On Thursday, November 30th, leading legal practitioners from across Central and Eastern Europe gathered in Prague to help CEE Legal Matters celebrate its fourth successful year as the leading chronicle of the legal industry in the region, participating in an expert Round Table conversation about the year just concluded and enjoying an evening of dinner, drinks, and bonhomie.
The round table attendees were:
- Gelu Maravela, Maravela & Asociatii, Romania
- Milos Komnenic, Komnenic Law Firm, Montenegro
- Uros Ilic, ODI Law, Slovenia
- Gjorgji Georgievski, ODI Law, Macedonia
- Tomas Matejovsky, CMS, Czech Republic
- Rastko Petakovic, Karanovic/Nikolic, Serbia
- Andras Posztl, DLA Piper, Hungary
- Roman Pecenka, PRK Partners, Czech Republic
- Damir Topic, Divjak, Topic & Bahtijarevic, Croatia
- Mykola Stetsenko, Avellum, Ukraine
- Ron Given, Wolf Theiss, Poland
- Hugh Owen, former Allen & Overy Slovakia
- Panagiotis Drakopoulos, Drakopoulos, Greece
- Besnik Duraj, Drakopoulos, Albania
- Alexandra Doytchinova, Schoenherr, Bulgaria
- Karl Paadam, PWC Legal, Estonia
- Eva Berlaus, Sorainen, Latvia
- John Apsouris, General Counsel of Hellenic Petroleum Group, Greece
- Radka Sosikova, Legal Counsel at Generali CEE Holding B.V., Czech Republic
- Cristina Cretu, Regulatory Manager of UPC Romania, Romania
- Tereza Simanovska, Head of Legal & Compliance, APS Holding
The wide-ranging Round Table conversation covered topics such as the threat of a bubble in CEE Real Estate markets, leading sources of foreign investment, fragmentation of many CEE legal markets (and consolidation in others), and the potential threat to traditional law firm models represented by the reincarnated Big Four law firms.
As every year, a transcript of the Round Table will be included, along with essays from participants and photos from the evening, in the special January issue of the CEE Legal Matters magazine that ushers in the new year.
The heated emotions expressed during the conversation itself were counterbalanced by networking, good humor, and cocktails both during dinner and after the event.
The editors of CEE Legal Matters, who organized and hosted the event, were pleased with the evening. “This was our biggest End of Year Summit yet,” said Managing Editor Radu Cotarcea with a smile. “And it was, again, a real pleasure to see so many of the leading lawyers of CEE come to one room to help us celebrate the end of another successful year. So many of them have become good friends as well — we’re already looking forward to next year.”
His colleague, Executive Editor David Stuckey, was equally enthusiastic. “This event gets bigger and bigger and better and better each year — tracking CEE Legal Matters’ growth. It’s a real testimony to our ability to bring people together, and to create events and opportunities for networking and exchange that didn’t exist before. We’re honored to have so many prominent experts carve out time from their schedules to join us, particularly during this busy time of the year.”
