Inspirational legal women: a conversation with Imbi Jürgen

Sara Carnegie (SC): I'm here today to speak with Imbi Jürgen, an Estonian lawyer who it's been my absolute pleasure to get to know most recently, notably in her current role as President of the Estonian Bar Association. So, it's great to speak with you, Imbi, and I'm delighted you're taking part in our Inspirational Legal Women podcast series, which celebrates some of our incredible members and their achievements and careers in the legal profession. 

By way of short introduction, you've been a practising lawyer since 1996 and have worked at several highly esteemed commercial law firms specialising in areas such as energy, environment and contract law. Your current role is as counsel in pan-Baltic law firm TGS Baltic. I also note that you've held a number of leadership positions within the Estonian Bar Association; you were a member of the board for three years and you've been president there since 2022 and representing the bar in various professional and international organisations, including at the International Bar Association, which is how you and I met. And I was really delighted to see most recently in November last year that you were elected as a vice president at the CCBE, the Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe, with the position that you officially went into from the first of January this year, 2025. I also note that you're the fifth woman to be the CCBE president since 1966, which was as far back as the records show on their website. 

So we're here today to talk about what you've done, some of the challenges and experiences that you've had, and any advice that you may have for those entering or navigating their own career in law. 

Imbi Jürgen (IJ): Well, thank you for having me, Sarah. It is really a great honour for me to be in this podcast with such inspirational women in law, and I'm very, very pleased to share my thoughts. 

SC: Thank you, and be thoroughly deserved. I'd like to start at the beginning, please, and really ask what motivated you to pursue a career in law and how did you decide what type of law was of most interest to you? 

IJ: It was all by chance. I did not really know what law was when I graduated from high school and when I entered the university, it was in 1992. And Estonia had restored its independence just one year before it in 1991. So, our society was in great transition from Soviet socialist republic to a modern Western democracy. In the Soviet Union, there were not so many lawyers at all, they were not so visible in society and the legal profession was not independent, of course. So, I did not really have any role models but I had this general sense that law was something new, something progressive. In these times of change, it suddenly became important and also popular. And it was very promising. So, I guess I just had a very vague imagination that I want to be part of something new and progressive. And it seemed modern and it was based on the right values.

Yeah, I just had one close relative who studied law. He was one year older than me and he went to study law and he told me that it was great in the university, so I think I followed his advice. And little did I know about law and legal profession, but I found studying law was quite fascinating and it suited me very well. 

My specialty now is the energy sector and I can say that I really do love it. But it was not a straight way to this and in the beginning of my career. The legal system was just developing extremely quickly in Estonia. Totally new legal concepts were introduced. We were all learning by doing and so, as a young lawyer in a private law firm, I did whatever tasks were given to me from administrative law to employment and contracts to litigation. I would say also the energy sector came by chance. It all started when the renewable energy sector started developing in Estonia about 20, 22 years ago. And it just happened that our law firm had clients who needed assistance in this area and there was absolutely no one else. Nobody had experience in energy law in our firm and overall, in Estonia, there were only a few experts in this field. So, somebody just had to do it and it was all by a chance. The market slowly started to develop and lawyers had to adapt to advise their clients. So, I just jumped into the big unknown and slowly, gradually, I grew my experience and knowledge and the whole wonderful world of energy sector opened up in front of me. And I just learned to love it, so it was also by a chance. 

SC: So that's a sector, obviously, where there's a huge amount of work. But do you think you were in an environment where, had you not enjoyed that work, you could have moved into something else? Did you feel you had a degree of autonomy in how you then shaped your practice?

IJ: Yes, certainly. I certainly did have autonomy. The roads were open for me if I had felt uncomfortable in a private law firm, well law is such a wide area. There are so many different things that you can do. You could work for a government; I think public sector could have fitted me well. As a student, I actually thought, I quite enjoyed writing my thesis and research papers and I thought I might have been good for academic activities also. I could have, would have, been perhaps a professor of law by now. But somehow I stayed in the road that I chose in the beginning and I'm quite happy about this. 

