Bostina: Clients no longer willing to pay lawyers “by the hour”

Lawyer Doru Bostina, founder of Bostina si Asociatii law firm,
a major player on the legal services market, says firms are using
the crisis as an “excuse” to ask for lower fees. And most of the
times they’ve benefited from such fees. “Romania is not a market
where lawyers’ fees are comparable with Anglo-Saxon ones, of
300-500 euros per partner. This is not the case, with only 2, 3
clients able to pay these sums. Clients are so different that
during this period such an approach as ‘this is my rate’ is this’
has no relevance. Clients no longer ask for fees by the hour, but
directly say: ‘This is my budget. Can you work with it or not?’,”
says Doru Bostina, who considers such an approach compels lawyers
to be more efficient. Bostina posted a lower than 5% drop of
revenues for the Bucharest office, to 10.6m euros, but says that
overall, the firm’s revenues amounted to 17m euros including
offices in Romania and abroad. One of the firm’s major moves this
year is relocation to new offices that entailed investments of 5m
euros. “For 2010, we are moderately optimistic, planning to cement
our position on the market and open two territorial offices, in
Bacau and in another city (…),” Bostina says.