Morgan Lewis & Bockius is set to absorb a 54-lawyer team from the Paris office of US firm Kramer Levin Naftalis & Frankel, the firm said Friday. 

The move comes ahead of Kramer Levin’s transatlantic merger with Herbert Smith Freehills, which is set to go live next May if approved by the partnerships of both firms. Kramer Levin’s Paris office – its only location outside of the US – was not included in the deal. 

The move represents a significant expansion of Morgan Lewis’s Paris office, taking its lawyer headcount to around 70, including 23 partners. The deal is similar to the one that saw Morgan Lewis take on a 20-strong team from Shearman & Sterling to open in Munich in 2023 ahead of Shearman’s merger with Allen & Overy to form A&O Shearman. 

The incoming Paris group is led by corporate partner Dana Anagnostou and private equity partner Sébastien Pontillo, who served as co-leaders of Kramer Levin’s Paris office. 

The team will add significant depth in French and cross-border corporate matters, boosting Morgan Lewis’s M&A and private equity, contract, banking and finance, compliance, litigation, employment, intellectual property, tax and investigations capabilities.

“The team’s arrival enhances our ability to take advantage of the burgeoning French and European equity markets for clients while being nimble to explore opportunities for them in key industry sectors such as alternative finance and cryptocurrency, technology, renewable energy and biotechnology,” said Morgan Lewis’s managing partner Steven Wall in a statement. 

Anagnostou will serve as co-managing partner of Morgan Lewis’s Paris office alongside current Morgan Lewis partner Sabine Smith-Vidal.

Vidal described the team’s hire as an “exciting and market-changing development on a number of levels – for our office, for our European team, for our firm and for our clients”.

The move continues a concerted growth push by Morgan Lewis in Europe. The firm has also recently added to its London bench with the hires of IP litigators Tim Powell from Powell Gilbert and Hiroshi Sheraton from Baker McKenzie, as well as corporate lawyer Luciana Griebel from Covington & Burling and secondaries partner Ted Craig from Paul Hastings.

The group joining Morgan Lewis represents the bulk of Kramer’s Paris office, which has 62 lawyers according to its website. The firm first acquired the office back in 1999 from legacy Roger & Wells when it broke away from a merger with Clifford Chance.

Kramer Levin’s merger with Herbert Smith Freehills, if successful, will create a 2,700-lawyer firm with more than $2bn in gross revenue.