SC: How have you managed to balance the demands of such a high-pressure career in a corporate firm with your personal and family responsibilities? I know you've got three children and I wonder how you've developed strategies or habits that have been helpful for you to balance your life. 

IJ: Well, I think you can't have it all at the same time. In my case, it has not worked out at least to have it all at the same time. There is time for family and other personal challenges that we might have, and there is time for career. So, you do not have to have it all by the age of 35. You can flourish and you can develop your career and have a very meaningful work at 50 or later. 

So, I really do have three children and my husband also is a lawyer, a managing partner in a large law firm. And when our children were young, he was building his career and I held it back. I concentrated more on home and children, but I never lost contact with my law firm fully and I did some part-time work even from home. But at a certain point of time, I felt like I had failed because I had three wonderful children, but I didn't make it to law firm partnership, like my classmates from the university did, mostly male though. 

But then I went back to full-time work after my children went to kindergarten and school and I continued working in a private law firm and I gradually became involved in this most fascinating work at the bar association. And first, I was elected as a member of the board of the bar and then vice president and then president. And from there, I became a member of the Estonian delegation to the CCBE, and from this year, I'm the vice president. So, I can proudly say that I do have a wonderful career and this is not over yet and now, for me, it's really so much easier to dedicate myself to work now that my children are almost grown up. 
You don't have to have it all at the same time and you can have a wonderful career also later on and people don't stop developing once they are 40 or 50. They just start getting better, I think. 

SC: I think that's really good advice because I think sometimes when when women are going through the early stages of having a family, and I also have three children, so I fully understand how it feels to assume at that point you may never be able to compete at the highest levels and reach positions of seniority because your focus is in that moment, the pressures and the juggle of life that you have to navigate. But I wonder then if that has been the biggest challenge or if there's been other big challenges that you'd like to share and how you've navigated those during your career. 

IJ: I guess the biggest challenge is what I have right now, how to balance those three equally important work areas; my work as a counsel in the private law firm, and my work at the national bar association, which is extremely important to me, and also now my work in the CCBE presidency, they are all equally important. So how do I juggle? How do I do all of this? And also, I have a family and of course my personal needs. 

So, this is the biggest challenge, I would say. I need to make room for everything and I'm just learning how to cope with this, and I guess the key here is teamwork. I do not have to do any of those tasks on my own and I couldn't possibly. You're not alone in any of these positions. It's never a solo, so you need to trust others and delegate where possible and supportive teams are key. And I am very, very lucky that right now I do have a very supportive team in my law firm and also, of course, in the Estonian Bar Association. And I'm absolutely happy about the wonderful team of presidency at the CCBE. They're very, very supportive, and it's really a pleasure to work there. So, teamwork is perhaps the key. 

SC: Oh, yeah, I completely agree. And I, I likewise feel I have a great team of lawyers working with me and members too who work on the projects very importantly and it's absolutely vital that you can share out the burdens and the load to really manage a balanced life. 

But in terms of the environment in which you've worked, I make an assumption here that it's been male dominated and that may or may not be the case in different countries, but assuming that it has been; have you had to use particular strategies to establish your credibility or assertiveness in that context? And by all means, if I'm mistaken in making that assumption, please tell me. 

IJ: To be honest, I have not felt discriminated because of my gender in Estonia. I did not think there was a glass ceiling just because I was a woman. This is not my story. Although the leading positions or the sea level, also in the justice sector in Estonia is male dominated, especially in large law firms. But I never felt that it was because of my gender, but there were definitely barriers and these barriers were inside myself, no doubt of that. How I thought of myself, partly perhaps because of my personality but to a large extent, thanks to the society around me, how I was raised and what was going on around me. 

