Law Firms In Cyprus
Following article present some common facts about legal firms in cyprus, the challenges they are facing as well as their role in the global arena.
Basic Features of Cyprus Law firms
Lawyers in Cyprus sustain a vast entity of professionals of very high principles and values and have been structured into a professional body before Cyprus dependency at 1960. A large number of Cyprus lawyers maintain their own legal firm and others works as employees in the existing firms or offer their legal services at the state and other authorities.
The Cyprus Bar Association, issues lawyer’s yearly licenses and exercises the disciplinary control over them. Disciplinary regulations are of high standard so that all clients are protected and feel safe. Before lawyers are permitted to practice their profession, they are obliged to complete exams set by the Cyprus Bar Association and also fulfill one year of training at a law firm.
The major legislation which regulates the Legal Profession in Cyprus is the Advocates Law CAP 2, of 1955. The legislation provides regulations and guidelines for matters such as the admittance of new lawyers, various regulatory matters, and disciplinary provisions.
Lawyers have also an important role to play in politics and in the governmental authorities. There is a substantial number of lawyers’ that dedicate their professional career in research relevant to constitutional rights and other legal areas of practice. Legal advice is important in the parliament, in the different institutions and committees. A high number of politicians and Presidents of the Republic of Cyprus was and still are legal professionals.
Common facts
- There are approximately 4000 lawyers according to the Cyprus Bar Association
- Cyprus Lawyers are today more or less equally divided in number between men and women.
- Cyprus lawyers are graduates mostly of U.K and Greek Universities
- Due to the fact that they do not have to retire the most Cyprus lawyers offer their services up to the age of 80 or even more.
- The most legal professionals are multilingual and can assist clients in Greek, English, Russian, Arabic and lately in many other languages as well.
Lawyers across the island’s 4 major cities
Law firms are abundantly distributed across the island’s 4 major cities. In every city you will find firms specialized in all kind of legal fields such as employment law, business law immigration, real estate services, tax, shipping law along with several other areas of practice.
Although some are active in several fields of law; there are however other advocates that diversify and practice in just a few areas. In particular, Bankruptcy, Debt Collection and criminal law are fields where a certain number of firms are particularly active.
In addition to the different services provided they also fulfill on their promise of providing commitment, professionalism and industry know-how.
Challenges
A law firm in Cyprus have good possibilities to drive a solid firm in good but also in hard times.
Cyprus lawyers has faced various downturn times the latest decades, either it was the stock market crash, the haircut on deposits, the corruption in the golden passport scheme or the corona virus pandemic, lawyers has only proven that the Cyprus legal sector has a strong fundamental base and is able to manage any turbulence.
A Cyprus law firm is needed in a big range of cases either within or without a recession. Either it’s matter of establishing a business or interrupting a business, either it’s matter of opening a bank account and depositing money either it’s a matter of withdrawing money, legal professionals are unquestionably required.
Cyprus lawyers has also shown an elasticity to cope with a huge variety of legal fields, During the real estate boom, lawyers were up to date with property laws and highly educated in this field in order to assist with any property purchase, mortgage or sale. The procedures of ship registration have improved and lawyers’ contribution in this field has made Cyprus one of the top five ship management centers in the world. The facility to cope with divorce or other family matters has attracted numerous people to settle their family issues within Cyprus jurisdiction.
The beneficial Cyprus tax system has also drawn a high number of investors to incorporate their business within Cyprus and use Cyprus legal professionals.
Today one of the biggest challenges the legal profession is confronted with is the adoption to the new virtual reality created by the pandemic.
Cyprus lawyers in the international market
How well established are lawyers in Cyprus in the international market? How well exposed is a Cyprus law firm in the required audience? Are always the most qualified lawyers mostly promoted? Has promotion of Cyprus legal services to do with the size of a Cyprus law firm?
These are some questions that rose up after working with the Cyprus legal sector for 12 years. We have seen that the majority of firms that copes with corporate matters, tax law, business law, in despite of size seeks different methods to expose their qualifications and legal expertise.
The largest legal firms in Cyprus distributes evenly their budget among the different online directories, develop a well optimized website, invest time in their social media profiles and participates in several business conferences both in Cyprus and abroad.
Smaller Cyprus law firms advertise less but choose also online services to expose their legal services.
We can also see that small, medium size and large firms occupies Russian speaking personnel and have their website translated in to Russia. We can even see that Cyprus legal firms choose not to have their website in Greek. We interpret this that there is a wider interest to make business internationally than locally. Very often we also see that Cyprus law firms maintains offices in other countries
As Cyprus is a safe and attractive jurisdiction to make business and as Cyprus lawyers are well endorsed abroad we believe that they are well established in the international market.
However, we cannot answer if the most qualified firms are the most promoted as we do not know the level of services of the non-promoted legal firms. What we believe is that Cyprus law firms that do advertise abroad are confident in the value of services they offer.