Martindale-Hubbell's survey found that Russian in-house counsel seem to have a preference for fixed price billing - with 64 per cent of respondents saying this was their favoured option. Why do you think this is the case?

In the last few months, clients have placed a particular focus on price, when purchasing legal services. They tell us they are under pressure to manage their legal budgets, which have become extremely restricted.

Until recently, our firm tended to charge on an hourly-rate basis, but the market has changed dramatically in the past few months. The challenges for law firms in Russia in relation to fixed fees are that relatively little work can be standardised. For that reason, fixed price quotes often come with many caveats.

The pressure on costs probably also explains why alternative billing practices, such as value-based billing, are not popular in Russia. There’s a feeling that such practices are too complicated and too uncertain – clients just want to know the price for the job.

The survey discussed why clients choose either local or international law firms, but the mood of the Moscow meeting was there was now little difference between the two. In light of this face, how does a firm such as CMS position itself to potential clients?

We promote CMS as an international law firm, which can provide the expertise of an international practice - but which also has a significant local capability. We now employ more than 100 lawyers in Moscow.

The feedback we received from the Moscow meetings is that clients now simply instruct law firms who can do the job, irrespective of their nationality. For example, international firms tend to be more appropriate when clients need assistance with their outbound investment strategies. But some local firms are now staffed by lawyers who previously worked for international firms. So the distinction between the two types of firm has become less important than before.

When selecting external law firms, Russian clients appeared to place a slight premium on the firm's brand, compared with respondents in other CEE countries. Clients also cited the ability of firms to deliver their advice on time as one of their key considerations.

What is your response to these findings?

It’s true that clients increasingly put a premium on law firm brands. There are now some very sophisticated purchasers of legal services in Russia – they’ve read the legal directories and understand the concept of law firm rankings.

It’s also understandable why clients think it’s so important for law firms to deliver their advice on time. During the boom years, many law firms didn’t – because the market was so active. This caused frustration for in-house lawyers, who were also under pressure to deliver legal advice on time, internally. Corporate counsel need time to review legal advice provided by law firms before presenting it to their own managers.

In terms of retaining their external counsel, clients appear to place a premium on law firms who know their business and understand their industry. How does your firm achieve that objective?

All CMS firms in Europe have a common “industry sector” based structure. We think this approach is important - but we don’t see many other firms in Moscow following our lead.

When it comes to removing external law firms, clients in the Central and Eastern European region seem to be particularly concerned with ethical issues, such as law firms' perceived lack of confidentiality or conflicts of interests.

By contrast, Russian clients seem much less bothered about such concerns. Why do you think that is?

In relation to conflicts of interest, it might not be so much of a problem in Russia, compared with other CEE countries – there are a lot of firms in Moscow. Also, some larger companies now do a lot of their legal work in-house, and do not appoint external law firms.

In general, I think the main reason that many clients stop instructing law firms is due to cost – today, Russian clients tend to be very price sensitive.

Our survey found that many in-house lawyers would be happy to take part in a client satisfaction surveys - but had not been asked to do so by their law firm. Can you explain this discrepancy?

Our firm has run client satisfaction programmes in the past, and currently has four in progress. Perhaps one of the reasons that such programmes have not become commonplace in Russia is that many lawyers have been so busy that they haven’t had the time. That may sound like a bad excuse, but that was the reality of working in a boom market.

Another possible reason is that, until recently, clients wouldn’t have dreamt of giving their law firms feedback - many international companies did not have a separate legal department in Russia, so did not have the organisation or resources to do so.

That’s now changing, as Russian in-house legal lawyers are becoming more experienced, and their departments are gaining credibility. The quality of in-house lawyers in Russia has improved dramatically in the past 10 years.