Interview with: Vassilios Vizas, Partner, Leader of Tax & Legal Services

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:

1. Banking & Finance: whilst this market has been dominated in the last few years by large transaction of NPE disposals by banks, we expect that transactions (even if on a secondary market basis) will continue to develop in the near future, but also the stabilization of the Greek banking system and the materialization of significant investments (taking also advantage from the momentum of the EU Next Gen stimulus package) will also increase work in more traditional areas of banking that were less active in the last few years, e.g. project finance etc. At the same time the new market segment of NPE services will continue to evolve its business model thus in constant need of novel legal support both to address regulatory requirements but also assist in developing new types of cooperations and products (latter also applying to the traditional banking sector).
2. Public procurement: the deployment of the EU Next Gen funds and the continued aim for transformation of the Greek public sector do create the need for large scale support for a sector that has been stagnant for many years during the Greek financial crisis
3. Real estate: real estate work will follow the recent boom in the market for Greece, both regarding more traditional commercial properties but also the secondary home sector.
4. Regulatory & governance: the increased level of regulatory requirements in a wide array of sectors, combined with the increased activity in Greek capital markets and the creation of larger economic units does give rise to increasing needs for support in navigating the regulatory landscape and creating compliant but also efficient policies and procedures to ensure compliance whilst addressing bureaucracy.
5. Labour law & immigration: Although in theory a mature subject, this is an area where we see potential for growth underpinned both by the overall growth and job creation in the Greek economy, but also the new challenges and complexities that arise in light of the ever involving employment landscape.

 

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.