How we advised seven attorneys
Lukáš Slanina,
founder of Arrows advokátní kancelář
kancelář
I had met Honza at previous get-togethers at various professional legal forums, but we only got to know each other properly on occasion of the Komora 2.0 project. In the context of that project, I suggested to Honza that he should run for board membership at the Czech Bar Association. By coincidence, Honza had just gone private and begun to practice law as an independent attorney-at-law. Once we, the partners of Arrows law firm, had agreed on heads of terms based upon which ETL Global would enter Arrows as a strategic investor, we retained Honza and Václav so that they could bring the deal to a close. For one thing, we felt we shouldn’t act as our own legal counsel, but we also wanted the support of someone with years of experience with this kind of transaction, someone renowned, someone ranked by the internationally recognized benchmarks of Chambers or Legal500. Last but not least, the sensitivity and confidentiality of the matter called for someone who wasn’t a direct competitor of ours.
Honza a Václav
Having seven attorneys – partners at a sizable Czech law firm, for that matter – as clients was certainly an interesting experience. Along the same lines, it was interesting that this transaction earned us trailblazer status – as far as we know, this was the first time a strategic foreign investor entered a purely Czech-run law firm, in a transaction that involved the creation of a joint venture between the foreign investor and the current partners. The transaction also allowed us to prove our mettle – we found we had what it takes to be an equal partner for representatives of even the largest and most successful consulting groups, such as ETL Global.