this. He wrote the book, The Trusted Advisor. It talks about this idea that the trusted advisor has to take risks in helping the client, and it’s like a personal risk because you might tell this client something that they don’t like to hear, and they might not like you in the moment for giving them this information. Of course, you have to do it in a tactful manner, but if you’re not doing it, if you shy away from it, then you are doing a disservice to the client. And often these clients are powerful individuals who are not getting pushback from the people below them.  They are not used to frank feedback and there is a risk that they will not enjoy hearing that. And they will you know, want to shoot the messenger. If you don’t do it as an advisor, then you are not giving full value to your client. So..

Correct. And this is again, a very good parallel with the doctor. So if you go to a doctor and you feel bad, what you do not expect is just neglecting your situation. Then telling you an unreasonable advice that, well, you will hear, there is no problem, just make some exercise. You want to understand the whole situation, even if the situation is painful and, it’s negative and, it has complication. So for many respects, we can learn from the doctors. So when you go to a doctor, you would like to receive transparency, a full set of information of your expected process situation. This is exactly what you request from a lawyer. 

Yeah. Love it. Okay. So you, you have your straightforward legal advice framework. So be practical in your advice specific and, share what is the risk or different outcomes. Make a suggestion, make a proposal, take some risk, and advise your client. This is very,  very helpful. Now I’d like to switch gears here and talk a little bit about how the legal profession is evolving. AI is impacting, is disrupting many, many professions and almost all types of knowledge work. And I wonder what you see is happening in this profession and what is going to happen? What is your vision? How AI is going to transform the legal profession? 

I believe there are two answers for that. The one answer is that I participated a presentation and the presentation started with a quote and the quote said that technology will transform the legal industry completely within five years. This was the quotation and he asked us that what we believe the date of this quotation was. And people started to think 2010, 2015, and no, it was 1985. So the real question is, again, that, when I believe that the the technology will transform the whole legal industry, and I believe it is the case. It has been ongoing for decades now, and people tend to say that the legal industry will be subject to a full technology transformation. And it did not yet happen, or did not yet happen too much. We are still working in a very old start fashion. And especially, I, sometimes I feel guilty that in many industries technology and digitalization has already made a very big part, not yet in the legal profession. We still have a very traditional, very old fashioned profession. So on one hand it may go on and there are old style lawyers who would like to keep up their current status quo, and they would like to maintain their current lifestyle and style of advisory. So on one hand there is a drive to try to avoid the changes and the technology development. On the other hand, I do believe, and actually this is my clear answer that the technology will, the question within, how much time and within how many years completely transformed legal industry and the lack of the lawyers. And, this is obviously accelerated by the rival of artificial intelligence. And we already start using a certain part of artificial intelligence in our daily life. But I would say, it has an influence of 5% of our daily life, not both of 5%. And if you just think it over that open AI just came to the market and made its eruption to the market three years ago. And even at that time, it was told that, oh yes, artificial diligence will completely transform the market and all industries with a very short period of time. Well, in three years, it’s just made a 5% difference in our daily life. So I don’t know how fast this development will be, but there are lots of visions how the legal industry will look like in certain amount of time. And, you can just imagine that what we are doing as lawyers, we are putting together contracts, those contracts are made out of already existing contracts. So they have already been typed, created, put together. And this is an exercise that sooner or later can be taken over by artificial intelligence. Analysis of laws, analysis of pieces of law, analysis of core decisions. It’s again, something, which is at the moment the prerogative of lawyers. But in a couple of year time, it’ll be taken over by AI, and the AI is developing so fast that, in one or two years, I believe, an AI will give a better summary of certain legal regulations or court decisions than a trainee lawyer. The more the IBB develop, the more sophisticated legal factual background can be given to the AI, so that it can formulate in all its own decision. The third issue was the third territories due diligence exercises. So at the moment, what we do with due diligence, we receive thousands of pages of documents we need to review. And there are humans in front of the computer, they’re reviewing, they’re trying to pinpoint the intricacies or the pain points or the red flags in company documentation. And then with hundreds, 200, 300 of job, we are putting together a due diligence report. And on one hand this can be replaced by computer and by artificial intelligence. And the second I believe in a short time, the artificial intelligence will be more accurate than a lawyer. So probably a couple of years time I will more, I will be more confident with the AI than with the junior trainee lawyer who has been given a certain type of training, he has already had a little bit of an experience, but it’s knowledge and it’s capability to review documents being far from the competence of AI. So, where it’ll be if you lead, it’ll lead to a lower amount, lower demand for junior lawyers. So the junior lawyers work will transform, which will create lots of problems for law firms. And, I can tell you just a couple of those, on one hand, this is the practical knowledge and training of young associates. So what we did so far is that we learned, or we taught our junior the associates at the charge of the client. So we have given them a certain job. On one hand, we could invoice it to the client. On the other hand, they were trained. So it’s the best of the two worlds. And this will miss out because the client will not pay for junior associates. They will pay for the artificial intelligence. So if I need to train my lawyers, it’ll be at my own cost and not at the cost of the client. So this is on one hand, the problem. The other problem is also invoicing because we are invoicing hours of lawyers and the biggest invoice is not sent out over a one hour discussion that I have with you, I have with a client, because you can invoice just one hour, you can invoice it with 200 euros, 300 euros, 1000 euros. But it is just 1000 euro, one hour of work. And big bulk of the big amount of invoices were made out of big jobs which included lots of hours of training junior lawyers works, for example, the due diligence or putting together memos or reviewing court files, which be no longer be there. The real question that how we can maintain the amount of billings that we submitted to the client each month these days. So this is just a couple of problems that will be created by AI, but I’m sure that will, this time will come that we question,  is that when it’ll arrive. 

