Nikola Jankovic, founder and senior partner at JPM Jankovic Popovic Mitic Law Firm – I've learned from the best

Source: eKapija Monday, 19.12.2016. 15:27
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Nikola JankovicNikola Jankovic
In the year which is slowly drawing to an end, the Belgrade Law Firm JPM celebrated a big anniversary – a quarter of a century since the foundation. Over the course of 25 years, they've become synonymous with corporate law, have been involved in the realization of the most important foreign investments in Serbia, but also in big state projects, and their team currently has around 60 associates.

In his interview for eKapija, Nikola Jankovic, founder and senior partner, recalls the first steps he made in starting his own business by founding the office in 1991, as well as the advice he's received from his older colleagues, and reveals where he sees JPM in the coming decades.

Istria

Nikola Jankovic was born in Belgrade in 1960, and he grew up near the Red Star football club stadium. After primary school, his father's job led the family to Dresden. He and his brother finished secondary school there, although, as our interview says, they had moved to the city without speaking a word of German.

The excellent command of the German language he acquired in the years that followed largely determined his life course. He dreamed of becoming a journalist, then a diplomat, but he nevertheless enrolled at the Faculty of Law upon his return to Belgrade. As he says, the faculty was chosen through a process of elimination, but has turned out to be a good decision.

The first considerable sum of money was earned by Jankovic in Istria, working as a tour guide in Jugoturs. For two seasons, in the junior and senior years of his studies, he worked as the guide for tourists from Germany and Austria. It was there that he met his future business partner – Nenad Popovic.

– Nenad was born in Belgrade and he was studying law there, but we met in Porec, where he also worked as a tour guide, except for English-speaking tourists. It was back then, in 1982, that we started dreaming about founding a firm together, which materialized a decade later.

Soon after graduating from the faculty, thanks to his command of the German language, our interviewee received several job offers. This was not usual, as legal practitioners found it difficult to get jobs at the time.

– The offers came from Genex, Centrotextil and several other large Yugoslavian companies. I pondered it intensely and I was very close to starting a career in sales, despite having graduated from a school of law.

Nevertheless, the desire to deal with “true” law and become a lawyer won.

– The fist law firm I worked at was Popovic, Popovic, Samardzija and Popovic, without a doubt the biggest and most famous law firm in the entire Yugoslavia at the time. Everyone who worked there spoke at least one foreign language. They were dealing primarily with intellectual property rights, representing foreign companies which operated in our country. The experience helped me a lot and, in a way, led me towards choosing to deal with corporate law even after I left the firm. I recognized that the field suited me and I am happy with the choice I made to this day – our interviewee recalls.

(Photo: Africa Studio/shutterstock.com)
His mentor, Petar Samardzija, and principals Srdja and Gordana Popovic gave him a piece of advice he's adhered to ever since: “Always tell client the truth and nothing but”.

Important decisions are easier when you're young


He worked as an intern in the Popovic law firm from 1985 till 1987, and then, following the passing of the bar examination, he worked as a lawyer until 1991. However, as the Popovic office has always been a family firm, no one outside the family could become a partner.

– I then decided to found my own law firm at what I can safely say was the worst kind of moment for it – just before the war. I remember a conversation with Srdja Popovic, who tried to dissuade me from leaving. The armed conflict hadn't yet started, but it was “in the air”, it was obvious that something would happen. Srdja, who had spent his entire life in politics, representing dissidents, understood all the circumstances very well. I came over to tell him I was preparing to leave and he told me: “Are you out of your mind? You want to found a law firm and the entire Yugoslavia will be at war in a year?”

– However, when you're young, at 30 years of age, it all seems far-fetched – what sort of war is he talking about? On top of that, once you start feeling you have to work on your own, for yourself, and be your own boss, you simply make the decision and that's that. I opened my own law firm on July 1, 1991, and I was soon joined by Nenad and Milos (Mitic, author's comment).

They started at the old colonial store of Nikola's grandfather, near the Kalenic green market. The first 5-6 years were not easy and they struggled to attract clients. They had dealt in corporate law from the very beginning and, although work was scarce during the period of wars and sanctions, they had a lot of foreign clients.

– This was thanks to the fact that it was practically impossible to find lawyers with great command of both English and German in a single law firm in the 1990s in Belgrade. I had been a “trusted lawyer” of the Austrian embassy from the start, which meant a lot to me.

Still, time was on their side, and their clients started spreading the good word about them, causing the brand to start developing. As our interviewee says, the business started moving rapidly on an upward trajectory in 2000. Foreign companies started coming to Serbia in droves. Thanks to this, the period from 2001 till 2008 was the period of the biggest upsurge of both JPM and all other corporate law firms in Serbia, our interviewee says.

