Andrey Gorodissky & Partners Changes Its Managing Partner
To give maximum focus to problems of our current clients and help them survive the hard times— such is the anti-crisis strategy of Andrey Gorodissky & Partners. The firm’s new Managing Partner Dmitri Lubomudrov, head of Corporate/M&A, tells us about the tactics enabling the firm to face the year end without loss.
What impact has this hard for business year on the firm?
The current crisis has proved to be much less predictable than its predecessors: in 1998 or 2008 it was still possible to make some short-range plans, while nowadays such planning model does not work and for about a half year the planning horizon narrowed to a week.
As a matter of fact, the year start was so good that some of our lawyers had to discontinue their New Year holidays to begin working on new projects as early as January 3. During the 1st quarter of the year all of our key departments — Corporate, Arbitration, Intellectual Property, and Labor Law – had stable growth, and by mid-February we contemplated revision of our 2020-2021 strategic plans. At that time there were grounds for us to set more ambitious goals than those we had approved at the last year end.
Then the late March came. The Spring lockdown was a total bombshell to us, as to everyone.
The opportunity to work remotely has always been available at the firm, but, in fact, it was mainly partners who used such work format, and this in a very limited way. Lawyers, let alone the back office, were substantially working at their workplaces. Last April the office had to be closed and all internal, external, operational, financial and organizational processes to be adapted to the new reality. Even in days past, long ahead of the lockdown, we expected that our lawyer should be ready, as a commando, to work on client’s matters from anywhere and developed our IT infrastructure accordingly. Frankly, the IT improvements we had had time to make proved to be of great help to us in April and May: our team adapted very quickly and transition to the home office mode had no impact on the effectiveness of our work. We were lucky, in a certain way, to get a number of important M&A projects during that period. Apart from that, the lockdown-triggered economic problems brought about a surge in IP-related legal disputes and an avalanche of employer/employee conflicts, so we had loads of work to do in these areas. Added momentum was provided to our criminal law practice, which had not been among our top requested services earlier, as well as our client secondary liability protection sector.
All of this has enabled us to face the end of the year without much loss. We did not make staff redundant or cut salaries: social responsibility toward our personnel is one of the AGP fundamental values. The only thing which had to be put on hold was hiring new lawyers. Now this process is back on the rails.
What are the firm’s mid-term plans?
The goal we set for ourselves is to give maximum focus to problems of our current clients and help them survive these turbulent times. Let us be honest: face-to-face communications have been and remain the key instrument to increasing clientele. And now possibilities for doing this are very limited. We can cope with any operating tasks via Zoom, but getting new clients while working remotely is the skill we are still learning.
Our internal hands-on tasks include further improvement of expertise in our key areas of law and reinforcement of our relevant teams. The past crises and the current one have shown that maintaining more than one strong team practicing various areas of law at the firm is the right approach, which has helped us out at the most difficult moments. In fact, we have returned to our original plan for 2021.
The firm has changed its Managing Partner and the news comes as a surprise to the market. What is the reason behind this change?
I would not call this news such a surprise. In the past couple of years Andrey Gorodissky said more than once at the conferences that managing partners of law firms should rotate. And this is a planned process with us. The existing partnership agreement provides for a well-developed system of the firm’s managing bodies and is based i.a. on the principle of rotation of the executive body. The Managing Partner conducts daily management of the firm and also is member of the Board of Partners, which takes decisions on key matters.
It is essential that Andrey is not leaving the firm, he remains with us as Chairman of the AGP partnership and practice head.
For us, it is important to follow the principles enshrined in the partnership agreement and ensure continuity of the values and traditions developed at the firm over nearly 30 years. The firm should be interesting to young specialists.
The Managing Partner of our firm is elected by open voting of all our attorneys. My colleagues on the Board decided it would be appropriate to entrust this mission to me, considering my experience and years at the firm. The decision was supported by the firm’s personnel.
Tell us a few words about your professional engagement before appointment as the AGP Managing Partners
I found myself at the firm in 1994, still being a student, and took the traditional career path, moving up from intern to partner, where you are entrusted with most easy tasks at first and with more and more responsible and difficult ones eventually. As AGP lawyer, I underwent internship at one of the biggest US law firms in New York.
At one point, my field of expertise triggered my participation in projects related to various cross-border deals and international commercial arbitration, and later I headed such projects. In recent years I have headed our Corporate Law team.
I truly think that my work at AGP starting from the lowest position has given me unique experience, also in terms of diversity. Among clients who proved to be especially valuable for my professional development are Microsoft, IBM, Magnitogorsk Iron & Steel Works and a number of major international finance institutions. Among my memorable projects are three large-scale real estate development projects in Moscow, in particular in the Moscow International Business Center area. There has never been shortage of challenging professional tasks, and I am confident that my experience with managing the firm will be no less exciting.