I can pinpoint the exact moment when my interest in the law first flourished: I was 13 years old and my mother had given me a book called The Courage of their Convictions by Peter H. Irons, about 16 Americans who had fought for their rights and taken their cases all the way to the Supreme Court, and what I read resonated deeply within me. It later turned out that my mother had only given me the book to improve my English. But it opened the door to so much more.

Latvia’s Leading Commercial Lawyers Consider the Country’s New Economic Affairs Court

Attendees to the 2019 CEELM Winter Party were cornered, over the course of the evening, and asked, without warning or an opportunity to prepare, what achievement over the past 12 months they were proudest of.

Against a backdrop of global uncertainty fuelled by Brexit, a US-China trade war, and a weakening German economy, Central and Eastern Europe has proven itself economically resilient in the face of a challenging year. Led by Hungary, Poland, and Romania – all of which reported more than 4% GDPs growth – many emerging European countries have comfortably outshone the sluggish economies of Western Europe. It is, therefore, unsurprising that foreign investors flocked to the region in 2019 in search of healthy returns.

Whew! Managing the CEE Deal(s) of the Year submission process isn’t easy – and it’s getting tougher every year. But the arduous first stage of the process – collecting and organizing the submissions, creating the ballots, and transmitting them to the various shortlist panels – is over, and I now have a total of two whole weeks to focus on other things before the completed ballots will be returned to me and I will need to calculate the results, create the shortlist ballots, and send them out to the Final Selection Committee.

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.