– There were ten of us in the firm until 2000, and now there are 60 of us. The number of jobs and the number of people has grown year by year.

Business people, as Jankovic says, adapt very quickly to political changes, even in markets as small as that of Serbia. Many companies were ready and had only been waiting for the right moment to come to our country. Immediately after the October 5 Revolution, the JPM Law Firm participated in the foundation of the first foreign bank in Serbia since before the Second World War.

– We had a meeting with Austria's Raiffeisen Bank in the fall of 2000 already. That was the first foreign bank to get a greenfield license in Serbia.

Over the course of its two and a half decades of operations, JPM has been involved in numerous important projects in Serbia's economic life. They represented Delta in the process of selling Maxi to Delhaize, the state in the South Stream project, as well as in the sale of Crvena Zastava to Fiat and of NIS to GazpromNeft. They've also worked for numerous banks arriving to Serbia – UniCredit, Volksbank, Intesa, Credit Agricole... and also for companies Svarowski, H&M, IKEA, Lidl, etc.

The sale of Maxi for over EUR 932 million is the most valuable transaction in the field of private business in Serbia.

– I was not personally involved, but I did follow the work of my colleagues. The entire process took a year and a half to finish, and, once the negotiations started, the work never stopped. We're talking six hours of negotiations followed by six hours of preparing and modifying contracts, while representatives of the companies are sleeping. It's a huge amount of work, but the results are big as well. I always like to say that we work a lot, but also earn a lot.

Our interviewee points out that he finds greenfield projects the most personally satisfying.

– This mean assisting a company from the start – founding the firm, looking for the location, preparing the contracts... being involved in the purchase of land, raising the facilities, employment. In the end, a tangible result of your work is standimg in front of you – a built factory.


In addition to large projects, JPM represents numerous companies in their everyday operations through providing legal advice in all areas of corporate law, as well as representing them in court and arbitration procedures.

“The competition is growing along with us”

– It's becoming increasingly harder to find work, due to the low level of the Serbian economy on the one hand, and the growing competition on the other. The number of corporate law firms in Serbia is increasing. But this is, at the same time, good, as healthy competition is positive. Nevertheless, we have been present in the market for a long time and have a reference list of extraordinary heft – Jankovic says and adds that he is very happy that young lawyers, who are coming to the firm year after year, are getting better at their job.

– I am truly convinced that a your legal practitioner, a lawyer, who speaks at least one foreign language well and knows their “trade”, can lead a very good life in Serbia – our interviewee says.

He emphasizes that he is proud of the fact that three young lawyers, who started working together “at the worst possible moment”, have managed to persevere and remain friends and partners for as many as 25 years.

– I am also very proud that there are lots of young colleagues working with us and that the new generations of interns keep getting better.

JPM takes interns several times a year, mostly from the Big Deal project, conceptualized by Nikola Jankovic and started in 2012. Furthermore, young lawyers send their CVs to the firm on their own as well, and JMP also cooperates successfully with the Faculty of Law in Belgrade and professors recommend the best students to them.

– During the Big Deal competition, we set various tricky tasks and plant “skeletons in the closet” for them, as us lawyers like to say. It's up to them to discover them and solve the problem. This is where the quality of a lawyer's who performs analyses and check-ups becomes evident. Of course, you need to be very educated, but you also need to be ready to sit for hours, sifting through papers.

Plans for the future

– Lawyers tend to never retire, but that's not my plan. I don't want to spend my whole life sitting at this desk (laughs). I 'd like for some younger colleagues to take over the firm as senior partners in, say, 10 years – Nikola Jankovic says.

Our interviewee reveals that he is very unhappy with the state of bar associations in Belgrade and Serbia.

– I think the overall state in Serbia, which is bad, is reflected in the state of bar associations. These are run by people without a sense for the development of the profession, people who are mentally somewhere in the 1970s.

“I like to work with Germans”

– I've always liked working with German companies, as they are meticulous, responsible, precise and always striving to do their job in the best way possible. I remember the cooperation with Knauf, when they arrived to Serbia, wishing to buy Vunizol in Surdulica, which they later did. The owner, who was close to 80 at the time, entered the hall, put on the overalls and squeezed under each machine in order to see how it works, whether the oil is leaking, whether they are being maintained... He was not interested in big talk with the directors – our interviewee recalls.

Serbia-Austria


Nikola Jankovic is married and has a son and a daughter. His wife works in diplomacy and lives in Austria. Nikola is thereby always moving between the two countries.

Once he retires, he says, he would like to do something else.

– Translating, for example. I'll think about it – our interviewee says with a smile.

Milica Milosavljevic
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