Kostandyan & Partners Law Firm

21/02/2024

Հարգելի ընկերներ,
Այսօր ցանկանում եմ ձեզ հետ կիսվել մեր պատմությամբ՝ մեր գրասենյակի կազմավորման և զարգացման պատմությամբ։
Մեր ճանապարհորդությունը սկսվեց ոչ միայն որպես բիզնեսի ստարտափ, այլ որպես ցանկություն հիմնելու իսկապես մի բովանդակային, օգտակար և տարբերվող այլ իրավաբանական ընկերություններից մի ընկերություն:
Յուրաքանչյուր հաճախորդի հետ, յուրաքանչյուր գործի հետ մենք սովորում ենք, աճում և կատարելագործվում ենք: Մենք հպարտ ենք, որ կարողացել ենք վստահելի հարաբերություններ հաստատել մեր հաճախորդների հետ և դառնալ վստահելի գործընկերներ նրանց համար իրավական խնդիրների լուծման գործում:
Այսօր մենք շարունակում ենք զարգանալ՝ տիրապետելով իրավունքի նոր ոլորտներին, ինչպիսիք են միջազգային շուկայում գործարքները, արտասահմանում անշարժ գույքի առք ու վաճառքը, ներդնում ենք աշխատանքի նոր մեթոդներ՝ ժամանակակից աշխարհում մեր հաճախորդներին լավագույն ծառայություններ մատուցելու և նրանց շահերը առավելագույնս պաշտպանելու համար։
Ներկայումս, ի լրումն Հայաստանում գրեթե ամբողջական ծառայությունների փաթեթի, մենք տրամադրում ենք նաև իրավաբանական ծառայությունների ամբողջական փաթեթ Կիպրոսում, ինչպես նաև մատուցում ենք անշարժ գույքի հետ կապված բրոքերային ծառայություններ Ֆրանսիայում:

History and values of our firm
How we started and what where we are today

Dear friends,
Today we would like to share with you our story - the history of the formation and development of our law firm. Our journey began not just as a business startup, but as a desire to create something truly meaningful, useful and different from other law firms.
With every client, with every case, we learned, grew and improved. We are proud that we have been able to build trusting relationships with our clients and become reliable partners for them in resolving legal issues.
Today we continue to develop, mastering new areas of law, such as transactions on the international market, buying and selling real estate abroad, introducing new work methods to provide our clients with the best service and protect their interests to the maximum in the modern world.
Currently, in addition to almost a full range of services in Armenia, we also provide a full range of legal services in Cyprus, and we can also provide brokerage services related to real estate in France.

Thank you for your support and trust.

Как мы начинали и где мы сегодня

Дорогие друзья,
Сегодня мы хотели бы поделиться с вами нашей историей - историей становления и развития нашей фирмы. Наш путь начался не просто как бизнесовый стартап, а как стремление создать что-то по-настоящему значимое, полезное и отличающееся от других юридических фирм.
С каждым клиентом с каждым делом, мы учились, росли и улучшались. На сегодняшний день мы гордимся тем, что смогли построить доверительные отношения с нашими клиентами и стать для них надежными партнерами в решении юридических вопросов.
Сегодня мы продолжаем развиваться, осваивая новые области права, такие как осуществления сделок на международном рынке, покупка и продажа недвижимости зарубежом, внедряем новые методики работы, чтобы обеспечить нашим клиентам лучшее обслуживание и по максимуму защитить их интересы в современном мире.
В настоящее время, помимо практически полного комплекса услуг в Армении, мы также предоставляем полный комплекс юридических услуг на Кипре, также можем осуществлять брокерские услуги связанные с недвижимостью во Франции.

Благодарим вас за вашу поддержку и доверие.

📧- [email protected], [email protected]
📳- +37493-933-048 (whatsup)
Telegram:
Telegram channel: https://t.me/partners_kp

📧- [email protected], [email protected]
📳- +37493-933-048 (whatsup)
Telegram:
Telegram channel: https://t.me/partners_kp

12/10/2023

Kostandyan & Partners Law Firm initiates new legal support program #"EasyArmPass". Assistance includes mainly:
- Business immigration
- Opening business in Armenia
- Search and protection of assests
- Real Estate in Armenia
- Tax consulting
,
.kostandyanpartners.am,

03/07/2023

Dear colleagues,

Despite the fact that maintenance of accounting/bookeeping is mandatory by Armenian law, there is still absence of the requirements to have a lawyer in daily routine maintenance.

