NINE-STRONG CIS LEGAL NETWORK GETS OFF GROUND
By James Swift
The Lawyer
gal-network-gets-off-ground/1002634.article
Nov 16 2009
A nine-member CIS network that launched at the beginning of November is
planning to bring the alliance model into the 21st century, according
to its chair.
The Leading Counsel Network (LCN) is a non-exclusive alliance of firms
from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova,
Russia, Turkmenistan and Ukraine.
The network’s first meeting was held in Russia at the offices of
Egorov Puginsky Afanasiev & Partners.
RULG-Ukrainian Legal Group founder Irina Paliashvili was elected
LCN’s first chair in a one-year rotating presidency aimed at promoting
democracy and ensuring that not only firms from the largest economies
hold sway.
Oleg de Lousanoff from German firm Hengeler Mueller and Patrick
Dziewolski from French firm Bredin Prat attended LCN’s first meeting,
sharing their experiences of operating a best-friends network.
"We were curious as to how [other best-friends networks] were so
successful and how we can distinguish ourselves and progress, for
example in IT, which plays such a big role today," said Paliashvili.
"Having a unified approach for IT is very important. If you want to
be a 21st century network it’s important to have the best IT resources
and I think we can do that much better together than we can with each
firm on its own.
"We learnt from the best friends network that it’s [about] providing
the best cross-border service for clients. Some networks just send
referrals and meet once or twice a year, but not much is done on
cross-border terms. We’ll be working together on the substance; sending
teams, doing secondments and making sure lawyers work together,"
she added.