BILGUUN Adiya, Legislative Assistant at Mongolian Parliament - Working on Legal Reforms From the Inside
Interview and photos by Nomunsor Soronzonbold
Get to know Bilguun Adiya (Class of 2016) who is the Legislative Assistant at the Mongolian Parliament. As a recent business law graduate from the University of Finance and Economics of Ulaanbaatar, Bilguun is now assisting the Parliament Member Enkhbayar Battumur on legal reforms. Read about how he is shaping the future of Mongolia from the inside and why he chose to work in the public sector.
Full name: Bilguun Adiya
Hobby Alumni: Class of 2016. Years attended 2004-2016
Higher Education: B.A. in Business Law at University of Finance and Economics (Санхүү эдийн засгийн их сургууль)
Languages: Mongolian and English
Sector(s): Legal
Current Workplace: Secretariat Office of the Mongolian Parliament
Past Workplaces: Hogan Lovells LLP summer internship, EBRD project at Financial Regulatory Committee (FRC)
Frequented Website: parliament.mn
Current phone: Iphone 6S, Iphone 5
3 Favorite Restaurants or Coffee shops in UB: Zoma, Ruby room, Rosewood
3 Books To Recommend: The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman, Contagious: Why things catch on by Jonah Berger, Л.Түдэв гуайн Оройгүй сүм
3 Movies or TV-Shows To Recommend: Suits (at least the first three seasons), White Collar, Designated Survivor
3 Songs You Are Listening To Most Right Now: DJ Gollum – All the things she said nightcore, Twice – Kura Kura, Pretty rave girl
3 Apps To Recommend: Google Docs, Google sheets, and UBCab
3 Podcasts or YouTube Channels To Recommend: Amaraa’s weekly show, Chessbrah, Manduulero Podcast
EDUCATION
How many years have you studied at Hobby School, and where have you studied before and/or after Hobby?
I enrolled in Hobby in 2004 as a first grader and I studied all the way up until graduation in 2016. So you can say
“I’m a true-bred, pure-blood Hobby alumni. ”
What kind of a student were you? What was your favorite class/subject and who was your favorite teacher?
I was mostly the quiet, shy type of student who just kept his head down and did his school work well. Especially during my primary school and middle school. I got better at speaking up as I went along in high school, especially after I joined the debate club. I learned to express myself better, more clearly and cohesively.
As for subjects, I was more into humanities, especially history class. My 3rd grade history teacher Edith was my favorite teacher. Although I have many teachers in high school who are fresher in my memory that I really appreciate, Edith was the first teacher who really lit that spark in me.
What’s your fondest memory at Hobby?
My high school memories of the debate club and the time spent there. I joined the debate club in the second half of my 9th grade and participated quite actively and diligently.
“During my final year, I went to an international debate competition in Bratislava, Slovakia. I was super proud to represent my school and my country at such a stage”
The trip was wonderful and educational, but I believe the fondest memories are those when I stayed late at school just practicing debate or hanging out with other members, watching them debate, and learning from them. Especially in 9th grade, when I had just joined and I wasn’t even part of any team. I just wanted to be there and watch the team that was going international at that time.
How did you prepare for the SATs and TOEFL? Any tips?
I didn’t prepare for TOEFL much to be honest. But the hardest section for me was the speaking part. To prepare for TOEFL, you need to be able to speak into a computer. I was very thrown off by that and I hadn’t practiced at all. I got a good score, although my worst section was speaking. Speaking in English and speaking to a monitor in a high pressure situation are two different things. So, I definitely believe everybody should be extra careful of the speaking section, because that was the case for me. As for the SATs, I tried a couple of different methods, but I believe just doing practice tests over and over again helps the most.
Why Business Law for your bachelor’s degree?
I chose Business Law at the University of Finance and Economics /Санхүү эдийн засгийн их сургууль/. I was definitely more into the humanities and soft sciences more than hard sciences. Not that I was bad at mathematics, I just knew my passion was more on the social side. So, I was thinking of options like law, economics, international relations or business management.