Some of you may think that I am "pulling the blanket" towards me, but I do really think, that absence of lawyer in daily-routine work brings sometimes to companies to the bigger problems, which costs their more money and more time and more over burden of the courts.

I am very afraid to utter the idea that it is better to pay "less" now, than "more" later.

Anyway, this information may be interested to our businessmen:

A registered agent is a mandatory requirement for any business that has been incorporated in the United States (USA is not a last country where we could derive business experience). This individual, or entity, serves as the point of contact between the business and its state government, ensuring that important documents such as tax forms and legal notices are delivered to the right people in a timely manner. While it is possible to serve as your own registered agent, many businesses find it beneficial to have an attorney act as their registered agent instead. Let’s take a look at why this might be a good idea.

The Advantages of Having an Attorney Serve As Your Registered Agent

Having an attorney/lawyer serve as your registered agent can be advantageous for several reasons.

It ensures that all important documents are received and handled by someone who is well-versed in the law—not just someone who is familiar with your business but not necessarily knowledgeable about legal matters.
An attorney/lawyer can also help you stay on top of any changes to state laws regarding registered agents; if there are any new requirements or regulations, they will be aware of them and make sure that you remain compliant with them. Additionally, an attorney will maintain confidentiality when handling important documents on behalf of your company; this means that you don’t have to worry about sensitive information falling into the wrong hands.
Attorneys/Lawyers Can Protect Your Interests (not only in course)

In addition to fulfilling the role of registered agent, attorneys can provide other valuable services related to registering your business. They can review contracts and agreements before you sign them; answer questions regarding taxes, licenses and permits; and offer advice on how best to organize and manage your company’s finances. All of these things can help ensure that your interests are protected both now and in the future.

As you can see, having an attorney serve as your company’s registered agent offers many advantages over serving as your own registered agent or hiring a non-lawyer professional. Not only does it ensure that all important documents are received by someone who understands the law, but it also helps protect your interests in other areas such as taxes, licensing and financial management.

A registered agent is a mandatory requirement for any business that has been incorporated in the United States. This individual, or entity, serves as the point of contact between the...

26/06/2023

If you are seeking a business structure with more personal protection but less formality, then forming an LLC, or limited liability company, is a good consideration. Regardless of your business structure, some paperwork like an operating agreement is expected. Here are the basics every LLC owner should know about operating agreements:
What is an operating agreement?
An operating agreement is a key document used by LLCs because it outlines the business' financial and functional decisions including rules, regulations and provisions. The purpose of the document is to govern the internal operations of the business in a way that suits the specific needs of the business owners. Once the document is signed by the members of the limited liability company, it acts as an official contract binding them to its terms.
Why do you need an operating agreement?
To protect the business' limited liability status: Operating agreements give members protection from personal liability to the LLC. Without this specific formality, your LLC can closely resemble a sole proprietorship or partnership, jeopardizing your personal liability.
To clarify verbal agreements: Even if members have orally agreed to certain terms, misunderstanding or miscommunication can take place. It is always best to have the operational conditions and other business arrangements handled in writing so they can be referred to in the event of any conflict.
To protect your agreement in the eyes of your state: State default rules govern LLCs without an official operating agreement. This means that each state outlines default rules that apply to businesses that do not sign operating agreements. Because the state default rules are so general, it is not advisable to rely on a governing body state to manage your agreement.
Tip: Consult with an attorney and accountant to assist with the financial and legal matters of your agreement.
What does an operating agreement entail?
Operating agreements are contract documents that are generally between five and twenty pages long.
What is included in an operating agreement?
The functionality of internal affairs is outlined in the operating agreement including but not limited to:
Percentage of members' ownership
Voting rights and responsibilities
Powers and duties of members and managers
Distribution of profits and loses
Holding meetings
Buyout and buy-sell rules (procedures for transferring interest or in the event of a death)
Are LLCs required to form an operating agreement?
The requirement of an operating agreement depends on the state in which it was formed. Many states do not require operating agreements. This information can generally be found on your Secretary of State website.
Tip: It is unwise to operate without an operating agreement even though most states do not require a written document. Regardless of your state's law, think twice before opting out of this provision.
Where should operating agreements be kept?
Operating agreements should be kept with the core records of your business. They are not required to be filed, nor will they be accepted by your state.
Tip: Operating agreements should be kept confidential.

