Dentons has hired a pair of lawyers from DLA Piper in Germany to boost its technology and data protection law offering.
Partner Jan Pohle has joined the firm in Dusseldorf alongside a senior associate after more than 14 years at DLA Piper, having earlier practised at Taylor Wessing.
Pohle is one of the leading tech, data and privacy lawyers in Germany and brings particular strength in digitalisation projects and developing and implementing complex technology procurement projects. His experience extends to the outsourcing of IT services and business processes.
Stefan Dittmer, Dentons’ head of IP and technology in Germany, said the pair’s hire “takes our consulting services on pressing issues surrounding the digitalisation of business processes, the data economy and the use of AI technologies to the next level”.
Pohle joins Dentons as the fifth partner in its German privacy and cybersecurity practice, which, alongside Dittmer, includes partners Constantin Rehaag, Christian Schefold and Christoph Zieger. The team practises across IP, IP disputes and unfair competition litigation, compliance, data protection and cybersecurity law and contentious commercial and IT law, and has worked with clients including Bosch and German publishing house dtv Verlag.
Pohle commented: “What excites me about Dentons is the entrepreneurial opportunities and the chance to jointly advance the firm’s positioning as a young, dynamic challenger brand in the market. I am convinced that with Dentons’ affinity for technology and its leading role in innovation, we can offer our clients relevant and tailored solutions.”
Dentons has one of the larger German practices among international law firms, with 250 lawyers across four offices. That’s just behind Bird & Bird, A&O Shearman and Osborne Clarke, which each have between 270 and 285 lawyers in Germany according to publicly available data tracked by Pirical, and somewhat smaller than DLA Piper’s 314-strong practice.
Pohle’s hire follows Dentons adding partner Kerstin Henrich in Düsseldorf last October from EY Law, where she was the head of energy transactions/M&A, at the same time adding energy regulatory partner Sebastian Helmes from EY Law in Berlin.
Last month the firm also hired Cornelius Grossman, a former global leader of EY Law, in Berlin to lead a new global solutions group. Grossman was the third former senior EY partner to join Dentons in recent months. Kate Barton was the accountancy giant’s global vice chair before succeeding Elliott Portnoy as Dentons’ CEO last November, while in January, Jonathan Glazer joined the firm as global chief operating officer having been EY’s US partnership operations leader and tax matters partner.
Dentons’ Germany practice has also seen exits recently, including partner Peter Homberg, who left for Gunnercooke at the start of this year having been head of the firm’s German life sciences practice. In late 2023, partner teams also left for Pinsent Masons and Hogan Lovells.
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