The FINANCIAL — “The motto of Kordzadze Law Office is Professionals Oriented at the Best Results,” declared Zviad Kordzadze, the Managing Partner of Kordzadze Law Office, one of the leading legal service providers in Georgia.
“Our motto shows that the main value of our office is professionalism and the interests of the client. The firm has faithfully followed three main principles to achieve success: to keep oriented at the interests of its clients; to protect and achieve the clients’ interests by every mean permitted by law and by strictly following the ethical norms; to provide the clients with quilified services. During its long history of activity on the market Kordzadze Law Office has gained the reputation of a reliable, ethical and highly professional law firm. I’ve been in this business for almost 19 years and I have never broken these principles on the path to building my career,” he added.
The firm practices all the fields of law and offers a wide choice of qualified legal services in each field of law, including: civil, corporate law and business transactions, insurance, labour, tax, customs, intellectual, bankruptcy, administrative, criminal, constitutional, international public and international private laws. The legal service includes: legal verbal and written consultations; drawing up the documents necessary for clients’ activities; preparation of legal opinions and recommendations; litigation; representation of a client in arbitration, administrative bodies and in relations with third parties. The legal services may be conducted in Georgian, Russian, English and German languages. Through the partners with which Kordzadze Law Office has a long history of cooperation, the firm provides its clients with notarial, translation, execution, auditorial and arbitration services.
Kordzaze Law Office has dozens of corporate clients, mostly legal entities, which constantly require their legal assistance at court, verbal or written consultations, or the preparation of documentation.
“We have a long history of working with them. As well as these clients we often serve physical persons or other legal entities that need our assistance on occasion. Therefore, we can’t indicate the exact number of clients we serve. But their number is constantly increasing as we provide a wide spectrum of legal services including: civil, corporate law and business transactions, insurance, labour, tax, customs, intellectual, bankruptcy, administrative, criminal, constitutional, international public and international private laws,” said Kordzadze.
Kordzadze Law Office has a tradition of providing a practice course for students from Georgian universities at its office. Kordzadze Law Office has a law clinic programme with Tbilisi State University and Ilia State University to provide a practice course for students at its office. The students are chosen through a special competition. This course is aimed at giving the chance to young people who are wanting to become lawyers to improve their skills through a practice course at our law office over a period of three months.
Due to its success Kordzadze Law Office was the first legal office to be awarded by Golden Brand. Winning this award for the 7th time has been an additional acknowledgement of their success for them. It was awarded by “Sakhelebi 2007” as the “Best Lawyers Office of the Year”. Under the research conducted by Chambers & Partners, publishing the leading guides to the legal profession and conducting the annual researches for the identification of the world’s best law firms, Kordzadze Law Office has been ranked in dispute resolution and referred to as “highly respected within the legal community and has a tradition of excellence when it comes to local disputes… Sources say: “The firm distinguishes itself by high expertise and brilliant legal skills.” Kordzadze Law Office is the possessor of a quality mark. It was awarded by Profile in the nomination “Reputation and Trust”.
“During my career I have personally received many awards, such as Best Lawyer, Best Lawyer of the Year etc. Kordzadze Law Office has received many awards as well. This has been the 7th Golden Brand win for us, though it has never been my aim to work just to win awards. Of course it’s a pleasure when somebody appreciates your work. Especially Golden Brand, the most prestigious award in Georgia; it means a lot to me. However, our business has one singularity; we never have any advertisements or billboards telling people about us. Our only acknowledgment and promotion is a satisfied client, which then brings another one. For that reason Golden Brand, which is appreciation from professional experts, is always interesting and important for our productiveness,” noted Kordzadze.
Q. How many disputes did you assist in solving last year? How many of them were successfully concluded?
A. I would say that it’s hard to count the number of assisted disputes as well as the number of clients served by us. Disputes can be different. Sometimes a client needs representation at court, arbitration or recommendation and legal opinions on some issues. Most of our cases are concluded successfully.
We hope that with the help of an accomplished court system we will improve the level of the legal environment in the country. There is no doubt that it’s hard to reach such success if the environment where you work isn’t cooperative. The qualification of an attorney is not sufficient to achieve the adoption of a right court decision if you aren’t listened to by professionals. However, according to the statistics the number of right court decisions has increased in recent times.
Q. Your clients have included large companies like Coca-Cola, TBC Bank, GIEC and more, how did you manage to succeed in particular out of so many lawyers from the beginning?
A. Well, we have been cooperating with Coca-Cola for more than 15 years. Most of the big companies have been our clients for a long time. The reason they trust us is that they are satisfied with our service. These companies have the same meaning as Golden Brand for us. Long time partnership with these companies is equal to advertisement for law offices. Kordzadze Law Office keeps its clients for years due to the full and professional service package it provides. If we make a mistake one time then our clients will go to others the next time.
Q. You mentioned Pro Bono service. Could you explain in more detail what facilities this service entails and how it is different from other services?
A. This is a service that is absolutely free of charge. We try, according to our capacity, to provide legal assistance for companies with low incomes. Kordzadze Law Office has a strong commitment to Pro Bono activities. We provide legal assistance to “Marjanishvili State Drama Theatre” and Tbilisi International Theatre Festival. We are also carrying out a project with Open Society Georgia Foundation. This project involves the legal assistance of people who are in a hospice and need the preparation of documentation or wish to draw up a will. In addition, our company provides legal assistance to the Dimitri Tsintsadze Foundation which implements various charitable activities for children with leukaemia. As with all law companies our resources aren’t inexhaustible, but we try our best to use our energy and time for charity.
Q. The Georgian market is rather overloaded with law offices, whose number is permanently increasing. Who are the company’s rivals at the moment and how do you manage to keep working successfully alongside them?
A. I can’t name my concrete rivals, because we are all competitors of each other’s on the legal market. It has never been my aim to compete with somebody specifically though. The recipe for success in this system is simple; if you are a professional and act legally you always have clients. Neither I, nor any of my colleagues, have ever led black PR. As always we try our best according to our professionalism to supply the highest quality service. This could be understood as a form of pure competition. In 2014 Kordzadze Law Office together with the other 21 leading law firms in Georgia founded the non-commercial legal entity “Association of Law Firms of Georgia” (ALFG). I was elected as its board member and its chairman. The Association aims to protect the corporate rights and interests of the law firms, promote, develop and protect lawyers’ rights and interests, develop and protect professional ethical standards, develop the profession and education of lawyers, strengthen the role of the lawyer as an active member of the judicial system and increase the quality of legal service and the qualifications of the lawyers in the country.
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