Despite having launched five international offices in Asia and the Middle East since 2012, top-20 UK law firm Addleshaw Goddard had no presence in continental Europe until last month. That was when it announced the hire of five partners from Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner (BCLP) to spearhead a launch in Hamburg.
The hires include the two founders of legacy Bryan Cave’s German offices in 2007, Eckart Budelmann and Michael Leue. Partners Martin Lüderitz, Maximilian Karacz and Hubertus Schröder joined the duo in the move from BCLP, alongside five other lawyers.
The ten-strong team will initially focus on M&A and private equity, commercial, employment, international trade and litigation, but managing partner John Joyce told Legal Business the aim was for the firm to grow quickly to a full-service offering reflecting its UK business.
‘It’s very likely that we will extend our footprint,’ he said. ‘We will not be in lots and lots of cities, but we might look at one or two others. It will all be about the people: we want to expand the team and if we find the right people we will recruit them in whichever city they are.’
Germany has long been on Addleshaws’ radar, with merger talks between the UK firm and local player Luther called off in mid-2017. On the rationale behind the choice of Hamburg over larger centres such as Frankfurt and Munich, Joyce said: ‘It was more about the people and the quality of the team [than the location]. They were the right people in the right place at the right time. They could have equally been in Frankfurt or Munich. Hamburg is a very wealthy city and a key player in the German economy.’
A BCLP spokesperson said that Germany was a ‘core part’ of the firm and pointed to the fact that it retained more than 45 lawyers across three offices in Berlin, Frankfurt and Hamburg: ‘Roland Fabian, country managing partner for Germany, will continue to lead our offices there and oversee our strategic plans in the country, where we have grown rapidly in the last five years.’
Addleshaws opened its first international office in 2012 in Singapore, followed by Dubai, Oman, Qatar and Hong Kong. Joyce, who took over as managing partner in 2014, said he would have not necessarily started the firm’s overseas expansion in Asia had he been in charge then, but conceded that ‘as it happens, Asia is going very well for us’.
Between 2012/13 and 2017/18, Addleshaws’ revenue increased 45% to £242m, while profit was up 68% to £87m, in part thanks to its Scottish merger with HBJ Gateley in June 2017.