Two former participants in a scheme devised by Boris Yeltsin and former Chancellor of the Exchequer Norman Lamont giving young professionals from the former Soviet Union a chance to work in the UK, have become the first members of the Moscow City Bar to become partners with a UK law firm.
The appointment of corporate lawyer Valentina Gluk-hovskaya and asset finance specialist Dmitry Gravin to Norton Rose's Moscow office as partners follows the recent decision by the Law Society to recognise members of the Moscow City Bar as registered foreign lawyers.
The two were part of the Chancellor's Scheme which was set up in 1992 following a request from Boris Yeltsin to the then Chancellor of the Exchequer, Norman Lamont. Yeltsin wanted to find a way to restructure and develop the business and financial sector in the former Soviet Union.
The project, funded through the government's Know-How Fund and managed by the British Council, aims to take 1,000 dynamic young professionals, mainly from the fields of banking, insurance, accountancy and law, from the former Soviet Union and place them with British organisations for three to 10 months.
Gravin was one of the first wave of professionals to come to London through the scheme, starting with Norton Rose in 1992. Since its inception in 1992 , the scheme has had more than 740 participants, usually between the ages of 20 and 30.
