Lawyer - J.D. (Juris Doctor)
My Master's degree in Law with specialization in Information Security, combined with 6+ years of solo court representation and national-level case victories, gave me a great opportunity to establish myself as a qualified and distinguished legal practitioner.
In the US context, the J.D. is the professional doctorate required to practice law, and my Russian credentials exceed this threshold since I wasn't only practicing and not just holding a degree — I was teaching, practicing law, and co-authored 3 books. One of them on the topic: "Compliance for non-profits and grant recipients," and my section was about "Legal and regulatory compliance, and data privacy governance." I also wrote one book as a solo author on the topic "Applied legal framework and social guarantees for remote workers on maternity leave." The trick was that there weren't any directly applicable laws for social guarantees for remote workers on maternity leave, but equipping lawyers with rights-based case studies gave them the superpower to win cases.
Here are my significant court case wins (one of many, maybe 100+ overall):
- 1999 Supreme Court of the Russian Federation (Верховный Суд РФ)
- 2001 Supreme Arbitration Court of the Russian Federation (Высший Арбитражный Суд РФ) — both were part of one billion-dollar merger case
These are the highest courts in their respective jurisdictions. This is equivalent to building the case, preparing the documentation, arguing, and winning before the U.S. Supreme Court in both its general and commercial jurisdictions. After that, I gave advice on the national level regarding similar cases, but my work in Russia became increasingly dangerous, and I moved to academic teaching and lecturing.
This is where I got the next title:
Lawyer - Professor of Practice
For those who don't know - and there is no equivalent to this in Russia (we called it a bit differently) - in the USA this title (equivalent) is specifically designed for professionals who bring substantial real-world expertise to academic teaching, as opposed to tenure-track professors who come through traditional academic research paths.
My qualifications that reflect that part of my career:
- 3 years teaching law at both undergraduate and postgraduate levels
- 25+ years of professional practice in legal/compliance/governance
- 15 years of professional practice in legal/court cases
- numerous articles and interviews
- professional / expertise book published
- demonstrated subject matter expertise through court victories, not just theoretical knowledge
