While magic circle firms might not find their natural home in southeast Europe, Austria’s legal elite have for many years been advising Austrian investors in the region. In the 1990s, Germany was focused on investing in its own underdeveloped east after reunification, but Vienna’s lawyers were travelling east to the Black Sea and the Balkans. Characterising southeast Europe as Austria’s backyard may be something of a platitude, but it rings true in many cases.
Wolf Theiss has been at the forefront of this strategy, with the number of lawyers in its branch offices this year outstripping the numbers in the firm’s Vienna HQ for the first time.
