German firm Friedrich Graf von Westphalen & Partners (FGvW) has hired a group of six partners from ADVANT Beiten in Frankfurt.
The incoming team includes Gerritt Ponath, Katharina Hanson and Stefan Raddatz, who will join this month, while the remaining three – Detlef Koch, Mario Riechmann and Volker Szpak – will arrive in January.
Ponath, who leaves ADVANT after 18 years, specialises in private client work for families and individuals on matters including inheritance and tax law, as well as national and international asset and succession planning, and related litigation. He joins as an equity partner, while Hanson and Raddatz – also private client lawyers – join as local partners.
Koch, Riechmann and Szpak, meanwhile, will bring expertise spanning corporate, real estate and tax law, and all join as equity partners.
Koch is a corporate and M&A specialist, and leaves ADVANT after 15 years, having previously been a partner at leading German and international law firms, including legacy Faegre & Benson.
Reichmann, who also advises national and international companies on corporate law, M&A and tax law, leaves ADVANT after 10 years, having been made a partner in 2019. Szpak is a tax specialist spanning corporate, real estate and M&A law, including the legal and tax structuring of real estate transactions, both in share deals and asset deals.
FGvW partner Carsten Laschet said: “We are extremely pleased to welcome these highly skilled and experienced colleagues and the expertise they will bring in their respective areas of law. This addition will enable us to further expand our range of consulting services in the Rhine-Main area and throughout Germany.
“With these new partners, who are clearly aligned with market needs, we are continuing our course of expanding our interdisciplinary teams with high-profile individuals, thereby strengthening FGvW’s long-term position in the market.”
Ponath said he and his colleagues were “looking forward to actively shaping the further development of FGvW’s Frankfurt office and thus contributing to the firm’s sustainable growth”.
The hires bring FGvW’s partner count to nine new partners and two local partners this year across its German offices, which span Berlin, Frankfurt, Freiburg, Cologne, Hamburg and Düsseldorf, following a five-partner promotion round that will take effect from January.
Those promotions included environmental lawyer Michael Körner, labour and employment lawyers Annette Rölz and Andreas Schubert, competition and regulatory lawyer Hildegard Schöllmann, and company and commercial specialist Sven Ufe Tjarks.
Two of the partners are in Cologne and Freiburg, while Schöllmann will work alongside her existing Frankfurt colleagues and the new arrivals. All were previously local partners at the firm.
Laschet said that, alongside lateral hires, the firm was equally committed to organic growth, which demonstrated “the excellent development and career opportunities that talented lawyers have in our firm”.
FGvW previously boosted its Frankfurt office with a two-partner real estate hire – Martin Meissner and Cihangir Agdemir – from Reed Smith in October.
The hires also follow the 2022 exit of former FGvW partner Barbara Mayer, who left to join ADVANT in Freiburg with a 16-strong corporate team.
ADVANT is best known to UK firms as Beiten Burkhardt, which was formed in 2021 from a European alliance of independent commercial law firms, including Italy’s NCTM and French firm Altana.
ADVANT also announced its own partner promotions recently, including one equity promotion – Munich-based dispute resolution lawyer Florian Weichselgärtner – alongside six local partner promotions and nine salaried ones across Germany. The firm was contacted for comment.
Meanwhile, German peer Gleiss Lutz today promoted nine partners in its latest promotions round, compared with just two last year.
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