Kinstellar, Emerging Europe’s leading independent law firm, today announces the opening of its new office in Almaty, Kazakhstan, and the appointment of Joel Benjamin and Adlet Yerkinbayev as partners. The office will initially launch with a team of ten lawyers.
The establishment of Kinstellar’s Kazakhstan office enhances the firm’s ability to meet client needs in emerging markets including, now, the resource-based economies of Central Asia.
Joel Benjamin will be the managing partner of our Almaty office. Joel has worked in Kazakhstan since 1993 where he worked with White & Case and then SNR Denton. He has extensive experience handling major mergers and acquisitions, banking, finance and capital markets transactions. He regularly advises clients on a range of general corporate and business issues and represents clients in various industries, including oil and gas, mining, banking, telecommunications and media. Joel is recommended by Chambers Global, The Legal 500 and IFLR 1000. Chambers Global 2013 identifies Joel as “one of the most authoritative expat lawyers in Kazakhstan”. Joel is admitted to practice law in California, holds a bachelor’s degree from Cornell University, an MBA in Finance from the Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania and is a graduate of the University of Pennsylvania Law School.
Adlet Yerkinbayev’s practice focuses on debt and equity capital markets, banking, finance and M&A. He has advised clients in various industries and has particular expertise in the financial institutions and telecommunications sectors. Chambers Global 2013 identifies Adlet as a “rising star”. He is a Kazakhstan-qualified lawyer and admitted to the New York State Bar. Adlet holds a degree in international law from Al-Farabi Kazakh National University and an LLM from Harvard Law School. Prior to joining Kinstellar, Adlet was a senior associate with the Almaty office of SNR Denton.
Jason Mogg, Managing Partner of Kinstellar, comments:
“We are excited with this move to expand into Kazakhstan and Central Asia and we are delighted to welcome Joel Benjamin and Adlet Yerkinbayev to our firm as the first partners in our Almaty office. The Kazakh office reinforces our strength across the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe, Turkey and Central Asia and takes us another step forward on implementing our strategy to build the leading independent firm in this region. We are confident that with this team Kinstellar will achieve a market leading position within a very short time and will be able to seize the tremendous opportunities that exist in Kazakhstan and Central Asia”.
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Note to editors:
Kinstellar was created in 2008 by the spin-off of four CEE offices of Linklaters. In 2010 Kinstellar expanded with the opening of new offices in Turkey and Serbia, and in 2013 further expanded with the opening of its new office in Kazakhstan. Kinstellar provides focused, commercial legal advice to corporations, financial institutions and governments. Operating from offices in Almaty, Belgrade, Bratislava, Bucharest, Budapest, Istanbul and Prague, Kinstellar works with many of the world’s largest corporations, financial institutions and leading international law firms. Kinstellar offers
expertise in banking, finance and capital markets, competition and anti-trust, compliance, risk and sensitive investigations, corporate M&A, dispute resolution, energy, life sciences and healthcare, private equity, projects, real estate, restructuring and insolvency, tax and TMT.
For more information, please visit our website: www.kinstellar.com
