Toomas Seppel on Äripäev Radio: legal advice for a fast-growing company has to support the business model

Hedman partner and attorney-at-law Toomas Seppel was a guest on Äripäev’s gazelle show “Kiired ja vihased” (Fast and Furious). The conversation explored what it really means to advise fast-growing technology companies and why, today, just knowing the law is no longer enough for a lawyer.

According to Seppel, anyone advising growth companies has to understand the client’s business as well as the entrepreneur does. “My first task is to understand what the client sells,” he says on the show. In practice, that often means downloading the client’s app himself, testing it and walking through the entire customer journey – and only then turning to the legal, regulatory and tax questions.

Toomas also shared where the most common risks and legal missteps tend to arise for a startup, how the business model and financing shape early decisions, and why the agreements between founders and partners often determine the company’s later fate. From there, the discussion moves to more practical matters – from taxes and process automation to what actually drives a company’s rapid growth.

The conversation also looked sharply toward the future, with Toomas reflecting on how artificial intelligence is reshaping the legal world, how the legal field as a whole is changing, what this means for regulation and recruitment, and how Hedman has grown alongside the market – from modelling startup transactions to today’s questions around AI, defence technology and investments.

Seppel also discusses what AI means for the future of legal work, which internal rules a company needs when it adopts AI in its day-to-day operations, and what steps a business owner should take to prepare.

And if you make it to the end of the episode, one more unexpected twist awaits – what does a lawyer’s work have to do with installing laminate flooring? You’ll find out in the show!