“My parents had language majors so they wisely advised me not to go for international relations or business management because they believed they were in a different time period where a language was an effective skill. But now you have to be able to do something beyond just speaking in English.”
International relations and business management would not necessarily give you hard skills. So, I took their advice and chose law.
I specifically chose business law because while debate was a passion at the time, I wasn’t quite fond of working at a courtroom or on legal cases, especially criminal cases. So, at the time of my enrolment, I pictured myself to become a company lawyer or a firm lawyer.
Did you get scholarships? What originally made you want to study at UFE in Mongolia?
There were no scholarships available at my enrolment. I never got scholarships from my school even as I went along, because the school scholarship was based on a strict GPA. I only got partial scholarships in my last year from outside competition. At my university, I tried my best to be involved in all sorts of extracurricular activities as that was the main reason I chose a legal discipline in a business school. I was gaining an experience as diverse as possible, so there were times when my attention and energy was spread thin. However, I do not regret any of the various activities I tried, even if I am never touching some of them again.
What did you do after your bachelor’s degree?
“I graduated in 2020, same year the parliamentary elections were held. New Members of the Parliament were elected into the office and they were hiring, so I believe it was a very lucky timing. ”
One of the members elected happened to be an ex-vice minister of justice and home affairs and an expert in the area of law. Luckily for me, Parliament Member Mr. Enkhbayar Battumur decided to hire an associate through open nominations. He made an announcement through his social media accounts to recruit a new assistant. So I applied and went through the process with no back door deals. After multiple stages of submissions and interviews, I started working as a parliamentary assistant from September 2020.
CAREER
What was your first paying job?
My first paying job was after 3rd year of university. During the summer, I worked on a legal project by EBRD at the Financial Regulatory Committee (“FRC”). The project was aimed to develop the Mongolian legal environment for non-banking financial institutions. FRC was the regulator, so they were in charge of developing the legal framework. One of my university teachers was the local consultant of the project. There was also an international consultant from the United States and other officials from EBRD London headquarters. In terms of communications and legal documents, there needed to be a translator. I was in charge of all communications between the international consultant and any Mongolian he was communicating with. We went to stakeholder meetings and we asked around about how people felt about the current law, what could be improved in the new law we were drafting. One part of my job was simultaneous oral translations during meetings. The main part of my job was a written translation of current law in Mongolian and the draft law being developed by our international consultant. So, it went both ways from English to Mongolian and Mongolian to English.
How was the job search market for your major?
For my major, I was imagining more of a corporate workplace after I graduate. I interned at international law firm “Hogan Lovells” after my first year of university. I really liked my time there. It was exactly the kind of future I was imagining for myself. But here I am at a state institution, working for the country, loving it even more than any corporate job.
As for the market, it might not have been easy to pursue legal consulting as a foreign investment itself is scarce. However, I didn’t choose to work here out of fear of competition. I am working here, because it’s where all laws come to life, therefore the amount of knowledge I am gaining is invaluable. I think it’s the best time to be working at a state institution.
Where do you see yourself in 5 years?
In 5 years, I see myself either in the middle of a master’s degree or right after finishing it. As for my master’s degree, I want to pursue it somewhere other than Mongolia. Mongolia offers many ways to specialize in law, but I feel it would be better to get a more broad perspective on the whole concept of law or maybe even something more. For now, I intend to specialize in commercial or business law just like my original major intended.
What is your daily routine at your job?
“So my daily routine is getting to work before my boss and usually leaving after the boss. ”
That is one aspect of being an assistant that is quite challenging, especially if you’re not used to it. I spoke to other assistants and many say the same thing: “If I could just do something on my own time of my own choosing I would do it well, but it is so hard that I have to be here when my boss is here”.
