3 million euros for highest paid lawyer last year

The highest paid lawyer in Romania works in Bucharest and officially made 12.27 million RON (about 3 million euros) last year, that is 250,000 euros per month, reveal data supplied to ZF by the National Fiscal Administration Agency.
The ranking of the ten highest incomes made by independent professionals in 2009 is dominated by lawyers, with nine out of ten positions.
The total value of the incomes made by the people in the top ten throughout the country amounts to 76.9 million RON (18 million euros) down by about 10% compared with 2008.
Despite the collapse of the economy and of the private businesses, the need for legal services was comparable to 2008.
Lawyers made money last year, too, despite the fact that their traditional markets such as mergers and acquisitions, real estate and bank loans collapsed, as did the business of retail and construction companies.
The ten biggest law firms on the local market collected 87.6 million euros in revenues last year, down by merely 1% compared with the previous year, which makes this market one of the least affected by the recession of 2009.
Lawyers’ incomes do not appear to be very transparent at first. Lawyers file annual tax returns with the fiscal authorities, but not with the Trade Registry, considering they have their own professional organisation, the National Union of Bar Councils in Romania, a lawyer explained.