What makes a top law firm? How will the market develop in the next few years? Which are are the top firms?
| Andy Hunder, head of the London office at Magisters. |
KP: What makes you one of top law firms in corporate law and dispute resolution? What is your main advantage over other firms?
AH: Magisters is internationally recognized as a leading law firm in Ukraine and across the CIS as it has the largest number of top-ranked lawyers in corporate law and dispute resolution practices. Only by working with the best lawyers in the land can you achieve the best results. Magisters is the only law firm from Ukraine to be ranked amongst the top-100 largest law firms in Europe.
We combine the International top level of service of the world’s leading law firms and local knowledge of complex legislation in Ukraine. Our main advantage is our top in class customer service. We have offices in Kyiv, Moscow, Minsk, Astana and London which gives us a unique opportunity to best advise Ukrainian, Russian/CIS and multinational clients.
KP: How can your work be improved to stay in the top five in these fields?
AH: The firm’s main focus is its clients and people employed by the firm. We build long-term relationships with our clients, many of whom have been working with the firm for over a decade. We continue to develop and grow the best lawyers in the region.
KP: How do you expect legal services to develop in the next few years?
AH: We anticipate growth in public-private partnerships, defense of intellectual property rights and alternative energy.
KP: Who do you consider your main competitors in Ukraine?
AH: In corporate work we tend to compete mostly with firms like Baker & McKenzie that are present in a number of jurisdictions.
| Oleg Makarov, managing partner at Vasil Kisil & Partners. |
KP: What makes you one of top law firms in corporate law and dispute resolution? What is your main advantage over other firms?
OM: The result we achieved is not the result of one year’s work, but the 20 years we have worked on the market. Vasil Kisil & Partners came out of this period of turbulence without being weakened. We announced that we would have no redundancies, would keep all practices and would try to come out of the crisis as little damaged as possible in terms of our staff, professionalism and potential. We declared and showed this to our clients and the market and maybe this influenced on how we were rated by international rankings.
KP: How can your work be improved to stay in the top-five firms in these fields in Ukraine?
OM: We plan to develop the quality and quantity of our partnership. We plan to work on improving the managerial, professional and individual qualities of our partners and to attract to partnership work our colleagues who now at pre-partnership level.
KP: How do you expect legal services to develop in the next few years?
OM: Some expect the legal market to plunge or vice versa to take-off suddenly. We believe it will grow, but very steadily, and will reach the level of 2008 no earlier than 2012. Then we will have the same quantity of deals and lawyers as in 2008 but a different psychological environment.
Before the crisis we had an employee market and methods aimed at short-term results. I hope law firms will remember their mistakes of 2008.
KP: Who do you consider your main competitors in Ukraine?
OM: We work in 11 practices. There are not so many law firms that work in all practices. I would name several of them: Magisters, Asters, Baker & McKenzie and CMS Cameron McKenna. In intellectual property, our competitors are Doubinsky & Osharova and Konnov & Sozanovsky; KM Partners in tax law; and Sayenko Kharenko in banking and finance and antitrust practices.
| James Hitch, managing partner at Baker & McKenzie |
KP: What makes you one of top law firms in corporate law and dispute resolution? What is your main advantage over other firms?
JH: The main reason for our top position on the market is the experience and expertise of our lawyers. We have been in Ukraine since 1992, and our key experts in corporate law and dispute resolution have been with us for almost 10 years, which puts us far ahead of the competition. As an international firm, we have a lot of people who studied abroad. In addition to that we provide them with wide training opportunities in our offices in other countries which facilitates the exchange of experience within a firm.
We are one of few international law firms in Ukraine that went into the area of dispute resolution. We did this because we feel that our clients expect from us the ability to represent and protect their interests when we work on their projects.
KP: How can your work be improved to stay in the top-five firms in these fields in Ukraine?
JH: We constantly do extensive market research and legal service research. We monitor the situation and try to enter new development areas. For example, there has been a large emphasis on anticorruption compliance activities. Clients are very concerned about that, not only foreign but Ukrainian as well.
We likewise plan to grow as soon as the global crisis disappears. We will continue to attract the best clients from abroad and in Ukraine. Hence we will attract the best attorneys on the market. Especially in the new areas of law which will be in demand, like climate change and Kyoto protocol, very developed abroad but brand new for Ukraine.