Being an assistant has a double sided aspect of being tied to your boss. At times it can be challenging but it is also extremely beneficial to be working closely with someone who is an expert in their field and someone who assigns a wide range of tasks. The number one task shared by all assistants is drafting official letters in the name of the Member of the Parliament, because the member of parliament has to communicate with all kinds of institutions: foreign and local, public and private. Drafting those letters means that you are writing instead of the parliament member as he or she instructed you to and present the draft to your boss. If he or she is satisfied, the signature is signed and the document is sent. That is the staple job of a parliamentary assistant.
As for me specifically, I work on long-term research on the legal environment for certain areas of law my boss is interested in. For example, in the fall session of the parliament, my boss had his eyes set on judicial reform. Unfortunately, my participation in that was minimal because we were working remotely and were forced to interact as little as possible. So, he was usually in charge of those things on his own.
“Now the next big reforms are land law and state-owned enterprises. So, I am working long-term on those.”
I do a little bit of research every day to keep up with the workload. I also conduct basic legal analyses on specific topics related to the upcoming issues on the parliament agenda.
What was your role in the recent judicial reform?
So the recent judicial reform was about the reform to the Constitution of Mongolia.
“In the fall of 2019, the constitution was amended and now all laws must be amended in accordance with the constitution. ”
To put it really simply, the constitution is the most important law. Every single law that the parliament enacts must be in line with the Constitution. At the time, there were laws that were not in line with the constitution simply because they were there before the new amendment. Now that there is a newer version of the constitution, especially in some clauses relating to the judges and how they are appointed and how they are regulated, that needs to change. One of the three reforms that were made in the fall of 2020 was the judicial reform. So, my role in the whole process was to collect background information and basic research for the draft law when the process was starting. There were many inputs from many different people about how the law should be.
Another part of being a Member of Parliament is the amount of responsibility on you, the amount of paperwork to go through is enormous.
“All sorts of people come to the Member of Parliament for help, cooperation, “cooperation”, money and all other kinds of requests through phones and paper. It’s my job to review them beforehand and present them in an efficient and coherent manner.”
None of the MPs have time to read a 20 page document that ultimately asks for a simple favor. Especially when there are 3 more similar 20 page documents every week. So, it's my job to review the papers and tell him concisely what it states and what the sender wants.
FUN QUESTIONS
May we ask about your marriage? What are your thoughts on family planning in Mongolia?
Obviously I know that family planning is a very important thing to consider seriously. I don’t have a girlfriend right now, so no comment in particular.
How do you relax? What’s your hobby or where can we find you when you are not working?
When I‘m not working, I usually play chess online. When I consider chess as a hobby, I never try to take it too seriously because it wouldn’t be a hobby anymore. During my time in high school and university, I consistently joined the chess tournaments and won some medals and trophies but I never joined a chess club because if I had to show up there every week to play chess maybe it would feel more like a job instead of something fun. I try to keep it flexible and play whenever I want to. Now that technology is very convenient, I play it on my phone when I want to take a break or whenever I can’t sleep at night, I play a couple of blitz games to tire myself out.
When you were young, what did you want to be when you grew up?
I used to want to be a doctor when I was 5 or 6. I don’t even remember why I had that specific idea. It’s probably because I wanted to help people. As I grew up, I became more interested in humanities science. I suppose I realized that there are more ways to help others. Lawyers are glamorously titled doctors of society, for example.
Who is your role model in Mongolia? A living person and why?
I don’t know how many other alumni said this already, but it’s my parents. I understand it’s a recurring answer in the series. It’s a simple answer, but that’s the truth of life.
Do you have any mentors? How did you pick them as mentors?
“My current boss Enkbayar Battumur would inevitably be my mentor. He provides me with many opportunities to improve myself. He directly and indirectly teaches me a lot professionally, both political and legal matters. ”
If you could compare yourself to another animal, what animal would you be?
I tried one of those silly internet puzzles many years ago. The answer was apparently a turtle. Not a tortoise, turtles are the amphibians that can swim very fast in water but can also walk on ground. They adapt to surroundings well, and I believe the answer surprisingly reflected me accurately.
What’s the best life advice that you’ve received? Who gave this advice?