So, women have a lot of beliefs and habits that keep them back and they want to meet the societies and families' expectations, and this is definitely true by me also. And here, there's one particular book that has been very, very helpful for me to recognise these habits that have held me back and it is How Women Rise by Sally Helgeson and Marshall Goldsmith. And they describe such behaviours which are characteristic to many women – not all of them, but many, and certainly in my case. Such behaviours like overvaluing expertise and the desire to be perfect. Reluctance to claim your achievements or expecting others to spontaneously notice and reward your hard work. Once I read this book, I recognised myself in many aspects and ever since I have consciously try to recognise these behaviours and to stop behaving like that and this has been really helpful. So, this would be a book that I could recommend to all women trying to make their career, whether in law or any other area. So, recognising these habits in myself and then working with myself trying to change the way I behave. 

SC: Well, that's a good tip, How Women Rise. 

But in terms of your experience, perhaps particularly now when you're working in the CCBE and as the President of the Estonian Bar, what do you think that you're learning from your exposure to other cultures and other bar associations? Is there anything of that global experience that you think has changed you or affected how you work?

IJ: Well, this international work has been extremely rewarding in terms that I understand that our national bar is not alone. There are sometimes maybe some tiny things that are characteristic to our specific legal system, but the problems are usually universal. And it's been very actually relieving to understand that we do not have to invent the bicycle, so to say, that others have the same kind of problems and it is so good. I remember especially when I went to the first IBA Power Leaders Conference. I think it was in Vilnius and I saw all these other presidents and vice presidents and leaders of bars and law societies and we were exchanging our views and I thought, ‘Oh my god, they have the same problems and they partially have solutions, which may be very helpful.’ 

So it's very, very interesting to learn from others of those experiences and I think this is also what the CCBE is all about, or at least a very large part of it is exchanging these practices, good practices, and getting to know what other bars and law societies do in the same kind of situations. So yes, it's been very, very valuable for me to recognise that we are not alone. Nobody is alone. There are similar problems everywhere. And there might be actually some solutions if you're ready to learn. 

SC: I think that's true and plus you're then feeling that collegiate bond with other people who are dealing with associations, membership questions and so on, which is which is a great way in which both the IBA and the CCBE and other organisations help bring people together for all those valuable reasons. 

Last question to you, Imbi: what's the best piece of advice that you would give to someone aspiring to succeed in law, particularly as a woman? Any thoughts on that to round us off? 

IJ: Well, I have many thoughts, but if I have to give the best piece of advice, I think my advice would be don't try to plan everything. You cannot control your life entirely and good and interesting things will come to you. Because in my life, chance has played a significant role. I have not planned my career in great detail. It was by chance, I can say it was by chance that I ended up studying law at the university. And by chance, I joined the best law firm in Estonia, and also, it was by chance how I moved on to other firms. It was not planned. And the chance also led me to the energy sector and energy law. And a major chance brought me into the work of the bar association. So, I never planned this. It was just a random phone call from a colleague who said, ‘Why don't you become a member of the board? Why don't you run at the elections?’ And I had never had this idea, and had he not called me, I wouldn't be speaking here right now with you, Sara. It was a coincidence that that led me to the leadership in an international organisation of Lawyers. And I have not been good at planning, but I have been willing to accept the opportunities that came my way. Of course, over time, that courage has grown significantly. When I was younger, I often thought, ‘oh, not me, no. I don't know enough, I'm not skilled enough, I am not good enough’, this perfectionism again. But with age has come experience and also the confidence to take on new challenges. 

So, my advice is actually, don't try to plan everything because you can't. You can't plan everything so be open to new opportunities and do not underestimate yourself. 

SC: Oh, I love that. That's such a valuable piece of advice and I think rigid adherence to one path is a mistake. I think being open-minded and willing to accept different opportunities is certainly something that. All of us should be able to try and think about because it makes a big difference to your enjoyment of your career in my experience as well. 

So, thank you for today, Imbi. It's been an absolute pleasure to speak with you and I wish you well for the rest of your presidency term and also with the CCBE and look forward to seeing you very soon. 

IJ: Thank you so much. Thank you.