In the legal office

- 7th Ranking of the legal offices of the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita

We have a great pleasure to inform that the Legal Office Budzowska Fiutowski & Partners. Legal Counsellors changed its position in the 7th Ranking of the legal offices of the Polish daily newspaper Rzeczpospolita and moved up of several positions (in comparison with the ranking of last year) on two lists covering legal offices from the whole Poland. An amount of employed advocates, legal counsellors and lawyers was a principle criterion of the ranking. The ranking was published in Rzeczpospolita of 11 May 2010 and only about 300 law firms were admitted to the ranking. Additionally in the ranking concerning law firms from the voivodeship Małopolska our legal office was listed on 10 th place, which by the record breaking attendance of participants and criteria applied by Rzeczpospolita is for us a very important result, taking also into consideration great competition on the market of legal services. Our activity pro publico bono was also appreciated. It is worth reminding that in November 2009 the Legal Office Budzowska Fiutowski & Partners. Legal Counsellors obtained an award in the category Pro publico bono among small legal offices (i.e. employing altogether up to 20 lawyers, tax advisers and patent agents) and at the same time was granted the 7th position in this Ranking in the same category.

- A Blue Umbrella (Niebieski parasol)

On 19-23 April 2010 a self-government of legal counsellors organised for the 2nd time an event "A Blue Umbrella". As last year lawyers from our Legal Office granted gratuitous legal advice during this event. This year a leading motive was a labour law, and especially cases concerning mobbing and discrimination because of sex and age. Lawyers from the Legal Office took part in the event bearing in mind that this is usually an employee who is a weaker part of the labour relationship, and breaching of employees' rights, including especially mobbing or discrimination, has influence not only at professional life, but often also at private life of persons being victims of illegal behaviour.

- Women's Republic'10 (Rzeczpospolita Babska'10)

The Polish daily newspaper "Gazeta Finansowa" of 26 March 2010 presented next time a list called: "Women's Republic", i.e. a list of the most precious women in Poland. There have been placed several dozen of Women who by their every day activities prove that nowadays success is not only men's domain. The list covers very diverse fields of activities - in the rating there are Women holding the most important posts in the financial institutions, firms, and also the ones who take care for the widely understood culture. A multiplicity of branches in which women can realize themselves shows that every one may be the best on every field when only acts with passion. All the indicated Women have been appreciated because of their professional activity and courage in undertaking new challenges. On the list there is also, one of three women - lawyers, Mrs Jolanta Budzowska, a legal counsellor.

- The Code of Good Practices (Kodeks Dobrych Praktyk)

Since March 2010 Lawyers from our Legal Office take part in the meetings of a group of tenants acting by the Polish Council of Shopping Centres which aim is to prepare a text of The Code of Good Practices concerning the lease contracts. The purpose of tenants is preparation of text contaning rules ("good practices") which provisions would be applied by lessors. The Code of Good Practices would in the future make it easier for tenants to negotiate lease contracts in big shopping centres and guarantee an increased protection of tenants. At the moment if tenants want to rent premises in the shopping centre, they often have to agree with disadvantageous provisions of lease contracts imposed by lessors. Main assumptions of the project shall lead among others to providing of:

• preservation of substance of the lease contract (especially in the scope of assuring to a tenant that in the period of tenancy he will be entitled to use strictly indicated premises without the right of lessors to change premises on basis of their own decisions),
• equality of rights of the parties of a lease contract (e.g. in the scope of the right to terminate of a lease contract),
• transparency of fees which are to be paid by a tenant apart from the rent, including so called common costs, connected with the functioning of the shopping centre (e.g. costs of marketing and advertising of the centre).

- A Week of Help for Victims of Crimes

On 22 February 2010 lawyers from the Legal Office Budzowska Fiutowski & Partners. Legal Counsellors were advising gratuitously to victims of crimes within a special action organised by the Minstry of Justice since 22 till 28 February 2010, "A Week of Help for Victims of Crimes", participators of which was among others our Legal Office.

- A re-search project - a system of recognition of speech

On 19 Ferbuary 2010 seven lawyers from the Legal Office Budzowska Fiutowski & Partners. Legal Counsellors took part in the re-search project concerning processing and recognition of speech and natural language, led by the Laboratory of Advanced Technologies of Language and Speech (Laboratorium Zaawansowanych Technologii Języka i Mowy), in a close cooperation with Wolters Kluwers Polska and The Polish Platform of Public Safety (Polska Platforma Bezpieczeństwa Publicznego). A conducted research will be helpful for preparing and introduction in two years' time of a system of recognition of speech within dictating of legal writings, including the ones concerning the court proceedings. In the schedule of the project there should be prepared a system of automatic recognition of speech, mainly for a dedicated group of users - for purposes of legal offices, courts and investigation organs. During the survey there were recorded specialist statements for purposes of planned system of recognition of speech. Persons taking part in the Project were obliged to prepare before a recording a notice consisting of 30 - 70 sentences on a freely chosen subject concerning law and court procedure. Then this notice was read by a recorded person and it was recorded in order to gather material for building the system of recognition of speech. A recorded person was also asked to read a set of sentences and expressions from the chosen law field and court procedure.

- Start of e-court

An electronic order of payment issued by an e-court means a possibility of a fast filing claims via the Internet. Virtual court proceedings was introduced to the Polish court procedure by an amendment of the Code of Civil Procedure which came into force on 1 January 2010 and which introduced new separate proceedings in the form of Electronic Admonition Proceedings - EAP (article $50528-\; 50537$ of the Code of Civil Procedure).

E-court is a virtual Civil Division XVI of the District Court in Lublin, accessible on www.e-sad.gov.pl. The court is appropriate for matters from the whole country and it may recognize matters irrespective of the amount of a dispute.

We would like to inform that all legal counsellors from our Legal Office already possess professional e-accounts, registered on the website of the e-court with the intermediation of the Regional Chamber of Legal Counsellors in Kraków. Therefore we are ready to represent our Clients on-line!

ABC of EAP

• e-court recognizes claims within the scope of admonition proceedings from the whole country, i.e. cases which are as a rule doubtless and which factual state is not complicated and does not require a complicated evidence procedure, because an obligation of a debtor is confirmed by proper documents (invoices, bills);


• a suit in the electronic admonition proceedings is filed on a special sheet in the electronic form;


• in order to file an e-suit it is necessary to register and obtain an ordinary electronic signature. For professional attorneys there is a special procedure of opening an account;


• EAP-procedure is not obligatory and it is still possible to make claims in the traditional form.