19/06/2023

2023թ. օգոստոսի 1-ից ուժի մեջ են մտնում ՀՀ աշխատանքային օրենսգրքում կատարված փոփոխությունները:

Մեր տեսանկյունից, աշխատանքային օրենսգրքում արտացոլված ամենակարեւոր փոփոխությունները.

1. Առցանց աշխատանքային պայմանագիր կնքելու հնարավորությունը (որոշակի ընթացակարգերի համաձայն),
2. Հայաստանի Հանրապետությունում կացության կարգավիճակ չունեցող և Հայաստանի Հանրապետությունում փաստացի չգտնվող օտարերկրյա քաղաքացի կամ քաղաքացիություն չունեցող աշխատողից սոցիալական համար պահանջելու կարիք չկա.
3. աշխատանքային պայմանագիրը լուծելու պայմանները.
4. ներդրվել են պրակտիկանտ և ուսանող հասկացությունները (պրակտիկանտի և ուսանողի պայմանագիր):

Starting from August 1, 2023, the changes are applied in Labor Code of RA.
From our point of view, the most important changes that are reflected in the Labor Code are as follows:

1. The possibility of signing an employment contract online (subject to certain procedures),
2. no need to require a social number from an employee who is a foreign citizen or a stateless person who does not have a residence status in the Republic of Armenia and will not actually be in the Republic of Armenia;
3. conditions for terminating the employment contract,
4. the concepts of an intern and a student have been introduced (a contract for an intern and a student contract).

19/06/2023

Sterling Miller (https://en.gravatar.com/sterlingmiller2014)

The author of the article shares the ideas about prices for the lawyers and associate. It is specifically mention that legal services marketplace seems to be immune to pressures other businesses face. So, let’s just set that question to the side. Instead, today he wants to talk about – once you stop flopping around and get back into your chair – what in-house legal teams can do in response to rates like this. In particular, I want to discuss alternative fee arrangements as I have been asked about these numerous times over the past month or so and they are likely to be (if done correctly) one of the most promising ways legal departments can get some control over the cost of legal services, especially when economic times appear to be as uncertain as they do here in the first half of 2023. This edition of “Ten Things” will tell you what in-house lawyers need to know about alternative fee arrangements. (https://tenthings.blog/)

Why is there a problem? If the billable hour were Mark Twain, you might hear it saying, “Reports of my death have been greatly exaggerated.” Because, to the surprise of many, the billable hour has turned out to be incredibly durable and remains the primary way clients pay for legal fees in the US (and around the globe). This was not always the case. In the 1800s legal fees were capped by state law and the loser paid litigation fees. In the mid-1900s, many law firms billed via retainers or charged minimum rates required by state bar associations (yes, even the Supreme Court eventually found that to be a violation of antitrust law). As late as the 1990s, some large firms still submitted one-page legal bills with an amount for “services rendered.” The billable hour, it seems, has really only been around since the 1970s (see The History of the Billable Hour and the Consequences of Its Tyranny). But once it took hold, man did it stick. As I see it, the problems with the billable hour are the following:

Many law firms, especially Big Law, cannot change the model because their infrastructure and compensation programs are tied to an ever-increasing billable hour rate. This is, in my opinion, the root of the problem. Many law firms that are so invested in high-priced real estate in high-price locations and rely on a dog-eat-dog equity partner model are virtually locked into raising rates every year. This is why someone, based on the rate sheet above, is paying $775 an hour for a first-year lawyer.[2]
The huge increase in rates is driven by the transaction work which – since the cost is part of the deal ROI – is not price sensitive. The mistake firms are making is assuming that holds true for all other legal work. It doesn’t.
The billable hour often drives the wrong incentives, bill more hours = make more money. This does not encourage efficiency or even value.
There is a “black box” problem. No one can really tell why it took five hours or seven hours to do the first draft of the contract. This can drive friction between in-house counsel and outside counsel.
Billable hour cost is tied to inflation and other economic factors, not the value of the services delivered.
https://tenthings.blog/2023/03/31/ten-things-alternative-fee-arrangements-what-in-house-lawyers-need-to-know/ -2940

