Greenberg Traurig has made a concerted push into Europe this summer. Having recruited a 12-lawyer real estate team in May from Allen & Overy and Norton Rose Fulbright in Poland, including both firms’ former local real estate heads, in July Greenberg acquired Olswang’s entire Berlin office, comprising a 14-partner team, to launch its first German outpost.
Greenberg’s German base will open its doors on 1 October 2015, as the firm’s fourth European office after London, Amsterdam and Warsaw. The group hire included taking Olswang’s managing partner in Germany, Christian Schede, who will serve as the German managing shareholder for Greenberg, as well as a team that Olswang has been building since it first set up shop in Berlin in 2007. It had hired from Magic Circle firms Linklaters and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer to build a practice that was ranked second tier for real estate in The Legal 500.
But in June Olswang announced it was ‘decoupling’ its entire 50-strong lawyer office and that the outpost was in talks with several international firms, including Morrison & Foerster and Freshfields.
The office’s real estate expertise combined with Greenberg’s Warsaw hires was a key draw for the US firm, which is looking to build a wider European real estate practice more akin to its US property practice.
Greenberg chief executive Richard Rosenbaum told Legal Business: ‘The firm is always looking for the right opportunity in the context of meeting client needs rather than looking for a specific number in any given market or at any given time. Europe is and always has been an important region for our clients and is therefore important to us. There is a great deal of legal talent there in many areas. Real estate, of course, is a key area of practice for our firm, going back to our inception.’
‘Europe is an important region for our clients and is therefore important to us.’
Richard Rosenbaum, Greenberg Traurig
The Global 100 firm hasn’t quite attracted the same level of recognition that the US brand has on the other side of the Atlantic. Since its London launch in 2009, the firm has struggled to achieve its 100-lawyer practice target in the City with current headcount only around half of that.
But in the last 12 months, the firm has ramped up its investment in the region. Its London branch, Greenberg Traurig Maher, has added new partners in the City, including the headline-grabbing hire of Slaughter and May tax partner Graham Iversen in September last year. The office also managed to generate double-digit revenue growth with turnover rising 12% to £14.5m in 2014.
jaishree.kalia@legalease.co.uk