How the youngest law firms survived the toughest year

PeliFilip and the domestic offices of DLA Piper and Garrigues were set up in 2008, at a time when big law firms froze expansions and started adapting their business to recession.

Fledgling law firms continued to hire lawyers during last year to build their teams and tried to bite from the legal consultancy slice dominated by 3-4 domestic firms and by a series of foreign firms present on the market for some time.

The former lawyers of Ion Nestor (NNDKP) had a start as early as 2008 and in 2009 managed to provide consultancy under the PeliFilip name in one of the most important deals concluded. "Though we launched the firm at a difficult moment for the entire business environment, (...) the performance of PeliFilip has been very good ever since the first months and continued with major projects in 2009," says Francisc Peli, a partner at the law firm now including 31 lawyers.

On the other hand, Marian Dinu, former head of the legal department of Petrom and of the corporate practice of the Bucharest office of Britain's Linklaters, is now running the office of another foreign firm, DLA Piper, currently employing 21 lawyers.

"2009 was a year of intense activity for DLA Piper", Marian Dinu explains.

Another newly entered firm on the domestic legal services market was Spain's Garrigues, which in the summer of 2008 absorbed Mares & Asociatii firm to set up the office of Bucharest, now including 15 lawyers. "Garrigues entered Romania's legal services market in July 2008 with a clear idea about the economic situation of that time"," says Mihai Mares, a partner with Garrigues who runs the local office.

Whereas until 2008 most law firms almost exclusively centred on the M&A area, banking financing, the real estate market, last year most firms were forced to develop new law practices, adapted to the requirements of a falling economy.

Newly set-up firms expanded their lawyer teams last year, so that in 2010 they target revenue growth of as much as 30%.