This fall semester HIF is supporting Tamás Szkiba to pursue a master of laws (LL.M) degree in financial regulation and corporate law at Harvard Law School.
Tamás completed his J.D. studies at Eötvös Loránd University Faculty of Law in Budapest, where he focused his academic research on financial regulation and wrote his final thesis on bank capital regulation. Following his graduation, Tamás built a robust understanding of corporate legal work through his experience at various international law firms in Hungary.
“I believe that the recent financial crisis provided us with a great opportunity to learn from the mistakes that led to it. In order to be able to reach the right conclusions, however, we must study both the U.S. and the EU regulatory frameworks.”
Tamás Szkiba
Tamás is furthering his interests in financial regulation and corporate law at Harvard Law School, where he participates in the Corporate Law, Finance and Governance curricular concentration as well as in certain child advocacy seminars. His current research focuses on corporate governance of banks and recent trends in securitization: he would like to compare the bank capital regulation of the US with that of the EU and Hungary in his LL.M. paper.
“I chose Harvard Law School for my master of laws studies, because it is one of the most highly regarded law schools in the world with excellent academic staff in my areas of interest. In addition, as an American academic institution, it offers a different learning environment and the opportunity to be immersed in the U.S. culture.”
Tamás is also on the Board of the Harvard Tax Law and Financial Regulation Students Association, where he serves as Operations Chief and organizes events with his fellow students in the topic of financial regulation. He intends to use this opportunity to invite Hungarian speakers to talk about current topics in Hungarian financial regulation.
Tamás is also devoted to child advocacy and education of the youth: he has been volunteering at UNICEF Hungary since 2016, where he lectures Hungarian students on children’s rights.
“I am of the view that as a lawyer I have a great responsibility to educate children on their rights. I firmly believe that by teaching them about their rights and how to enforce them, lawyers can help children to defend themselves and to become participating and active citizens of their communities.”
Promoting social responsibility of lawyers
After his return to Hungary, Tamás intends to use his knowledge acquired at Harvard in his private practice, as well as for teaching purposes and promotion of child advocacy. He would like to launch new financial regulation related courses (including successful regulatory solutions developed in the US legal system) at his alma mater and write the teaching materials for such courses himself that Hungarian legal literature is currently lacking.
He would like to provide law students with a better legal toolkit and a comparative understanding of regulatory issues in Hungary, the European Union and the United States, as well as involve them together with practitioners in the child advocacy program.