The new Labor Code, the General Data Protection Regulation and fintech are the key factors for the prosperity of legal practices

 “The Legal 500” journal has acknowledged the accomplishments of the JURIDICON Law Firm in their capability to adapt to the constantly changing needs of their clients. The mentioned journal has been publishing specialized legal advice, reviews of legal services in more than 100 countries, as well as ratings of law firms and legal experts (including Lithuanian) in various areas of law since 1987. The review of the Lithuanian legal services’ market of the present year has been accompanied by an interview from the Managing Partner of the JURIDICON Law Firm Dr. Laimonas Marcinkevičius.

The journal presents an overview and an impartial evaluation of legal services provided in more than 100 countries on a yearly basis. It is most popular amongst business and private clients, corporate lawyers, managers, financial managers, and professional advisors, “The Legal 500: Europe, Middle East and Africa” provides a comprehensive report on law firms and other companies providing legal services, as well as their areas of expertise. Based on the observations and feedback received from the clients of those lawyers and law firms, the Legal Guide provides commentary on specific legal services provided by companies and their lawyers.

The mentioned interview with Dr. Laimonas Marcinkevičius is presented below.

WHAT DO YOU SEE AS THE MAIN POINTS THAT DIFFERENTIATE LAW FIRM MARCINKEVIČIUS & PARTNERS JURIDICON FROM YOUR COMPETITORS?

Our in-depth knowledge, interdisciplinary approach and more than two decades of experience allow us to give our clients business-oriented and actionable legal advice. Since the beginning of our legal practice we have mostly specialised in cross-border and taxation issues. Ten years ago we prioritised legal technology, a project management approach and cooperation with international networks as the key success factors of our firm. My presentation at the international lawyers’ network congress in Prague in 2017 has revealed to me that a very small part of lawyers implement a project management approach in their practices of law. Today all our legal matters are managed by professional project managers. It ensures that for all sizes of engagements ‒ from simple corporate or asset purchase to complex cross-border deals and cases ‒ our legal services are delivered in the most effective way. We are very grateful to our clients who have brought us to this point due to our long lasting cooperation and constant feedback, especially with giving us the opportunity to be their trusted partner and strategic lawyer.

WHICH PRACTICES DO YOU SEE GROWING IN THE NEXT 12 MONTHS? WHAT ARE THE DRIVERS BEHIND THAT?

Due to the adoption of the new Labour Code in Lithuania from 1 July 2017 there are many issues that national employers must solve, e.g. adoption of new types of policies, recalculation of employees’ annual leave, election and formation of the labour councils, etc. Another practice area that is growing, not only on national but also on European level, is related to Regulation (EU) 2016/679 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 27 April 2016 on the protection of natural persons with regard to the processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data, and repealing Directive 95/46/EC (General Data Protection Regulation), which will come into force as of 25 May 2018. Since data protection and confidentiality are a very sensitive part of private life, even minor offenses can have serious consequences. The third practice that I see very much growing is related with the fintech industry. The driver behind it is that Lithuania has the EU’s fastest license issuing, direct SEPA access and strong institutional support.

WHAT'S THE MAIN CHANGE YOU'VE MADE IN THE FIRM THAT WILL BENEFIT CLIENTS?

Being committed to continuous improvement, we are constantly learning, growing and changing. Clients mostly benefit from that. By getting fixed price and better legal services they also benefit from our investments made in the legal CRM, knowledge management system, litigation support and analysis tools. Maintaining active and intensive cooperation with various international networks helps our clients to achieve their global business objectives.

IS TECHNOLOGY CHANGING THE WAY YOU INTERACT WITH YOUR CLIENTS, AND THE SERVICES YOU CAN PROVIDE THEM?

Technology is changing the way of we communicate with clients in every step regarding our legal service. Our website includes tools that allow our clients not only to submit an inquiry, or to schedule an appointment online, but also to order a plan of prepaid legal services within a few seconds. Using our structured sales process, a client not only chooses a suitable date, time and duration of an appointment, but also submits all related information and immediately gets a price quotation for the consultation or any other engagement. Our client portal helps us to deliver better, more responsive and transparent services of higher quality to our clients. We spend less time chasing our clients (and vice versa) via email or phone, by giving our clients on-demand access to their project, issue, retainer and account information, offering real-time updates on active work, allowing users to view and pay invoices, and more ‒ while leaving us in full control. The portal also includes a knowledge base where clients find useful legal resources for their businesses operations, saving time to deliver a higher-value service. Technology makes the process of working with our firm as seamless as possible and ensures much higher satisfaction of our clients.

CAN YOU GIVE US A PRACTICAL EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU HAVE HELPED A CLIENT TO ADD VALUE TO THEIR BUSINESS?

We go the extra mile, as our common practice. Recently, we have created a cross-border holding structure for our clients not only to avoid risk, save the costs and protect assets, but to also offer a new opportunity for them to use particular tax advantages. In other legal projects, we have succeeded in complex contract drafting and negotiations to open a settlement account for a client's company at an Asian bank that have accelerated the development of a new business model, exploring new opportunities in a partnership with Chinese suppliers. One more recent practical example is a testimony of how a properly drafted joint venture agreement with many annexes helped our client to avoid meaningless litigation in several jurisdictions.

ARE CLIENTS LOOKING FOR STABILITY AND STRATEGIC DIRECTION FROM THEIR LAW FIRMS - WHERE DO YOU SEE THE FIRM IN THREE YEARS’ TIME?

Yes, they are, and we are very proud of such recognition. Our firm will stay committed to offer reliable, high quality service and efficient solutions at a reasonable price in a creative and result-oriented manner, identifying new strategic opportunities and enhancing those for our clients as well as mitigating and eliminating strategic threats in cross-border business development and taxation areas. Thus, I am confident that in the next three years our clients will continue getting sustainable benefit from both our firm's strong network of lawyers and innovative solutions that will empower our clients to attain their business objectives and overcome any challenges in that way.