1) What do you see as the main points that differentiate PwC Legal from your competitors?

As a Big 4 legal arm we are by definition not a traditional law firm. Hence, a key differentiator is the blending of legal expertise with other capabilities of the PwC network provided as one seamless service to address the increasingly complex challenges of our clients. However, this is not all; our continuing ambition is to combine this aspect with the traditional value of excellence in transactional experience, such that the market will see us both as a standalone law firm with its own excellent credentials but also as part of the PwC network. To achieve this we have grown our team also through experienced hires of the highest caliber from some of the top traditional Greek law firms.

2) Which practices do you see growing in the next 12 months? What are the drivers behind that?

The main practices that we see growing in the next 12 months are the following:

3) What's the main change you've made in the firm that will benefit clients?

As part of a global arrangement, PwC Legal has an exclusive cooperation arrangement with Harvey, a legal game-changing generative AI platform built on OpenAI’s GPT-4, especially for lawyers. It uses natural language processing, machine learning and data analytics to automate and enhance various aspects of legal work. PwC is the only one of the Big 4 licensed to use Harvey, a tool that is aimed to revolutionize the way that legal services are provided in the age of AI. At PwC Greece Legal we are at this stage in testing mode and soon expect to be deploying solutions to our clients faster and at scale, beyond human capabilities.

4) Is technology changing the way you interact with your clients, and the services you can provide them?

Technology is a huge opportunity but also disruption risk for legal services. Today we as a legal sector are still at a phase where we evaluate the huge potential, but have not yet really unlocked this potential and really transformed our business. Hence and while we may be using some tools internally to achieve efficiency, there is still a lot to be done in changing our interaction with clients in a way that will be really impactful.

5) Can you give us a practical example of how you have helped a client to add value to their business?

Adding value to our clients is an ambition underpinning any project or initiative we take, and it is difficult to single out one example without being “unfair” to other cases. But we can mention here as example our assistance to a major corporate client in a process that involved the entering into energy virtual PPAs with producers, following a tendering process, where our work extended from drafting the initial template Heads of Terms to facilitate the tendering process to signing and closing full blown PPA agreements with producers. Given that virtual energy PPA are still a nascent practice in Greece our value added to the client included not only the assistance in preparing HoT and Agreements from scratch, but standing side by side their commercial team and discussing all aspects of risks, challenges and strategies that would need to be taken into account, including negotiation with their counterparty, in order to come to the conclusion of final binding contracts.

6) Are clients looking for stability and strategic direction from their law firms - where do you see the firm in three years’ time?

As mentioned above we expect to see significant transformation in the way that law firms provide their services and add value to their clients. Whilst traditional values such as thought leadership and the provision of solid advice that is tailored to the clients’ specific challenges will persist, law firms will need to develop technology-backed solutions that increase internally efficiency of the legal departments of their clients whilst also advising and supporting on transformation that will elevate further the value that such legal departments provide to their own organization and its own transformation. In this respect we expect that in 3 years’ time lawyers will be working hand in hand with technology experts; in parallel, we may be taking up more work currently handled internally by clients in solutions that will increasingly combine legal with other skills. Finally, as we have witnessed this year through two interactive full day workshops we organized for our clients (“SPA under the Microscope” and “Unravelling Labor and GPDR”, the above will not change the need for combining the importance of thought leadership with close personal relationships.