12/06/2023

11 legal operations interview questions and tips to land the job

I will just list them here. in case if you want to read the full version, just follow the link:

1. What interests you the most about working in legal operations?
2. What best practices would you use to optimize legal spend?
3. What experience do you have using legal technology? (Experts predict that legal software budgets will triple from 2020 to 2025).
4. Can you tell us about an instance when you had to work with a difficult vendor, client, or co-worker? How did you handle the situation?
5. How do you solve problems that involve other internal teams?
6. Can you describe your best practices for legal project management?
7. What experience do you have with creating or revamping department processes and materials?
8. What are the biggest challenges facing legal operations teams today? How would you approach them?

3 Bonus scale question to ask your interviews:
9. Are there any wide-scale initiatives in which the organization wants legal ops to get further involved?
10. What tools does your team use most often? Are you planning on investing in any new ones in the near future?
11. What opportunities does your company offer to further advance my career as a legal operations professional?

https://www.simplelegal.com/blog/11-legal-operations-interview-questions-and-tips-to-land-the-job

05/06/2023

TOP 3

Professionals clearly understands that benefits of legal knowledge management are easy enough to understand, the actual process of implementing it is much more challenging for legal teams — especially large ones. But no matter your team’s size, these foundational actions will set you up for long-term knowledge-sharing success. (https://www.simplelegal.com/blog/legal-knowledge-management-guide)

1. Set clear objectives that address recurring problems

The first step to a beneficial legal knowledge management process is to identify common pain points. From there, you can set goals designed to resolve these high-priority issues.

Effective legal knowledge management is like building a stellar employee handbook—you want to be able to provide clear solutions and walk-throughs for common questions and complex topics. To identify where you are (or aren’t) currently hitting the knowledge-sharing mark, send out a survey to your legal operations team and in-house counsel that includes questions like:

What documents or information do you spend the most time searching for?
Why is it hard to find these resources?
What do you do if you can’t find the information you need? How does this impact your work?
Do you think our current tool(s) for storing information are effective? Why or why not?
What tool(s) do you primarily use to share information? (E.g., email, Slack DMs, Dropbox)
Where do you store your own personal work notes?
What resources do you wish we had available but currently don’t?
How would you improve our current approach to creating, storing, and sharing knowledge on our team and with other teams?
These types of questions will uncover the most glaring issues to address, from missing intellectual capital to clunky KM systems. Then, create objectives that will help remedy these issues. For example, “Reduce friction with Sales by migrating contract templates to one location” or “Create a document outlining the reporting process for new hires.” Periodically update your objectives once a quarter to ensure things stay on track.

2. Decide what legal knowledge management tool to use

If your survey results reveal widespread dissatisfaction with the knowledge management system you use to create and store information, it’s time to reevaluate and find one that works better for your department.

Review the complaints surrounding your tool, whether it’s an intranet portal, a spreadsheet, legacy legal tech, or something else. Just like when you set the objectives, these insights will help you determine what type of tool will best support your legal knowledge management. Whatever the issues are, use these as a kind of checklist when reviewing different document management tools to make sure you’ll get a strong return on investment.

For instance, if your team was desperate for better search functionality, it’d make sense to consider looking into document management software that had robust tagging capabilities that made it easier to categorize and find documents.

While it’s a good idea to reach out to other legal departments and peers to get an idea of commonly used knowledge bases, you don’t want to base your decision solely on their input. Remember that different legal teams have different goals, sizes, maturity levels, and budgets — the legal knowledge management tool that works best for them might not support your team’s unique needs.

3. Outline the process for creating and updating materials moving forward

When creating a new knowledge management strategy, you also need clear guidelines around the way new resources should be created, categorized, stored, and maintained. This will keep your knowledge management system working efficiently and prevent the same disorganization problems you had before you instituted the program.

