Just like the InvestCEE team, our clients and partners are also often reminded of the significant “innovation gap” between best intentions and actions taken by legal teams when it comes to transitioning to digital legal services. Digital transformation is a complex, often slow and difficult process, and requires long-term commitment from the stakeholders in an organization.
Petr Zátopek used to be the General Counsel to Skoda Auto DigiLab in the Czech Republic at the time when the CEE Legal Matters editorial team contacted him in connection with his collaboration with InvestCEE. In his position of legal leader, he communicated frequently with our team at InvestCEE in search for tech solutions for his in-house legal team. In a large organization, leaders of legal departments often deal with “incredibly complex” IT systems. Petr shared with CEE Legal Matters that while he had been working on the company contract database and automatic workflow and had managed to create a workflow process, they also desperately needed accompanying software. InvestCEE is best placed to not only help source the appropriate legal technology, but also to assist legal teams with implementation and training.
Over the last months, InvestCEE has also developed close ties with Kamila Kurkowska, the Managing Director of Firemind, a B2B marketing solutions company in Poland. In response to CEE Legal Matters inquiry, Kamila shared that while previously many law firms would be treating LegalTech as a “nice gadget”, following the pandemic lawyers have become more aware of the much needed change in the industry and are increasingly looking at LegalTech tools a “must have” to digital legal service delivery.
Marko Porobija, the Managing Partner and CEO of Croatia’s Porobija & Spoljaric law firm shared with CEE Legal Matters that while Croatia does not yet have a “proper legal tech consultancy market”, he was enthusiastic about the assistance he and his colleagues have received from InvestCEE. “They connected me with many relevant and upcoming LegalTech startups, some of which are surely going to be our providers in the near future” — he said in his interview about InvestCEE services.
According to Marius Kowalski, CEO of Waterwalk Partners based in Warsaw, Poland, “there are many LegalTech players, and we have a vibrant community, a dynamic market, but I don’t think I’ve seen an organization as strategically focussed on CEE region as a whole as InvestCEE.”
InvestCEE has been collaborating with Doru Epure, the Managing Partner of Bucharest-based ELA Legal Services for many years, jointly offering tech-assisted legal services to clients in Romania. Doru shared with CEE Legal Matters the following: “InvestCEE is my primary source of knowledge in the realm of smart law. Their guidance on the subject of document automation, on how to present innovative ideas to clients, and how to re-shape our visibility tools to reform our message to clients has been invaluable. We are currently transitioning to a phase of cooperation which entails common offers of managed legal services and other tech-reliant legal assistance solutions to existing and new clients in Romania.”
