You used to be general counsel of Bulgaria's main telecom company, BTC. In your view, what is the current state of the in-house legal profession in Bulgaria?

When working in-house, it became clear to me there was a hierarchical distinction between lawyers in private practice and those who worked in-house in Bulgaria. Indeed, in-house counsel in Bulgaria have to withdraw their bar membership.

Bulgarian in-house counsel often have an important position to the owner and main shareholders of companies. However, they aren’t necessarily involved in the commercial process, such as taking part in their company’s business negotiations. They’re more involved in confirming that a document is valid, and whether a process has been followed.

Finally, in comparison with other countries in the region, there is very little external information available for in-house lawyers to help them make decisions.

You've recently created The Wolf Theiss Law Club, specifically for in-house lawyers. What does it do?

The Law Club has two main functions – social and development.

Members meet regularly for informal discussions and drinks. So far, we’ve had two events, and plan to hold them monthly. Any in-house lawyer can join – they don’t have to be a Wolf Theiss client. We will develop the events as seminars for in-house lawyers on both cross-border legal issues as well as management, such as basic accounting or discussions on the roles of other corporate departments.

Through our website - www.wolftheisslawclub.bg – and a monthly newsletter we hope to share knowledge on topics that are of interest to in-house lawyers. While out website is never going to be as comprehensive as that provided by legal publishing companies, we update it daily and it is mainly focused on practical corporate issues, such as approaches in M&A and projects.

Ultimately, we intend to roll out local language versions of the Law Club website in each of the countries that Wolf Theiss operates in. This is important - in the past couple of years, Bulgarian and other regional companies have expanded beyond their home markets. As a result, in-house lawyers are having to become familiar with the legal situation in other CEE countries, as well as that in their home state.

While there is an element of marketing in what we are doing – and the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive – the Law Club is not all about selling our firm. In Bulgaria, currently the head of legal may not decide which law firms to instruct – that is mainly a decision for the CEO or founder.

Bulgaria already has an in-house lawyers' association - how do you differentiate the Law Club from it?

Our emphasis is very much on providing practical information about the role of a General Counsel, including war stories - these are the experiences we’ve had, let’s share them.