January is a perfect time to look back and plan for the future. To reconsider our accomplishments and learn our lessons. To think what could have been done better, more efficiently, or just in a different way. To set our expectations, make commitments, and dream big.

Since the Russian Federation’s annexation of Crimea in 2014, the peninsula in the Black Sea has been a minefield of conflicting international claims and interests, putting lawyers trying to work there, boxed in by the threat of sanctions from the West and counterveiling pressure from Moscow, in an untenable position.

Several important trends have appeared on the Russian legal market since 2014, the first year of EU/US sanctions and Russian countersanctions: 1) the growth in the market share of domestic law firms; 2) the in-sourcing of a large amount of legal work inside corporate legal departments; 3) the entrance of nonconventional players (such as banks and mobile operators) into the legal services market; and 4) the increased focus of lawyers on IT solutions and efficiency.

About a half year ago, I was sitting in a pitch meeting trying to impress a potential client to win an important mandate for a project that would take two years to close. The meeting was attended by top management of the company and by its founder. We discussed all the technical aspects, our past experience with similar projects, and how we worked as a team. We were hoping to come across as a unified team and show that we knew what we were doing. It was already the second round, so we focused on chemistry and relationship-building. At the end of the meeting we devoted a lot of time to discussing how important it is to be open and honest. I told the client that we would not just agree with them all the time – we would be honest with our fees upfront, we would tell them if we thought they were doing something wrong, we would treat them as friends and partners, we would tell them if we thought their instructions create more work than necessary, and, most importantly, we would always have smiles on our faces, even if we needed to tell them they are wrong.

In 2015, the word Cobalt took on a new meaning in the legal markets of Belarus, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, when a new pan-Baltic law firm with that name opened its doors, immediately entrenched in the top tier of the region’s legal markets. That firm owes much of its success and reputation to the Managing Partner of its Lithuanian office and Chairman of the firm-wide Management Board, Irmantas Norkus.

One of the most important issues facing businesses in CEE is the impact of the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic on litigation and arbitration. In-person court and arbitration hearings have become problematic, if not impossible, and the importance of certain boilerplate contract clauses has skyrocketed. Zsolt Okanyi, Global Head of Dispute Resolution at CMS, Malgorzata Surdek, Head of Dispute Resolution at CMS Poland, and Daniela Karollus Bruner, Head of Dispute Resolution at CMS Austria, evaluate the current situation.

Serbia’s JPM Jankovic, Popovic, Mitic has added a new practice to its offering – the first Corporate Criminal practice in Serbia. We reached out to JPM Partner Jelena Milinovic to learn more.

The COVID-19 crisis that has afflicted Europe throughout this unusual year has necessitated significant changes to the way lawyers work and communicate with and serve their clients. To find out how these changes played out in Greece, we spoke with Yanos Gramatidis, Head of Government & Privatization, and Betty Smyrniou, Head of Labor and Social Benefits and Aviation at Bahas, Gramatidis & Partners.

In The Corner Office we ask Managing Partners across Central and Eastern Europe about their unique roles and responsibilities. The question this time: “What one ongoing pro bono initiative or project or charity/volunteering project that your firm is involved with has the most meaning for you personally, and why?”

It is no easy task this day and age to talk of “legal market trends.”

In the first decade after the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, an enormous number of international investors descended upon the countries of Central and Eastern Europe – initially, and particularly, Romania and the so-called “Visegrad Group” of Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, and Hungary – to take advantage of the privatizations occurring across the region and, in the early years, manifold new and giant deals related to the region’s rapid modernization and integration. Inevitably, many of the larger London-based international law firms opened up offices in the region to provide their clients with on-the-ground assistance.

The legal markets of Central and Eastern Europe are served by a growing cadre of strong domestic firms, an established collective of widely-recognized and genuinely impressive regional firms … and, of course, many of the largest and best international firms in the world.

An Interview with Partners Panos Katsambas, Claude Brown, and Kevin-Paul Deveau from Reed Smith’s Dedicated CEE/SEE Group.

On January 20, 2010, I stepped off a plane in Bucharest to start a secondment at Clifford Chance’s local office, which was supposed to last eighteen to twenty-four months. I was a young and eager lawyer, keen for new experiences and ready for the challenge of working in emerging markets. In the end, I left nearly three and a half years later, and I almost stayed on permanently in Bucharest. It was an amazing experience, and English law in CEE has had a massive impact on my life.

Advertising is no easy task for law firms in the former Yugoslavia, and law firm marketing and business development specialists in those legal markets face unique challenges in their attempts to promote their firms and obtain new clients.

The COVID-19 pandemic hit the Western Balkans right during a period of accelerating economic activity and a promising economic outlook for 2020. The rapid spread of the virus forced the governments of the Western Balkans countries to introduce protective measures, lockdowns, and temporary business shutdowns. These restrictions had a devastating direct economic impact on a wide range of sectors – particularly the hospitality and transport industries – and the measures had many indirect side effects that significantly decreased economic activity.

Prominent Serbian attorneys provide an overview of the country’s prospects heading out of the recent election cycle and into an uncertain future.

Doing business remotely continues to gain in popularity, both allowing work to continue (often from home) when pandemic conditions require it and actually increasing many individuals’ overall productivity in certain industries. Despite its advantages, however, the data implications of remote working have recently become more complex.