The Greek legal market is a mirror of the Greek economy. Parts of it, such as shipping, are truly global. That’s why one finds international law firms specialising in shipping in the port of Piraeus and the capital, Athens. Those international firms have already claimed most of the big consulting and litigation jobs gradually edging the traditional Greek firms to the margins of the legal market.
Other parts of the Greek economy are truly inward looking, confined to local demand and unable to compete globally or even regionally. Those are reflected in the vast number of small legal outfits, mostly family based and controlled, commanding very low fees but also unable to offer attractive positions to the growing numbers of law school graduates entering the market. Career growth is primarily a function of family affiliation and in nearly all cases the firm is passed down to the next generation. Associates see little long term benefit from staying with the firm and, for the most part, they aspire not to firm membership but to setting up their own small operation. Firms are usually identified with a small number of individuals who are owners in the full sense of the word. The firm has little – if any – substance apart from its owners. These law offices represent that large majority of Greek practices and control professional organisations such as the various Greek Bar Associations (membership in one of them is a prerequisite for providing law services in the respective city or area).
A new model needed
Then there are very few firms that are trying to break the traditional Greek mold and introduce a different model for practicing law: they bid for the jobs that require greater sophistication, specialised knowledge, better organisation and infrastructure and a critical mass of lawyers to be able to address volume and time requirements. They compete for the big state sponsored jobs (infrastructure projects privatisations, IPOs and rights offerings, big litigations and arbitrations). They interface and occasionally face competition from major foreign law forms, usually London based and not otherwise set up in Greece, that combine knowledge of the Greek market through Greek recruits at their foreign locations and the level of sophistication and quality that is their hallmark. The few intrepid Greek firms also face competition from smaller more opportunistic outfits often run by politically well-connected practitioners (capitalising, at least temporarily, on their personal acquaintances) or university professors who leverage their academic position to secure lucrative appointments as litigation or arbitration counsel or to be engaged to produce legal opinions.
What is now the norm in most of the European Union, the provision of business law advice by increasingly large law partnerships, is still the exception in Greece and the struggle to reshape that market still has a long way to go.
The recent crisis has underlined how peripheral Greece truly is in the European and global context. It took a while for the impact to be felt, exactly because Greece is loosely connected with the global economy; it will take longer to recover because it depends heavily on borrowings and specific sectors such as tourism, that have a longer term sensitivity to the recent downturn. This means that the top crust for which the larger local practices compete is getting smaller. And yet, the crisis may also have a silver lining: flight to more qualitative legal services.
A corporate ethos
PotamitisVekris was set up in 1996 as part of the strategic effort of one of the big accountancy firms to develop legal services as part of their international service offering. It started as a small team of four lawyers and has grown today to over 30. It boasts six partners well-recognised for their expertise in their respective service areas and skilled associates. Its outlook is international and most if not all of its lawyers have received legal training abroad, a number of them also having been admitted in foreign jurisdictions such as New York, England, Wales and Paris. While small by US and UK standards it is one of the larger Greek firms. It is also now a fully independent law firm having recently separated from its accountancy partner and set out on its own ambitious course.
Having grown within a multinational organisation it has absorbed a corporate ethos that sets it apart from its local competitors. Its partners are a group of completely unrelated individuals, tied by bonds of professional respect and affection and not family relations. In fact says Xenophon Paparrigopoulos, an EU and competition law specialist, “we have agreed never to bring into the firm any relatives in any professional capacity (except as trainees), and have also pledged to leave the firm when time comes against the return of capital actually contributed and no expectation of goodwill or other preferential treatment over those who join as members at a later date. All associates are entitled to be considered for partnership if they stay with the firm long enough. Many do. Most of the senior associates have been with the firm since the 1990s.”
