Global players scaled up their investment in continental Europe this autumn, with Dentons launching its fourth German base and White & Case growing its French team. Meanwhile, Weil, Gotshal & Manges has shut its doors in Prague, its second office closure in central and eastern Europe (CEE) in 2018.
Dentons’ fast-growing German branch hired Taylor Wessing’s former head of competition, EU and trade, Andreas Haak, and employment partner Sascha Grosjean to lead the opening of the new outpost in Düsseldorf in January 2019. Germany managing partner Andreas Ziegenhagen told Legal Business the firm aims to have around 30 lawyers in the city in Germany’s industrial heartland, bringing the total headcount in the country to over 200.
Dentons’ full-service German operation is unusual in that it keeps Berlin as its largest office at around 90 fee-earners, which it claims makes it the largest international firm in the capital. Other large non-German players have traditionally focused on the country’s financial centre Frankfurt and on Munich’s booming M&A and private equity market, where Dentons has around 60 and 45 lawyers respectively.
‘Berlin is the most attractive city to live in and there are three big universities, but not the same competition for talent. So we can attract talented lawyers and then they work on both German and cross-border mandates,’ said Ziegenhagen.
Berlin was legacy Salans’ first German base, opening in 2006 with a team from collapsing Haarmann Hemmelrath that included Ziegenhagen. Salans subsequently opened a base in Frankfurt in 2008. After the 2013 three-way merger with SNR Denton and Fraser Milner Casgrain which created Dentons, the firm launched in Munich in 2016.
Germany was Dentons’ standout European performer alongside Italy in 2017. It grew its top line 32% to €61m, one of the fastest-growing players in the market. ‘We are not just focused on transactions,’ said Ziegenhagen, who pointed to its strong reputation in restructuring and competition, adding that the aim is to challenge the local legal elite in all areas. The firm expects double-digit growth for its German arm in 2018 as well.
Meanwhile, White & Case has expanded its 92-year-old Paris operation, hiring a three-lawyer team led by well-regarded restructuring and M&A partner Saam Golshani from leading French player Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe (Orrick Rambaud Martel in France).
‘Saam is focused on funds,’ Paris executive partner Denise Diallo told Legal Business. ‘We have been looking to grow our funds practice for a while and this will be an excellent opportunity to do that.’
Golshani will join the US firm alongside fellow M&A, PE and restructuring partner Alexis Hojabr and counsel Guillaume Vitrich, who will become a partner following the move.
News that Weil is closing its 11-partner Prague office in December came as a surprise, as its Czech Republic branch was once the jewel in what was a considerable CEE crown for the US firm. Alongside firms such as White & Case, CMS and Linklaters, Weil was a dominant force across the CEE in the late 1990s and early 2000s. The shuttering of its office in Prague came after Weil closed its base in Budapest earlier in 2018 and is a key indicator of systematically waning interest of Global 100 firms in the region over the past decade.