KP: How do you expect legal services to develop in the next few years?
JH: The revival of merger and acquisition deals, particularly on private equity and venture capital. We expect the return of activity on capital market, debt market, Eurobonds and IPOs. Also anticorruption compliance work, dispute resolution, especially in tax and labor areas, intellectual property will be in high demand.
Mining, natural resources, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals and health care, telecommunications are the top industries to bring growth in legal demand.
KP: Who do you consider your main competitors in Ukraine?
JH: Among international law firms operating in Ukraine, CMS Cameron McKenna, Chadbourne and Parke, and in some areas Salans. Among Ukrainian law firms we compete with Magisters, Vasil Kisil & Partners and in the merger and acquisition field with Sayenko Kharenko and Asters.
Armen Khachaturyan, senior partner at Asters |
KP: What makes you one of top law firms in corporate law and dispute resolution? What is your main advantage over other firms?
AK: There are several reasons. I would start with our spotless reputation in these fields. We have 15 years of experience on the market and good working relations with most reputable international law firms.
Another reason is our excellent expertise. Our team of experts has a deep knowledge of these legal areas, understanding of the regulatory background in Ukraine and the peculiarities of its context.
We are a Ukrainian firm for international businesses because we combine transactional and legal experience with the extensive knowledge of our system.
Our next advantage is highly educated people who have extensive international and local experience. Although corporate and litigation are the core of our practice, we still remain a strong multi-service law firm.
Also, I would say we hold top position thanks to our clients. The quality of clients reflects the quality of our work. Last but not least, we put huge emphasis on the quality of our service, special treatment of each clients and achievement of their goals.
KP: How can your work be improved to stay in the top-five firms in these fields in Ukraine?
AK: There is not much to improve because we always try to keep the high level in everything and keep up with standards and criteria of the best international companies. I think we really need to work more on the visibility of our expertise in publications, conferences and seminars, reaching individual potential clients. We need to put more effort into business development and awareness campaigns.
KP: How do you expect legal services to develop in the next few years?
AK: Banking, mergers and acquisitions, corporate law and litigation will be in great demand due to the recovery and improvement of investment activity and the economy. Restructuring, telecommunications, and antitrust will remain important.
Among the industries, we expect high demand for legal services in agriculture, pharmaceuticals, renewable energy, infrastructure projects and public-private partnerships.
KP: Who do you consider your main competitors in Ukraine?
AK: Baker & McKenzie, CMS Cameron McKenna, Magisters, Vasil Kisil & Partners and Sayenko Kharenko.
Dmitri Grischenko, founding partner and director at Grischenko & Partners |
KP: What makes you one of top law firms in corporate law and dispute resolution? What is your main advantage over other firms?
DG: Taking into consideration that now there is a crisis in the economy, we defined what practices are most important for us in this period and focused on them. They were dispute resolution, especially in investment issues, and corporate law.
We have an informal, individual approach to clients and try to understand what their final goal is. Sometimes we talk with a client and he understands that he did not actually need what he initially wanted. In such a way we save client’s money, including his expenses on our professional legal services. Our aim is to keep a client in a long term.
KP: How can your work be improved to stay in the top-five firms in these fields in Ukraine?
DG: First, we will try to maintain our positions in those practices where we have already achieved certain results. Second, we will have to develop other practices. For example this year we have focused on energy, in particular on alternative energy. We consider this is one of the most attractive and promising spheres for new investments. We started the practice with one client at the beginning of the year. Now we have three clients. In fact we want to have a small monopoly, to be the pioneers in this sphere.
KP: How do you expect legal services to develop in the next few years?
DG: In 2011, the market will reach the same level as we had in 2008 before the crisis. At present, I observe increasing demand for banking and finance, mergers and acquisitions services. Maybe next year won’t be the same in terms of income, but the amount of work will reach pre-crisis levels. Ukraine’s economy will become more attractive for local and foreign investments, which will lead to an increase in legal work.
KP: Who do you consider your main competitors in Ukraine?
DG: Among those law firms which I have real respect for are Vasil Kisil & Partners, Sayenko Kharenko, Salkom, KM Partners and Magisters. To my mind, there is no big difference between companies in first or 20th place in the rankings. They all are highly professional.