Rewarding team work
PotamitisVekris believes that the best professional results are achieved by consistent team work and have structured their compensation and incentives with that in mind. In the Greek legal market, it is common for partners to draw their income from their own clients. This means that clients are first and foremost tied to a partner and only secondarily to the firm. This is a corollary of the primacy of individuals to the firm. In PotamitisVekris’ view, both lawyers’ and clients’ interests are better served if the firm takes precedence and clients enjoy the benefits of the whole legal team, depending on their needs and the respective skills, experience and specialisation of the lawyers. Stathis Potamitis, the firm’s Managing Partner, explains: “We have decided to tie partner earnings principally to the performance of the firm as a whole and only secondarily to the contribution of each of us to the top line. Similarly, the common practice in Greece is for associates to receive the larger part of their compensation as a function of the billable hours they book or the revenues they actually generate. We consider that this is not only unfair to our more junior colleagues but, also, destructive of the alignment of interests which is required for a well functioning team of professionals. Our associates receive a fixed salary regardless of the time billed or revenues actually generated. They also receive bonuses but those are not more that one third of the overall annual compensation and are awarded against a combination of individual performance assessment and performance of the firm overall”.
Recognition and trust
PotamitisVekris have seen their reputation rankings improve year after year as the depth and breadth of their expertise becomes better known to its clients and the market in general. Says partner George Bersis, a capital markets expert: “We continuously and consistently improve our standing both in areas where we have been recognised in previous years (capital markets, M&A, energy) but also in new areas, such as IP and competition. We invest very substantially in knowledge tools and continuing education for all our lawyers. We also invest substantially in infrastructure. We have received ISO certification while we have also just completed the implementation of a new cutting edge MIS system and Document Management System. We are on our way to a law office with less paper and continue exploring ways to use the available technology to bring us closer to each other and to our clients. To that end we are working on an intranet site that will be accessible by our professionals and selected clients.”
Niche in Southeast Europe
PotamitisVekris tries to stay on top of its clients’ legal needs and to respond to their expectations. The last decade has been marked by the outward expansion of Greek businesses in some sectors (particularly banking) to other Southeast Europe countries. The firm has developed a significant cross border M&A capability and has represented a number of its anchor clients, such as Alpha Bank, Piraeus Bank, Hellenic Petroleum, Sarantis & Fourlis Group, in acquisition moves in Albania, Montenegro, Serbia, Bulgaria, Romania, Ukraine, Poland and Turkey. Says partner Johnny Vekris, a corporate and real estate expert who has led the firm’s activities in various neighbouring countries: “In the course of our work we developed strong ties with local law firms in each of those jurisdictions, have developed our own familiarity with some of those markets, and to date maintain a very close association with Dinova & Rusev in Sofia. We are one of the very few Greek firms that endeavoured to advise on significant M&A transactions outside Greece as international counsel and have been well received by our clients”.
Growing the economy
PotamitisVekris have played a significant role in the growth of the Greek capital markets, having taken a lead role in the switch to book entry form of listed securities and the formation and regulation of the Athens derivatives exchange. They also contributed to improving the regulation of financial services firms and the introduction of innovative exchange products. More recently they have claimed a significant participation in the new infrastructure projects and the growth of PPP in Greece. Partner Euripides Ioannou has been instrumental in the development of the project finance capabilities of the firm and is now shepherding its expansion into similar areas of practice such as energy. As he explains: “We made a serious commitment early on to address the legal needs of investing in all aspects of energy law – from renewable energy sources to carbon emissions and electricity trading – and we secured recognition as one of the few firms that can claim real legal expertise in that field.”
Professional initiatives
Last but certainly not least PotamitisVekris lawyers declare themselves proud to practice law and are keen to provide assistance not only to paying clients but also to other deserving causes. The firm has taken special pains to ensure that its lawyers have the opportunity and means to do pro bono work. Says litigation expert Konstantinos Papadiamantis: “We have pledged to dedicate not less than five percent of our time to pro bono matters and the promotion of worthy causes. We take on a number of individual cases relating to immigration and political asylum.
We also provide free legal coverage to various not for profit organisations, such as the Elliniki Etairia, an association dedicated to the environment and cultural heritage, the KM Protypi Geitonia (Model Neighbourhood), a new initiative for the revitalisation of Athens, and Libraries for Children and Young Adults, a public private initiative that brings books to underprivileged children around Greece, while we also have acted in the establishment of the Centre for Democracy and Reconciliation in Southeast Europe, an organisation committed to investigating specific ways of enhancing and encouraging social dialogue and building social cohesion in our region. We are also founding members of Resolve, a professional initiative for the promotion of mediation and SDRs, and a new Financial Law Association, recently established in Athens”.