These procedures will vary depending on what type of management system(s) you decide to use. For example, if you use legal technology with embedded document management, you won’t need guidelines to avoid accidentally overwriting versions because the platform saves each version. But you might need to explain how to change a user’s access to documents.

If you’re using a master spreadsheet, it’s a good idea to outline data entry best practices, from color-coding keys to whether to use bullet points or sentences. It might seem like a lot of work to get these granular details together initially, but it’s an investment that will pay off in the long run when employees can easily find what they need.

29/05/2023

1. Set clear objectives that address recurring problems

The first step to a beneficial legal knowledge management process is to identify common pain points. From there, you can set goals designed to resolve these high-priority issues.

Effective legal knowledge management is like building a stellar employee handbook—you want to be able to provide clear solutions and walk-throughs for common questions and complex topics. To identify where you are (or aren’t) currently hitting the knowledge-sharing mark, send out a survey to your legal operations team and in-house counsel that includes questions like:

1. What documents or information do you spend the most time searching for?

2. Why is it hard to find these resources?

3. What do you do if you can’t find the information you need? How does this impact your work?

4. Do you think our current tool(s) for storing information are effective? Why or why not?

5. What tool(s) do you primarily use to share information? (E.g., email, Slack DMs, Dropbox)

6. Where do you store your own personal work notes?

7. What resources do you wish we had available but currently don’t?

8. How would you improve our current approach to creating, storing, and sharing knowledge on our team and with other teams?

These types of questions will uncover the most glaring issues to address, from missing intellectual capital to clunky KM systems. Then, create objectives that will help remedy these issues. For example, “Reduce friction with Sales by migrating contract templates to one location” or “Create a document outlining the reporting process for new hires.” Periodically update your objectives once a quarter to ensure things stay on track.

22/05/2023

Saved time leads to better productivity, employee satisfaction, and onboarding

A structured approach to legal knowledge management reduces the amount of time employees spend digging for information — which, according to Coveo, is an average of 3.6 hours each workday. These productivity losses significantly impact the bottom line, with Panopto recording an average loss of $2.7 million for businesses with 1,000 employees up to a staggering $265 million for companies with 100,000 employees.

When employees can quickly find what they need, they can do more strategic work that supports the financial health of a business. And this more efficient use of their time also reduces the likelihood of costly burnout and turnover, the latter of which worsens knowledge gaps. Coveo notes that the “stress and hassle of locating the right information” increased feelings of burnout among 31% of respondents, and 16% of employees said this made them want to quit.

Additionally, clear processes and systems for storing and sharing knowledge speed up the onboarding process. This means new legal ops hires are prepared to tackle their job responsibilities and deliver value faster. A seamless onboarding process is also key to employee retention, with Digitate finding that people are twice as likely to start job hunting after a negative onboarding experience.

15/05/2023

3 key business initiatives where legal departments can drive progress

Interesting ideas about business initiatives which could lead to better organization of the company. Article is derived from https://www.simplelegal.com/blog/legal-ops-business-initiatives site.

Today’s legal professionals should be strategic partners in the decision-making process at their businesses. Instead of just being brought in to handle problems or to review a contract, you have an opportunity to step up and lead game-changing initiatives.

But it’s not as easy as that. Legal teams are often viewed as the “No Police,” according to Onit’s Enterprise Legal Reputation (ELR) Report. 61% of the ELR respondents see legal teams as bureaucratic, and 73% of respondents in France said they’re likely to bypass legal altogether.

With many departments seeing legal as a roadblock rather than a partner, businesses can suffer. By shifting the approach of legal from being focused solely on reacting to issues to being proactive progress-makers, the reputation of legal can shift, too.

In addition, legal has to adapt to ever-changing environments. This constant state of flexibility means it’s crucial to give consideration to topics that directly affect the people on your team, including diversity, data privacy, and environmental, social, and governance initiatives.

The unique perspectives your legal team brings to the table can be used to strategically lead company initiatives that ultimately benefit the overall health of the business.

