“Is there law business in Belarus?” – this was the topic of the conference held by the Belarusian legal circles in 2006. At that time it was rather difficult to say with certainty that law business does exist in Belarus. The author of the article believes that in the last two years the situation has started to change for the better.

First of all we should know the size of the Belarusian legal services market, its main players and their prospects.
Who operates in this market?
Here are its players:
1) lawyers (according to the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus; for April 1, 2008, 1619 people possessed lawyer licenses);
2) legal experts (those of them who possess licenses for rendering legal services issued by the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus; for January 15, 2008, 124 legal units and 254 individual entrepreneurs were in possession of such licenses);
3) realtors (according to the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus for April 17, 2008, 119 companies possessed realtor licenses and gave legal advice in real estate matters);
4) Civil society organizations (those of them which provide legal assistance under special legislation provisions, for instance consumer rights protection organizations).
According to the information we have at our disposal in 2006 licensed legal experts officially earned 10 billion Belarusian rubles (about 5 million USA dollars) in the Belarusian market. If we take into consideration the activity of lawyers, realtors and organizations which render legal assistance we estimate we can multiply this figure by five, furthermore if we allow for the so-called “gray market” the market volume will increase yet by 30-40%. All in all the
volume of the legal services market becomes equal to approximately 35 million USA dollars. And this gives rise to serious thoughts about the development of law business in Belarus.
What factors affect the development of the legal services market in Belarus?
Firstly, without doubt, the determining factor is the level of the economy development. Lawyers are in demand when business thrives. Now we can witness the development of business connected with real estate, retail trade and software. Consequently lawyers get more work.
Secondly, the state influences the legal services market too, predominantly in the following areas:
- issuing licenses to law firms and individual entrepreneurs that render legal services;
- certifying of lawyers from the point of view of their professional expertise for the purpose of their independent work with clients;
- registration of legal services prices for local clients.
Thirdly, leading foreign companies are poorly represented in Belarus. Nevertheless, international law firms have started to set up their offices in our market and we suppose this process will go on. However in these circumstances foreign firms will have to hire local lawyers who have certificates issued by the Ministry of Justice, since only certified lawyers are authorized to render legal services in law firms. This is a significant peculiarity of the Belarusian market.
Foreign citizens including those permanently residing on the territory of Belarus are not entitled to receive such certificates.
On the one hand, the fact that foreigners enter our market can crucially influence the personnel policy of all the players in view of the fact that the best lawyers guided by carrier and economic considerations (the size of probable compensations) can be headhunted by large foreign firms. On the other hand, local companies that manage to keep their best employees will be able to enter a competition with foreign firms. As long as the latter will aim their activity at their own clients (representatives of large international business) their hour rates will be higher than those of the national law firms.
Those Belarusian firms which manage to get the projects of foreign as well as local clients will gain experience of affairs management in local environment far faster which will have positive influence on their development. Unlike them, foreign firms will be able to count on Belarusian clients only if their entering of the Belarusian market bases upon takeover of existing law firms.
Fourthly, local law firms have reviewed their role and see quite good prospects for their development. This is manifested, first of all, by the enlargement of the existing law firms. For instance, the companies “Stepanovski, Papakul and partners Ltd” and “Vlasova, Mikhel and partners” are the result of integration of successful lawyers in 2007 (each of them has now more than 20 employees which sounds quite convincing by Belarusian standards).
The local law firms have started to position themselves in the market in a different way and have engaged in active marketing, including brand promotion. Besides we are very interested in the perfection and automation of business processes (a number of Belarusian law firms including ours have acquired a business process automation program). Belarusian law firms have started to work actively at specialization in different fields of law, in particular legal accompaniment of investment processes and especially investment in real estate, Labour Law, etc.
Thus, it is obvious that local law firms have started to work at their business’ development. According to the Ministry of Justice of the Republic of Belarus the growth of Belarusian legal services market in 2007 has made up 50%. We hope that in 2008 market growth will make up 40-60%.