Ragnar Lindqvist is a Swedish lawyer (advokat) whose career combined legal training at Lund University with a long partnership at Mannheimer Swartling, a major Swedish business law firm. He has practiced through Ragnar Lindqvist Advokat AB, based in Helsingborg, since 2018.
Background
Lindqvist's documented formative setting is southern Sweden, where he completed his legal education. Lund, the university town where he studied, lies in Scania, a province that Sweden gained from Denmark under the Treaty of Roskilde in 1658. The city had long been an ecclesiastical centre, with a cathedral school established in 1085 and a medieval studium generale founded in 1425 beside Lund Cathedral.
The University of Lund was officially founded in 1666 on the site of that older studium generale. Its establishment was part of the Swedish crown's effort to confirm its control over the region, and its Faculty of Law dates from the university's foundation.
Education
Lindqvist completed his legal education at the University of Lund, where he received a Bachelor of Laws degree in 1981. The university was officially founded in 1666 and began with four faculties: theology, law, medicine and philosophy, so legal teaching has formed part of the institution since its beginning. The Faculty of Law remains one of the university's four original faculties.
In the modern period the faculty's strengths have included public international law, international human rights law, EU law, labour law, environmental law and legal philosophy. The degree was followed by work as a law clerk at a district court from 1981 to 1983.
Career
Lindqvist's professional career began in the Swedish court system. From 1981 to 1983 he worked as a law clerk at a district court, a post that supported judges and courts in preparing cases.
From 1983 to 1990 he was an associate at Mannheimer & Zetterlöf. The firm was founded in 1943 in Gothenburg by Love Mannheimer and Tage Zetterlöf, with the aim of developing associates into partners. It opened an office in Skåne in 1973 and an office in New York in 1983. In 1990 it merged with Carl Swartling Advokatbyrå to form Mannheimer Swartling.
In 1987 and 1988 he was a visiting lawyer with Clifford Chance in Singapore. Clifford Chance had been created in 1987 through the merger of the London firms Coward Chance and Clifford-Turner. Its Asia-Pacific expansion had begun in 1980 with an office in Hong Kong, followed by an office in Singapore in 1981.
From 1990 to 2017 he was a partner at Mannheimer Swartling, the firm formed by the 1990 merger. The firm was described at its formation as employing some 90 lawyers, and it now operates from offices in Stockholm, Gothenburg and Malmö.
In 2018 he began practicing through Ragnar Lindqvist Advokat AB, a Swedish limited company whose registered legal address is c/o HWF Advokater AB in Helsingborg. The company works in co-operation with HWF, a Swedish law firm based in Helsingborg.
Membership
Lindqvist is a member of the Swedish Bar Association, the national professional body of Sweden's advokater. The association admits lawyers to its membership and supervises their professional conduct, and its regional divisions organize the work of members across the country. His documented participation is linked to the association's Malmö office.