09/05/2023

REMOTE WORK HERE TO STAY

While some companies continue to thumb their noses at The Great Resignation and insist that employees come back into the office, data scientists at Ladders insist that the writing is on the wall. Remote work is here to stay. According to their projections, 25% of all professional jobs in North America will be remote by the end of 2022, and remote opportunities will continue to increase through 2023. Researchers from Ladders have been carefully tracking remote work availability from North America’s largest 50,000 employers since the pandemic began. Remote opportunities leapt from under 4% of all high paying jobs before the pandemic to about 9% at the end of 2020, and to more than 15% today. “This change in working arrangements is impossible to overhype. As big as it is, it’s even bigger than people think,” said Ladders CEO Marc Cenedella, who says it’s the largest societal change in America since the end of World War II. “Hiring practices typically move at a glacial pace, but the pandemic turned up the heat so we’re seeing a rapid flood of change in this space. It’s really rather amazing.”

The Downstream Effects of Job Burnout

As the workplace headed into 2022—the third year of the pandemic—the rise of job burnout jumped to an all-time high. The American Psychological Association’s Work and Well-Being survey found that 79% of the 1,501 employees experienced work-related stress in the month before the survey. Three in five workers said work-related stress caused them to have a lack of interest, motivation and energy at work. A total of 36% had cognitive weariness, 32% emotional exhaustion and 44% physical fatigue—a 38% jump from 2019.

According to the report, issues like the politicization of masks and vaccines and feelings of lack of support from the government and workplaces have caused workers—especially those in public-facing jobs—to become cynical about their jobs and about the public in general. “This kind of cynicism is powerful because it undermines the people’s feelings about the value of their work, which can help motivate them during hard times,” said organizational psychologist, Michael Leiter, honorary professor of organizational psychology at Melbourne’s Deakin University. The report stated that because pandemic-related stressors won’t stop anytime soon, stress-reducing measures should be top of mind for employers and legislators. And Christina Maslach, professor emerita of psychology at University of California, Berkeley added, “As demands increase, organizations need to focus on maintaining balance, taking things off the plate when they add something new. That’s especially important in health care settings where attrition rates are especially high.”

02/05/2023

KNOWLEDGE MANAGEMENT

The overwhelming majority of organizations understand they are falling short. Eighty-two percent of our respondents said their organizations need to do a better job of tying knowledge to action, while 79 percent admitted that they must be more effective at creating knowledge to jump-start innovations and launch new products and services.

For organizations that are struggling, the good news is that technology is offering up solutions that can help. Emerging AI capabilities such as natural language processing and natural language generation can automatically index and combine content across disparate platforms. These same technologies can also tag and organize information, automatically generating contextual metadata without human intervention and eliminating a major barrier to actually using the knowledge that an organization’s people and networks create. And in the most advanced applications, AI technologies can take that contextualized information and push it to an organization’s different teams and systems, allowing the intelligence to flow through networks of people as they work to uncover insights and solve problems in real time.

Microsoft’s Project Cortex, for instance, uses AI to analyze large amounts of content, organize it into different topics, extract important information, and create “knowledge networks” that connect people with topics and content.5 A worker who sees an unfamiliar project in an email can access a “topic card” that describes the project, relevant experts and people, related resources, and other useful information. Cortex also enables workers to create personalized “knowledge centers,” where they can keep abreast of trending topics that are relevant to their work.6

In this way, technology becomes embedded into the organization’s teams in ways that help advance their collective intelligence—an example of “putting computers in the group” to create what we call “superteams.”7 As a key application of superteams, knowledge management is evolving far beyond an internal database that workers occasionally visit to look for information. Instead, it connects all of an organization’s different teams, systems, and networks, elevating and honing everything the organization does. It proactively pushes the right information to the right person at the right time, and it accelerates learning by automatically delivering the expertise that people need to be able to develop key skills and capabilities.

As one example, Philips has launched a new knowledge management platform as part of its effort to transform from a product-based company to a solution-based company, aiming to save workers’ time and break down silos across its nearly 80,000 workers, 17 markets, and more than 30 businesses. The platform’s tagging mechanisms easily connect workers with articles, white papers, tips and tricks, public communities, and experts based on their specific interests and needs. This delivers huge time savings: Account managers and sales engineers now spend fewer hours per week searching for information.8