Polish firm Traple Konarski Podrecki & Partners, headquartered in Krakow and with a further office in Warsaw, coordinates legal services for foreign clients through a permanent partnership with leading law firms in central and eastern Europe through its CEE Legal Hub. The 80-strong practice celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2019 and has an impressive track record in international work across its own jurisdiction, North America and Asia.
Now, it has set its sights on further international expansion closer to home, with European markets Germany, UK and France identified as primary targets, and Eurojuris as the route to achieve that. As patent attorney and TKP partner Dr Anna Sokołowska-Ławniczak explained: “We are always looking for cooperation and contacts internationally, as it is essential to the work we do. While we have been successfully advising firms in German-speaking markets for several years, assisting partner law firms in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland, now we have ambitions to grow our European connections significantly.”
Eurojuris president Olivier Vibert commented: “There are benefits for all of us through expansion of the network, driving new opportunities to work together and to learn and share. Together with our existing members in the country, this is a highly-regarded firm and strengthens the Eurojuris presence in central and eastern European countries.
“We have a fast-growing hub of members covering Poland, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Romania; potentially paving the way towards a formalised national or regional grouping in future.”
TKP’s client base includes international heavyweights Google and fast-food chain McDonald’s. From its early days as a boutique firm focused on tech and competition law it is now recognised as a well-established and leading corporate law practice, named in international rankings such as Chambers Europe and Legal 500 EMEA.
Added senior partner and TKP co-founder Xawery Konarski: “Poland is renowned world-wide for service centres and has a vibrant economy. We are keen to share our skills with our new colleagues in Eurojuris, for companies entering the Polish market, from business start-up through greenfield and investment projects to tax work.
“We’re planning to attend Congress in Paris and also looking for other ways to highlight the legal environment and business opportunities in Poland.”
Xawery heads the firm’s technologies, media & telecommunications practice, and leads the firm’s CEE legal hub operating across 19 jurisdictions, which was designed to handle legal and regulatory issues in a unified approach, for clients such as Google. Xawery also teaches post-graduate courses the field of new technologies and personal data protection law and has contributed to legislative work in the field of new technologies.
He explained: “The CEE hub enables us to provide clients with added value through standardised legal services, and is especially useful for companies wanting to simultaneously verify legal status in different jurisdictions.”
Making the decision to join Eurojuris was based on referrals from Polish colleagues and international contacts, together with research to find a network that would be a synergistic fit.
“Based on this, we decided that Eurojuris was going to be the right place for us to achieve our ambition of growth across Europe,” added Anna. “We have achieved a lot in the domestic market during the first 20 years, but now are ready to secure greater recognition abroad, in the international market.”
TKP joins existing member firms in Poland: Affre & Wspólnicy, Budzowska Fiutowski & Partners and Kozlowski. Others in the region include Holubova Advokati and Zvolsky Advokati in the Czech Republic, Trelea Si Asociații in Romania, Jančo A Partneri in Slovakia, and Szecskay in Hungary.
