Get to Know Us | Outi Jousi, Counsel, IP & Technology, Helsinki

Outi Jousi works as a counsel and head of public procurement in our IP & Technology Team at Hannes Snellman’s Helsinki office. We asked Outi to share her experiences of working at Hannes.

How did you become a lawyer at Hannes Snellman?

I have wanted to be a lawyer since childhood, but during my teenage years, technology came into the picture, so I studied both. I have combined these fields during my career. I started working with investments at a pension insurance firm but transferred to the state public procurement body in order to be able to work with technology. From there, I moved on to set up an IT procurement practice for the Finnish office of a global law firm. After that, I was offered the opportunity to go on to strengthen Hannes Snellman's Technology Team back in 2017.

What has your career been like so far?

Since my teenage years, my sights have been set on a combination of technology and law. I started off by designing software for medical research while studying degrees in both software design and law. For a long time, I worked at a state-owned public procurement body as a lawyer, where I focused on IT procurement and agile procurement models. Nowadays, I head our public procurement practice, and the majority of my work still deals with technology.

Can you describe the types of tasks you have been working on lately?

The social and healthcare reform has kept me studying, as has the “tsunami” in privacy guidance. During the past week, I have led the team in assisting a contracting authority in a pretty significant tendering competition in a novel field requiring cooperation of five of our teams, advised on how to maximise points in bids, analysed the social and healthcare reform for our client, and drafted documents to the Market Court.

What kinds of skills are required from a good technology and public procurement lawyer?

I believe that you have to live and breathe technology and public procurement, so to speak. I follow the development of the industries on a daily basis ─ I keep up with technology so that I can come up with solutions to clients before the matters even land on my desk. Continuous learning and sharing information among your team is also important, and I share documents and information daily in our internal channel.

What do you enjoy best in your work?

I particularly enjoy solving problems, developing new approaches, or providing strategic advice. Sometimes matters require innovation and the development of things that have not been done before. For example, there were no agile software development agreements in the private or public sector when I started to develop them. At the time, many considered agile public procurement agreements illegal, but I challenged that, and some years later a state-wide agile agreement recommendation was accepted.

Quick Facts

FAVOURITE | Way of Commuting Teams :) Lunch Smoked salmon soup Work Equipment iPhone  Mobile Application Tasty Relaxation Method My two large and energetic doggies Work Outfit Sheath dress Power Song Girl on Fire Website  Tivi Social Media Channel My own Twitter bubble Drink Rose soft drink Weekday Sunday Leisure Activity Landscaping

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