The US government’s Fulbright Program annually awards scholarships to outstanding students from around the world, including from Latvia. The Fulbright Program in 1946 was founded by former Senator J. William Fulbright in order “to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and people of other countries”. As part of the programme, more than 300,000 participants have participated in an exchange, studying in the USA or elsewhere in the world. In Latvia, Fulbright scholarships are organised by the US Embassy.

There’s already a tradition of Fulbright scholarships at Sorainen. In 2005, a Fulbright scholarship was awarded to our Estonian office partner Reimo Hammerberg, who holds a master’s degree focusing on real estate and finance from the University of San Diego; in 2012 Katrīne Pļaviņa-Mika – studied world trade and investment law at Georgetown Law in Washington D.C.; in 2016 it was awarded to senior associate at the Sorainen Latvian office Linda Reneslāce, who studied intellectual property law; in 2018 to Agneta Rumpa, who expanded her knowledge of financial law and dispute resolution; in 2019 to Kristi Tammiku – who completed a LLM with a focus on Technology and Intellectual Property Law from the University of Colorado Boulder; and in 2021 our Estonian office partner Kaido Künnapas spent 3 months in the University of San Diego as a visiting research scholar and went through the U.S. Law and Policy Program for International Professionals and same year – Artūrs Kazāks studied at the Pepperdine University Straus Institute in California, USA – international trade dispute resolution by focusing on international commercial arbitration, trade law, and international investment disputes.

This year, a Fulbright scholarship for master’s studies (LLM) in technology and intellectual property law has been awarded to associate Gunta Bambāne. The scholarship will give Gunta the opportunity to gain new knowledge by studying for a year at the University of San Francisco, California, located near Silicon Valley – home to many of the world’s leading innovation and technology companies.

We are proud of Gunta and wish her success in her studies!