That is super interesting what you’re describing, and it’s been since the industrial revolution people were afraid of new technology destroying jobs. And it did happen. New technology was destroying jobs all the time, but at the same time, new jobs were created, which took, absorbed the labor force from those destroyed jobs. And it’s just, became a transition of the new jobs. And the question is– is AI qualitatively different types of this type of disruption than the previous disruptions were, and is it going to eradicate jobs without creating new jobs, or it’s gonna create more wealth and more demand for services that maybe we can’t envisage yet that has to be provided by people and therefore it’s just going to transform our economy?

When I read Mr. Hari’s book on the 21st century, he opted for the first alternative so that there will be no further work and, all of us will live a very happy life without the need for working. And we will receive a global salary each month. Okay, there will be a small cush, a small part of the population will still work and who will enjoy working, but the bigger part of our society will just trust in the sunshine, beaches and drink cocktails and get a universal salary. I would rather predict the second option, what you’ve described that even with the AI, new types of jobs will be created and more specifically, we, humans, we need to exercise, or to create a stimulus to our brain we do not like to be lazy and to stay at home without achievement or without goals or without objectives in our life. I would rather predict a world, when we will still have jobs. And we still work,  depending on what part of the world you’re living,  seven hours, eight hours, or even up to 11 or 12 hours per day. But the professions or the jobs, will be different. And,  we will need a different type of contribution to the circle of the world.

I think the desires to have meaningful lives, and I mean, you can see it in societies where, for example, a lot of women don’t join the workforce or they quit early, they raise children and then children leave and then they might not need a job because maybe they are financially secure. But they’re going to do, and they’re going to do volunteer work. They’re going to go back to college, they’re going to spend time with their grandchildren because people are always searching for meaning. And it’s the human condition, I think that’s how, that’s how we have worked. So, our time is up. Thank you for this conversation.  Polly, this was the most enlightening. So if our listeners were predominantly in the United States, but some are in Europe, if they would like to learn more, and connect with you and perhaps, seek you out, where should they go? And, where can they find you? 

Thank you very much for this conversation. I enjoyed it thoroughly. First, I encourage you to come to website this www.jalsovszky– it’s J-A-L-S-O-V-S-Z-K-Y.com. So, you’re invited to come to our website, but we also have a Facebook account. We also have an account on Instagram and we have some special thematic websites on one hand on asset management, on the other hand, tax or certain investigations, but it is just for deep insight or if you want to get deeper and dive more into activity, I will very happy to invite you on those thematic websites. But the key where you can get some further information on our practices and activities in our general website, jalsovszky.com, so you are more than welcome.

So check out jalsovszky.com. If you’re watching on YouTube, you’ll see the spelling of Pal’s surname, so just follow that, or just click on our show notes and it’s gonna be there and you can click through there. Polly, thanks for coming on the show and sharing your wisdom. And those of you listening, if you enjoyed the show, make sure you follow us on YouTube and stay tuned because every week I bring an exciting entrepreneur or subject matter expert to the show. So thanks for coming. And thanks for listening.