I feel a sense of optimism about Russian’s legal market that I have not felt since the dark days of the Crimean Crisis in 2014.

Part I – Eppur si Muove

Balazs Kantor, the Head of Tax at Lakatos, Koves & Partners in Budapest, discusses his career and his role in creating a leading practice in Hungary

Law Firm Marketing experts from across the region answer the question: “What is your experience of working with an external public relations firm?“

As has been this editor’s tradition in recent years, I managed to switch off my outlook over the last few days of the year and spend the winter holidays right: on a sunny, warm spot by the beach, getting my vitamin D fix. I paid my dues when I returned to cold Budapest, though, as the first signs of a flu appeared on my first evening back.

CEE is a highly-fragmented market. What sounds like a dull geographical statement actually highlights the main challenge of being a lawyer working in a regional CEE law firm.

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 useful or valuable piece of software or new technology your firm has acquired in the past five years?

Concerns about how the legal profession will be impacted by the ongoing technological revolution are rampant across the industry. Artificial intelligence, distributed ledger technology (blockchain), and robots, among other things, are already altering the way lawyers serve clients in fundamental ways, and the influence of these new tools and technologies will almost certainly increase in years to come.

The Future is Now

CMS Partner Ana Radnev on developments in Restructuring/Insolvency across CEE

Managing Partner Diana Dimova reflects on Kinstellar Sofia’s fifth anniversary

Why would a lawyer in private practice strive to make partner? That may come across as a strange question. An old saying holds that a soldier who doesn’t aspire to become a general is a bad soldier. Partnership as an ultimate goal is often taken for granted.

I am convinced that most law firms in the region – even those larger firms that have dedicated marketing teams – do a poor job of recognizing and acting on good opportunities.

Why would anyone knowingly become a law firm marketing specialist – a role that is demanding, complicated, challenging, and stressful? To explore this mystery, we went to the source. Accordingly, this time around we asked the law firm marketing specialists of CEE to complete the following question: “I went into Law Firm Marketing/BD as a career because ____________.“

Central and Eastern Europe has attracted significant interest from South African investors in the last decade, in a wide range of sectors, including healthcare, retail, FMCG and real estate.  

Legal liability for climate change is an emerging risk for lenders in South Africa – a risk that is by no means limited to projects in the fossil fuel industry.

Over the past few years we have seen a sustained interest by South African companies in investing in Central and Eastern Europe. I travel to the region regularly and am often asked to explain why this is so. In particular, what are the drivers of capital outflow and what opportunities does this present for CEE-based businesses?

Ronnie Apteker is a South-African born entrepreneur, author, and filmmaker. He founded the first Internet Service Provider in South Africa, which is now part of the world’s largest TelCo, Japans’s NTT. He has made Kyiv his second home, and is currently busy with a documentary film project about the IT landscape in Ukraine. We asked him to share his thoughts about Kyiv – many of which, it turns out, apply elsewhere in CEE as well.