Interview with: Roman Bradu, Managing Partner, Bradu Neagu & Associates

What do you see as the main points that differentiate Bradu Neagu & Associates from your competitors?

Our absolute and unconditional 24/7 availability to our clients proves the full-hearted involvement and dedication put forward by our team. This kind of reliability means a lot to our clients and is one of our firm’s differentiators.

We became most specialized in criminal law and especially white-collar crime litigation. Investing most of our resources in the aforementioned sector gives us a mastery advantage over the niche. It is in this focus that a great strength of ours lies. This does not mean, however, that our clients miss anything. Our insights extend to such areas of practice as civil law, commercial law and arbitrage and we also work closely with great names in other corporate matters, M&A, real estate law, competition, antitrust and many more. It is this complementarity we offer that represents another factor of differentiation.

At this point, I should mention that our services, whenever requested, come in a tailored manner to and with each client’s participation. The degree of customization available to the respective client is a feature that builds trust and ensures incredible results in the long-term relations we always aimed to create.

We can add the greatest attention to detail and the most professional handling of each and every file and case to the list. Our work philosophy and ethic drew towards our services some of the best-valued companies worldwide.

Together, all of these traits develop a most valuable blend that makes us truly distinguishable.

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

Perhaps it could be considered presumptive trying to predict the evolution of the global needs as the law is both strongly related to and quite similar in many aspects with the economic environment, which is unpredictable par excellence.

Speaking of drivers, the world in its whole self, including law and economics, was visibly shaken by unforeseen or too little-foreseen events regarding the endangerment of our health on a global scale. We are concerned yet confident and believe that solutions are being created for the best possible outcome.

Such events affected our world in a time of immense cognitive and economic growth, when many global market sectors could already be considered volatile, only raising the amplitude of many uncertainties. Some of the large-scale activities, however, had their role significantly emphasized and strengthened. Energy, oil and gas and industries that provide for all human needs, such as agriculture, medical and pharmaceutical, have grown in demand and supply. Some of them particularly had to come up with great amounts of ingenuity and effort to reaffirm their global market presence.

Of course, these industries create the demand themselves, across many areas, including law. Considering their activity is reaching almost every country in the world, they need to consider the legislative aspects of the respective states they enter.

This gives us solid reason to believe our strong suit, criminal law, is on the shortlist of these needs and will continue to be and to grow in the following year and afterwards, alongside civil and commercial law, competition and antitrust, labor and many others, which we are also well within preparation with and ready to handle. As a firm and as a team, with the power of our already built relations strengthening us.

Last but not least, given the need to implement the Whistleblower Directive (EU) 2019/1937 which will constitute a novelty factor for 2022, the Romanian companies, especially private ones, with a minimum of 50 employees, will have to implement internal channels of reporting and management of notifications as well as means of protection for whistleblowers.

Ensuring a balanced and effective level of protection for whistleblowers through the prism of internal legislation will represent a growing need of the Romanian private companies and not only. In addition to the protection offered to the whistleblowers, organizational frameworks are compulsory for a well-managed reporting activity so that no potential employee or collaborator should be afraid to report illegal or fraudulent activity.

As the rules on whistleblowers are covered by a European Directive, the protection of whistleblowers from one EU member state to another, is unfortunately fragmented. To overcome this fragmentation, common minimum standards are needed to ensure that potential whistleblowers are effectively protected against any form of retribution. For the proper application and implementation of the whistleblower directive, the role of a dedicated team of lawyers is essential in guiding and advising companies that are required to comply with the requirements of the European Union Law.

What’s the main change you’ve made in the firm that will benefit clients?

Our firm’s main change that is already beneficial for our clients is the collaboration with economics and tax professionals. We have also developed strong collaborations with engineers specializing in the natural gas industry.

Securing their involvement and bringing their exquisite expertise to the table assures our clients, once again, that Bradu Neagu & Associates is in excellent capability of connecting to an increasingly rich spectrum of services, in addition to our continually improving criminal, commercial and civil law focus.

Time has proved to us that additions like this are much welcome. Consequently, we are already working towards an alliance with a prodigious multinational law firm, opening up a vast array of possibilities for our clients.

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

Most definitely so.

Technology is, has been and will be further changing the way law services are provided to clients, from now old discoveries that were once considered novelty – the mobile phone, the fax, etc. – to what is nowadays state-of-the art communication.

Although personal and direct face-to-face discussion and debating can hardly be replaced, there is no doubt that tools for instant video conferencing have made reaching our international clients faster than ever before. Communicating through emails and internet-based calls facilitates almost instantaneous response to any category of urgency, and allows us, as a law firm, to be closest to our clients whenever most imperative needs pressures.

An even stronger point can be made of the fact that it is not always the case to be reactive. Many times, it is rather the moment to proactively offer prompt prevention advisory, to which timely gathering of information, its subsequent analysis, interpretation and dissemination to our clients is of utmost importance.

Needless to say, the internet and internet-related technologies orbiting it are the perfect infrastructure to accomplish such a goal. One deeply related aspect that is always taken into consideration, is that of online security, the trust all involved parts have in the algorithms and programs that encrypt restricted conversations and that ensures what in a law office is essential and should always be mandatory – complete and absolute privacy.

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

I believe that top-quality legal services provided at the right moment and place are bound to always positively impact any client and their business, always adding value. Every criminal case won is a liability taken down, every fine avoided – one more investment opportunity, every wrong decision not being made, owing to preventional advice that had just been received – another year or more not consumed in a court of justice, not hindered but on the contrary, allowed to be as much productive as one can be.

All winning work that we have done is but approximately quantifiable in terms of return of value, but the latter is always on the positive side for the client, be it in terms of monetary value added, assets not lost, or in the very image of the corporation or the individual acquitted being rectified.

To name a more differentiating type of practical situation in which a client gains value for their businesses, there is a service contract we offer that is based upon punctual assistance. This means the client is not required to spend on legal services that never need be fulfilled, but only on those occasions when they make a specific request.

This is in great favor of the capital pool of any enterprise or individual and is a service some of our clients have already chosen and are most pleased with.

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

Stability and strategic direction provided by the law firm are foundational building blocks of all the long-term collaborations we desire to create with our clients. Trust in our ability to anticipate and to cancel adversity before they emerge is key. My partners, associates and I are doing everything within our power to keep this up to upright standards, gathering all pieces of information that can possibly matter, analyzing, structuring and restructuring them with all our experience united until the resolution is at hand.

With time I want Bradu Neagu & Associates to offer clients consultancy abroad and legal assistance in countries other than Romania, especially on the corporate flank, to provide them with an even wider array of options and to cover in detail other fields of activity, such as fiscal.

Another investment towards a better future of the firm and what it can provide to its clients is the one in people. We are committed to harmonious growth of the legal society and of our firm as well and intend to gather around us and into our ranks more and more young and talented lawyers. This will not only give Bradu Neagu & Associates the ability to honor more requests, but will also, and more importantly, create a growing, welcoming and better prepared legal context for companies from all around the globe.

Overall, I do not think it is a matter of where I see the firm in three years’ time, but rather how. And the answer to that is clear to me: stronger, taller, deeper-rooted and with an even more profound insight into the national and global legal world.