Russia’s top law firms say they aren’t interested in merging with any of their international competitors. But they face some difficult decisions about their future, says Chris Johnson
It was a grim morning in November 2008 when Andrey Goltsblat (pictured above), managing partner of leading Russian law firm Pepeliaev Goltsblat & Partners (PGP), set out for one of the most difficult meetings of his 20-year career. Moscow was already deep in the grip of winter, the streets buried beneath inches of snow. But it wasn’t the weather that troubled Goltsblat as he arrived at the firm’s premises and headed to the office he shared with Sergey Pepeliaev, the firm’s senior partner. Goltsblat had a dramatic announcement to make: he was leaving the business they’d spent the last two decades building together. And he was taking half the firm with him.
