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Eighteen-partner team splits from Hogan in Berlin to form new firm

March 23rd, 2010 by Legalweek Leave a reply »

Hogan & Hartson’s Berlin office is to split into two, with 18 partners breaking away to set up their own firm rather than join the merged Hogan Lovells.

The new firm, Raue, will officially launch on 1 May – the same day that the Hogan Lovells merger is set to go live.

The firm, which will be managed by energy and regulatory partner Christian von Hammerstein, will be made up of the 18 partners and 22 other lawyers. It will offer legal advice in the energy, real estate, media and telecommunications, life sciences and health care, and arts and entertainment sectors, with the lawyers providing tax, corporate, regulatory, employment, real estate, intellectual property and litigation advice.

Von Hammerstein said: “Over the last weeks and months we have received the clear message from the market that our clients would like to work in close partnership with a focused, medium-sized firm.

“It was not an easy decision – in the end the key factor was to keep together our excellent team and to continue our successful collaboration with each other and our clients in an independent, entrepreneurial group.”

The split will leave Hogan Lovells with more than 350 lawyers practising in five cities in Germany – Berlin, Duesseldorf, Frankfurt, Hamburg and Munich. Christoph Wagner will be the office managing partner of the Berlin office, succeeding Gernod Meinel, who has opted to join the new firm rather than take up a role on the board of Hogan Lovells.

Wagner said: “As a strong Berlin office with a leading transaction-focused media and telecoms, real estate and competition practice, we hope to contribute to position Hogan Lovells as a leading German law firm and as top ten law firm globally.”

He added: “We wish every success to our long-term friends and partners who are now choosing another professional future. Our close friendships will not be affected by this professional separation.”

The new comes after Hogan’s Warsaw office also opted out of the merger, instead joining with K&L Gates last month.

The founding partners of Raue are:

Peter Raue
Max Braeuer
Wolfgang Kuhla
Hans Seiler
Georg Miggel
Gernod Meinel
Kornelius Kleinlein
Carl-Stephan Schweer
Jan Hegemann
Justus Schmidt-Ott
Christian von Hammerstein
Andreas Nelle
Friedrich Tobias Schoene
Klaus Goecke
Markus Plesser
Judith Heyn
Sascha Herms
Annette Christine Feissel
Stephan Bernhard Koch
Wolfram Hertel