K&L Gates Opens Second Office in Germany

Gina Passarella

The Legal Intelligencer

2009-01-20 00:00:00.0

K&L Gates is continuing its expansion efforts at home and abroad, this time with the opening of a Frankfurt, Germany office.

The new office will be the second location for the firm in Germany after it opened up shop in Berlin two years ago. There will initially be two partners in Frankfurt with the addition of Mathias Schulze Steinen and Frank Thomas from Simmons & Simmons. K&L Gates now has 40 attorneys across the two German offices.

In a statement, the firm said the expansion enhances the firm's overall work in Germany. The two offices focus on mergers and acquisitions, corporate restructuring, private equity, real estate capital markets, telecommunications, media and technology, banking and finance and equipment leasing. While the two new attorneys in Frankfurt are expected to focus on corporate, mergers and acquisitions and finance work, the firm said it expects the office to quickly expand into other practices.

K&L Gates Chairman Peter Kalis said in the statement that the firm's Berlin office had doubled in size since its opening and serviced clients in Germany and in the United States.

"Now, we have this extraordinary opportunity to expand our German team into the finance capital of continental Europe with its promising links to London, Paris, the U.S., and Asia, as well as within the German marketplace itself," Kalis said.

Thomas focuses his practice on finance with a specialty in equipment leasing. His clients include Bank of America, CIT and German Landesbanken. Schulze Steinen focuses his practice on telecommunications and technology.

Despite the faltering economy, K&L Gates has been on a bit of an expansion tear for over a year. The firm completed two mergers in 2008 and announced plans to enter another one this year.

It merged with Texas-based Hughes & Luce in the beginning of 2008 and completed a merger with Charlotte, N.C.-based Kennedy Covington Lobdell & Hickman in July 2008.

K&L Gates and Chicago-based Boyd Bell & Lloyd announced at the end of last year that they were in late-stage merger talks. K&L Gates also opened offices last year in Shanghai and Paris and expanded in Taipei.