Russia has become somewhat of a Big Law wasteland in recent years.
The country spent much of the late 1990s and early 2000s as one of the world’s hottest legal markets, with international firms investing heavily in Moscow—and to a lesser extent, St. Petersburg—in order to feast on the glut of big-ticket IPO and M&A deals. But Russia’s economy—and its legal market—have been severely affected by a combination of crippling economic sanctions and the continued slump in global oil prices. Most top U.S. and U.K. firms have radically scaled back in the country by relocating partners to other offices and implementing local hiring freezes and layoffs.
