Freshfields Germany loses one more as W&C strikes

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer’s Frankfurt office has lost another partner, this time to White & Case, following last week’s three-lawyer defection to SJ Berwin.

Lutz Krämer will now head up White & Case’s equity capital markets offering in Frankfurt, as first revealed by German publication Juve. The US firm’s capital markets headcount in Frankfurt now stands at 21, including 12 partners.

The New York firm has been trying to boost its leveraged and acquisition finance offering of late, and Krämer’s arrival adds to that of acquisition finance partner Tom Schorling, which White & Case hired from Weil Gotshal & Manges in August 2006 for the Frankfurt office. Schorling has acquisition finance especially in the private equity arena with clients such as Texas Pacific and CSFB Private Equity.

Krämer has particular expertise in IPOs and secondary offerings. Prior to Freshfields, where he joined in 2000, he was at Simpson Thacher & Bartlett and spent a period in-house as senior counsel to Dresdner Bank.

As first reported on www.thelawyer.com (11 January), Freshfields’ Frankfurt office lost three IP lawyers, including partner Stefan Krueger, to SJ Berwin.