Infocenter

At the request of Kommersant, leading legal firms in Russia evaluated the market reaction on the last year’s changes to legislation, explained new trends and the impact of the crisis on the market, as well as shared their forecasts for legal market development.

According to the analytical review “Legal market in Russia: what does the statistics show” drafted by the Institute for the Rule of Law at the European University at Saint Petersburg in 2016, there were more than 100,000 legal organizations in the Russian Federation last year. They include 25,000 legal associations, 47,000 law firms, 27,500 self-employed individuals and 1,800 non-profit organizations. According to the lawyers interviewed by Kommersant, the number of law firms is unlikely to diminish in the coming years, however, the risk of overall contraction of the market remains. At the same time representatives of legal business expect increase of already intense competition among the companies <...>

Law firms point out that over the last year the competition at the legal market has increased, mainly due to activity of Russian companies competing for clients. Viktor Gerbutov believes that soon international law firms won’t have clear advantages over major Russian firms, as virtually all fields experience increased competition due to growth of major Russian law firms. Florian Schneider admits that competition is very strong in all legal fields, as client’s requirements for level and quality of service have significantly increased over the last years. Sergei Levichev, Head of the Bankruptcy Practice at Pavlova&Partners law firm, believes that it has a lot to do with crisis: “On the one hand, it makes the activity of law companies more complicated. On the other hand, competitive environment disposes of low-quality products, and only the best specialists remain”.

Read more: http://www.kommersant.ru/doc/3306816