The 10 Best Corporate Lawyers in Tbilisi

Almost no Georgian firm publishes rates, so treat these as observed bands rather than quotes. Partner time at the directory-ranked firms tends to run 150 to 400 USD an hour, with associate time well below that, while boutiques and small practices sit closer to 60 to 150 USD. Fixed fees are normal for defined work, and a company formation with a properly drafted charter usually lands between 800 and 2,500 GEL. A shareholders agreement for a small founding team runs roughly 2,000 to 6,000 GEL depending on how much gets negotiated. Ask what happens when the other side sends comments back, because negotiation is where budgets disappear.

Not for a straightforward single-owner LLC. The Public Registry accepts a standard charter, registration is usually done within a working day at a Public Service Hall, and plenty of foreign founders complete it with only an accountant helping. A lawyer earns the fee once there is more than one shareholder, outside investment, or a business model touching a licensed activity such as payments, gambling or crypto services. The charter is the registered constitutional document of the company, and rewriting it later means another registry filing and everyone signing again.

Yes, as a contract between the parties, but it does not override the charter filed with the Public Registry. Georgian company law gives the charter primacy on matters such as share classes, management appointment and decision thresholds, so a well-built structure pushes the hard mechanics into the charter and keeps commercial detail in the side agreement. If the two documents contradict each other you have manufactured the dispute you were trying to prevent. Ask any firm how it splits provisions between the two documents, and be wary if the answer is that the charter does not really matter.

For commercial contracts between businesses, generally yes, and it is common in deals with foreign lenders or investors. What you cannot do is choose foreign law for the internal constitution of a Georgian entity, for employment relationships with staff working in Georgia, or for anything that has to be registered locally. Enforcement is the other half of the question, because a foreign judgment still has to be recognised by a Georgian court before it achieves anything. Arbitration clauses are the usual practical compromise, and several firms on this list run arbitration practices in house.

Georgian labour law is comparatively employer-friendly, but it is not absent. Written contracts are required once the relationship runs beyond three months, fixed-term contracts carry conditions, and dismissal needs a ground listed in the Labour Code plus notice and severance. Overtime, rest periods and annual leave are all regulated. The common mistake among foreign founders is treating every hire as a contractor, because if the working relationship looks like employment the tax and labour consequences follow regardless of what the paperwork says.

It depends almost entirely on what you agreed in advance. With a deadlock mechanism, a valuation formula and an exit route already in the charter, a split is unpleasant but bounded. Without them you are in Tbilisi City Court, where commercial matters commonly take a year or more through first instance and appeal, and where a 50/50 company can simply stop functioning in the meantime. Mediation and arbitration clauses are worth inserting at the start rather than the end. Expect the timeline rather than the legal fee to be the real cost.