Linklaters is planning to build a private client practice in London again, seven years after it ran the team down, The Lawyer understands.

The magic circle firm is understood to have approached partners at several leading private client, wealth management and trusts groups including Forsters and Withers to build up the new team.

Linklaters hired Forsters partner Peter Golden in March to head up its trusts practice. Golden had a number of private clients at his former firm, advising on trusts, tax wills and probate law.

Nigel Reid, formerly longstanding head of trusts at Linklaters, retired as a partner in 2011 after more than 20 years at the firm. He remains a consultant to the trusts practice.

Currently the trusts team sits within Linklaters’ wider corporate practice. It is not yet known whether a move to boost its private client offering will affect this structure.

Linklaters was among a number of full-service global firms to cull its private client team in 2009. Allen & Overy spun off its five-partner private client department in the same year. Three of the partners launched boutique Maurice Turnor Gardner, with a number of associates also transferring to the new firm.

Clifford Chance similarly abandoned its private client group though it retained a number of its key partners, such as wealth and assessment management specialist Jeremy Kosky.

Meanwhile Linklaters disbanded its private client group as part of Simon Davies’s so-called ‘New World’ clearout, in which 270 jobs were axed. The strategic overhaul was part of a bid by Linklaters to become a smaller, more profitable organisation.

One senior private client source said: “Everyone had a private client department 10 years ago, then they all got rid of them thinking private client was dead.

“They failed to recognise it had morphed into something else and a lot of work that looks and feels corporate actually has private clients behind it.”

Another source added: “Linklaters has locked into its corporate practice a lot of private client work that they just haven’t characterised as private client.”

A third source said: “A lot of firms have been running down their private client practices for many years, but if you’re acting for a large privately-owned company in a jurisdiction like Germany for example, you’ve got to be able to look after the families.”

A spokesperson for Linklaters said in a statement: “We keep an eye on the market but, at the moment, we don’t have any immediate hiring plans at partner level.”

Linklaters has embarked on a number of strategy changes this year following an overhaul of its leadership. Former banking head Gideon Moore stepped into the managing partner role in January while M&A star Charlie Jacobs was elected to the role of senior partner earlier this month.