Some of Hungary’s leading legal minds give us their take on the country’s evolving market, including significant growth areas (with ESG to the fore), the level of business-friendly legislation, and the law-making process itself.
Please find below the questions and Eszter Kamocsay-Berta's answers.
How would you describe Hungary’s legal market today? Is it stable? Might we see consolidation or new entrants?
Hungary’s legal market today seems to be in transition. This primarily reflects changes in the economic environment. For example, Noerr’s Bratislava, Bucharest, and Prague offices are transferring to Kinstellar, while Noerr Budapest may take another route. We also observe quite a few moves from one law firm to another.
What share of your workload today involves ESG compliance? How do you think this might change?
An important practice for us focuses on employee stock ownership plans, which are popular due to their financial benefits, constituting a competitive advantage. Banks and corporations turn to us as few law firms have the technical expertise to successfully navigate them through the complex process of introducing an ESOP system.
Judges and lawyers sit at the end of the legal process. You have to work with the laws the lawmakers give you. Are you happy with the current process for drafting new laws? What would you change?
Drafting new laws has accelerated immensely as life gave us many unforeseen situations. This is challenging, as the lawmaking process is complex, and you have to know precisely how a change to one law might trigger others. Speeding up this process leads to a need for continuous reviews. AI technologies may help to make this process more resilient.
Can you attract the quantity and quality of legal talent you require? How would you change the university law faculty curriculum?
Fluctuation is an essential indicator of the agility of a law firm. We are proud to offer our colleagues an attractive career path from their student years until the top of the profession. Together with a college for advanced studies, we created a talent management program one and a half years ago for law students called Studia Pragmatica to attract talents from the beginning of their careers.