My boss once said “You have to have two eyes: a political eye and a legal eye. Those are two very different things.” I believe this axiom is true in the context of anything. There is more than one way to look at things. We should always try to look at things from more than one perspective.
A personal advice you would like to extend to fellow Hobby Alumni?
I would like to ask people to vote in the elections and be more active politically. When I say vote, I don’t mean just show up and fill whoever‘s name you see first or who your friends and family advised you to vote for.
“I wish more people would take the election more seriously because that’s the most important part of a democracy. I ask fellow hobby alumnus and anybody else reading this interview to vote responsibly. ”
A personal advice you would like to extend to fellow Hobby students?
To our students and to anyone in school or university:
“Try different things as much as possible. It doesn’t matter if you are not particularly good at it or whether it’s not related to your major. The further it is from your interest, trying it out for a month or one event, you can get yourself immersed into it.”
I believe what’s exciting about university is this, because I was studying law at UFE, many of the in-school events were geared towards accounting, finance, or business. As a law major, I was joining as many events and competitions as possible. For example, I joined a marketing olympiad without having taken a single marketing class. I actually got to the final stage, but it is not even about that. From that experience alone, not only did I get a good grasp on marketing, I made many friends from the business class and we even started up a little business together later in the year. So, try many many different things as much as possible.
What are your good and bad habits?
My good habit and bad habit would probably be efficiency. I try to be as efficient as possible in daily and long-term tasks. On the other side of the coin, efficiency is basically laziness. I believe that double-edged sword is my strongest bestand worst habit.
Funniest story at work you can share with us?
During the judicial reform, we went to a seminar with my boss, several other Members of the parliament and their assistants. After the lecture finished, we were all guided through a hallway to a food hall. When we were getting food, my boss asked me to find one of the members of parliament who was lost. He doesn’t know where the food is being served. I replied okay and stepped out as soon as I heard him but my first thought was “Wait. I don’t know that person. I have never heard his name. I can’t recognize him.” Fortunately, I didn’t need to find him because one of the organizers brought him in. But, after that event,
“I told myself: “It’s just 76 people and 76 faces. I’m going to memorize all of them.” So now if you ask me about the parliament, I know all the 76 names, faces, which province they were elected from, and the general background of each and every Member of Parliament. ”
If you could pass 1 law globally, what would it be?
It would be the standardization of legal age. Not every country has to have the same adult age. At least, I want things to make sense within each country. For example, here when I turned 18, I could go ahead and choose my president but I can’t have a drink at a bar. So maybe, we need to pull back the voting age to 21. Maybe people need to start voting at 21 because that’s when they become real adults or pull the drinking age back to 18 because that’s when they are independent. Citizen ID at 16, voting age at 18, drinking age at 21. It is all some arbitrary nonsense, so I wish each country settled on one number each.
Now if you can fix 1 problem in Mongolia, what would it be?
It would be state-owned enterprises. Because that’s what I've been dedicating the better half of my day to for the last few months. There are so many problems with it, starting from who should actually run it? Can it and should some enterprises be privatized? If they are nationalized, how does the government actually run a business? Should the government run it like a business or just keep prices low in the interest of the people? So many serious dilemmas.
If you could have dinner with anyone dead or alive who would it be, and why? Also, what would be your first question?
My current favorite lawyer and author is John Grisham. First question would be about what made him want to become a writer and how he went through the process.
Name 3 conspiracy theories you believe in.
I do believe in a few but I would rather not share any of them publicly.
Who would you recommend to interview next from Hobby Alumni? And Why?
I recommend Sanchir Bold (Class of 2015). Honestly, I haven’t been in touch with him too much since he graduated, but he was a very impressive senior in the Debate club. I believe anybody who was in the debate club around the same time as me would recommend him simply for how amazing he was as a debater.
“I am working here (at the Parliament), because it’s where all laws come to life, therefore the amount of knowledge I am gaining is invaluable. I think it’s the best time to be working at a state institution. ”