Dentons‘ Prague office exports more and more work across the global network. Czech clients need an English law expert at their side as they expand their businesses into new and often challenging juris
- Nikola Macková
- Oct 2
- 5 min read
There is an increasing number of entrepreneurs and investors in the Czech Republic who are looking for foreign expansion. For this they need first-rate legal advice, more often than not covering English law as well as local law. That will be the focus of Logan Wright, an English-law qualified partner at Dentons, with almost 30 years advising clients on debt finance and restructuring. The main guest of the pilot episode of the new Global Minds podcast series, which features prominent foreign personalities speaking on business in the Czech Republic, was accompanied to the studio by Jiří Tomola, a partner in Dentons' Prague office who specialises in restructuring, insolvency and bankruptcy and is one of two leading partners for banking and finance.
You can also listen to the full interview at THIS link.
For the opening episode of the new series, it would be hard to find more suitable respondents than a representative of the largest law firm in the world. New Zealander Logan Wright, together with American Rob Irving, is a new addition to Dentons' Prague office this year with a clear mission - to make the office a Central European hub for UK and US law.
Although Wright's CV is not short of stints, he is not used to moving quickly across continents. He left his native New Zealand in 2000 to spend 15 years in Moscow in the local office of the law firm Clifford Chance. He then relocated to London, where he joined Dentons in 2018. Over this period the geographic reach of his practice has expanded beyond Europe and the CIS to include markets in regions such as Africa and the Middle East – wherever his clients need him to be.
Winning formula
He says his new Central European assignment, while challenging, is made easier by not having to build anything from scratch. „Actually this is a challenge where we´re building on an incredibly strong existing platform. The Prague office itself is a leading law firm in the Czech market. It has a very strong finance as well as corporate practice. We also have a very strong regional practice generally, including having English law resources in some of our other offices in the region,“ he says.
He sees his task as working with others in the office to také the whole platform to an even higher level. „Together with someone like Rob Irving on the corporate side and with people like Jiří Tomola and others already on the ground here in Prague,“ Wright believes they have „a winning formula“.
Jiří Tomola continues with what is specific to the work of law firms in Prague. „If you look at it from the business perspective, Prague is a hub for CEE. There is a lot of financial groups, family offices and all those clients are also industrial clients who go abroad. Our strategy is to follow them and help them to grow. Part of the strategy is also to bring in foreign law experts like Logan and Rob Irving and have them as close as possible to the client,“ says Tomola.
According to Tomola, the arrival of the two Anglo-Saxon law experts to Central Europe is a blessing for both Dentons' Prague office and its clients. „Of course not all the transactions are governed by Czech law, most of the international ones are English law governed and certainly all these Czech clients like and love to be backed by their advisors,“ Tomola added.
Czech sponsors expand
From Wright's point of view, the move to Prague also involves a certain amount of vetting. In order to provide legal services in the Czech Republic, he must pass the Czech bar exam. "I will have to pass the exam in November. Until then, I have to manage my transition while helping the team here in supporting clients. So trying to study for that on top of the day job will be a challenge. But actually I'm looking forward to learning a bit more about Czech law. This is not the first time I‘ve worked abroad as a lawyer and in my experience, having a working knowledge of the local law is critical to being able to deliver to clients and to practise English law in that environment. So although I won't become an expert in Czech finance law, having an understanding of the legal system itself I think is going to be really useful,“ he explains.
Wright can assess the development that Central and Eastern Europe has undergone in the last quarter of a century. The changes in the Prague market, he says, are similar to what happened in Moscow after 2000. „There was a local market growing, but it generated deals across borders into other regions, such as CIS (Commonwealth of Independent States), Africa, Southeast Asia, Middle East. And I see Czech sponsors and companies moving into those regions, buying in those regions. It should be my role to bring that broader international experience into what I´m doing here,“ Wright compares.
Jiří Tomola, to the delight of the Prague office of Dentons and its entire network, also records similar developments. „The Prague office of Dentons is one of the biggest work exporters, if you compare the size of the market. And it´s not only about the clients going abroad. There are also financial institutions active in the region and in Czechia particularly, who support exporters, including those who export in Africa or Papua New Guinea. Such examples are increasing, that´s why we are happy to have Logan here because he has a vast experience in all those markets that local clients have interest in,“ says Jiří Tomola, adding that the ability to provide clients with a „dual offering“ of expertise in Czech and English law is the biggest opportunity currently facing Dentons' Prague office.
Wright follows up with a concrete example that illustrates well what is at stake. „We recently did a refinancing for a UK business that was acquired by a Czech sponsor and that was funded by Czech banks. So there's a very strong Czech element to that. But it was a UK company in a very specialized sector and I did that together with a UK projects partner who was a specialist in that sector. So as a firm we were able to deliver both from the Czech side, working with one of the Czech banking partners in terms of ensuring we met the needs of the sponsors and the banks, but also make sure that we were producing a product that met the needs of the company and was tailored to the needs of that sector. And that's where Dentons I think really can deliver,“ Wright says.
How long did Logan Wright think about the offer to accept a position in Prague? How do the two podcast guests envision the success of Wright's mission in Prague? And what do they think will happen in the Czech and global economy in the coming months? This was also discussed on the Global Minds podcast.
