As some U.S. firms retreat, Willkie Farr is charging ahead by opening its third German outpost—but can momentum outpace market reality? I'm Caroline Byrne, Associate Editor of Law.com International, bringing you this week's edition of The Global Lawyer. |
Willkie Farr & Gallagher appears to be playing a masterful chess game in Germany, constantly taking pieces from rivals, yet the endgame still may not favour the firm. Willkie officially launched its 25-lawyer Hamburg office last week focused on private equity and featuring restructuring and antitrust litigation teams swiped from Latham & Watkins and Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan.
This is in addition to the firm’s Munich office—which recently hired former Hogan Lovells and Kirkland & Ellis partner David Huthmacher—and Frankfurt, which has nabbed a team led by Gibson, Dunn & Crutcher antitrust partner Georg Weidenbach.
But what’s remarkable about Willkie’s three-pronged German gambit is that some of its U.S. rivals are simultaneously retreating. Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton and Goodwin Procter are both shuttering their offices in Germany’s financial heart.
Frankfurt may be dubbed ‘Mainhatten’ for its sky-piercing towers on the River Main but German clients aren’t willing to pay Manhattan prices, posing a problem for some top-tier U.S. firms.
The question mark over the region repeats a pattern of openings and closings by U.S. firms over the last decade or so, from Dechert and Arnold & Porter shuttering Frankfurt to Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe closing in Berlin and Frankfurt. So can Willkie possibly keep up its last decade of outsized success globally in such a tough market?
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