It’s not easy to get to the top of a profession. Among lawyer in particular, there is fierce competition, great pressure, slim margins of error, and a number of people waiting to capitalize on mistakes. Making it to the top, and staying there, is a tightrope that must be walked over and over. And yet, the Hanslik family has not one but two such high achievers, in two different countries, as Austrian brothers Erwin and Guenther Hanslik have senior positions at offices of two of the most respected and successful international law firms in Europe.

I have been working as real estate lawyer in CEE for the past 20 years and at no time during that period have I been asked about one topic so much. Of course, I am talking about the b-word: Brexit. Questions range from “is it still going to happen?” to “how is the UK going to cope with what seems likely to be a ‘hard’ Brexit?” No matter what the question, it has been very interesting to gauge what the potential effect of Brexit will be on the CEE market and, in particular, on foreign institutional investment into the region.

I recently bought a used car, and the friendly people at the dealership gave me a three-month warranty covering most of the car. The tire pressure warning light was on when I drove the car off the lot, but they reassured me that the sensor had recently been replaced and that the light on my dashboard would turn off soon.

As the country entered the 21st century, Ukraine’s Soviet-era judicial system was widely condemned as corrupt, incompetent, and inefficient. Committed to rectifying the situation, in 2015 the Ukrainian government introduced plans to reform the entire system. That transformation, which was the focus of an August 2017 CEE Legal Matters Round Table, continues today. We reached out to several of the Ukrainian dispute resolution specialists we spoke to several years ago for an update.

Economic recovery, growth, and FDI are the main themes of the Greek market, where, after nine years of recession, the economy is beginning to shift and grow.

In “The Corner Office” we ask Managing Partners across Central and Eastern Europe about their unique roles and responsibilities. The question this time around: What was the most difficult or unpleasant experience you had terminating someone’s employment?”

In September 2018 Schoenherr Partner Thomas Kulnigg advised crowd-investing company Conda AG on the digitalization of its shares, allowing the registered shares to be managed via blockchain technology. The project represented the first-ever digitalization of shares linked to digital tokens in an Austrian joint stock company. The tokens were digital units that were mined exclusively by Conda on a blockchain (dis-tributed ledger technology) protocol and then given to company shareholders. When a shareholder trans-fers a token to another person, the transfer is recorded in the blockchain and, on that basis, the transfer is also registered in Conda’s share ledger. The transfer of a token is thus the equivalent of a share transfer.

Greece is slowly recovering from the economic crisis – although even “crisis” hardly seems to capture the depths of the country’s economic plummet – that plunged the country into financial lockdown, with massive restructuring commitments to the Troika, record unemployment, and nose-diving foreign investment. With the darkest days of recession now past, and with a new government in power, the country finds itself peering forward, hoping that the light it sees coming towards it through the lingering fog is the sun of a new day … and not an oncoming train.

The Ukrainian legal market is living in times of change and promise. Being a successful law firm in Ukraine is not an easy task, but for those who know the rules, the changing landscape presents more opportunities than threats. So, what does the Ukrainian legal market look like now?

This April, the new EU foreign investment screening regulation entered into force, with terms scheduled to become applicable on October 11, 2020. The regulation was conceived and designed to provide member states with a valuable tool to employ in defending their strategic interests. We spoke to several experts in the region to learn more.

After I was asked to write this Guest Editorial for CEELM Magazine I realized that this year marks my 25th year in the legal business in Hungary.

After almost a century of reclusion, Albania has achieved formal candidate status to join the 28 member states in the European Union. Is the time finally right?

There are two interesting developments on the Austrian legal market: First, Legal Tech and Digitalization initiatives are on the rise. Second, the Top 20 law firms in Austria have increased their revenue last year, and the legal business is flourishing.

“Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?” the Cravath partner in New York asked after fifteen or so minutes, thereby signaling that the interview was coming to an end, expecting to hear the standard reply emphasizing the applicant’s desire to work hard if offered the position. “Home,” I replied. “In Albania.”

“Where do you see yourself in 5 or 10 years?” the Cravath partner in New York asked after fifteen or so minutes, thereby signaling that the interview was coming to an end, expecting to hear the standard reply emphasizing the applicant’s desire to work hard if offered the position. “Home,” I replied. “In Albania.”

Sponsors of the 2020 Dealer’s Choice Law Firm Summit, which will be held on April 23, 2020 in conjunction with the Deal of the Year Awards Banquet, explain their involvement.

When it first appeared, the compliance field seemed little more than “regulatory” in new clothes – a fancy name for making sure a company stayed within the ambit of provisions set out in the laws of a country. As time passed, however, more and more companies started treating compliance as a practice in its own right, and as a field of law … that is much more than just law. Compliance became an area of interest not only to seasoned lawyers, but also to scholars, consultants, and in-house counsels – all levels of legal practice became aware of its significance.

This time, our law firm marketing friends across CEE considered the following question: “What one part of your job would you most appreciate having more help with – not in terms of training or capability, but simply in terms of time?”