Freshfields opens office in Italian capital

Freshfields has opened an office in Rome, as predicted last week in The Lawyer.

The new office consists of six lawyers, all of whom are Italian qualified except the partner in charge, Neil Faulkner, who has transferred from London.

It is Freshfields' seventh office on the continent, bringing its total world coverage to 17 offices staffed by 187 partners and more than 950 lawyers.

Freshfields' Milan office opened last February with seven partners and 20 other lawyers. It has subsequently grown to eight partners and 37 other lawyers, altogether 41 of whom are locally-qualified.

The core of the Milan practice is cross-border finance, although it now claims to offer a full range of domestic and international legal services.

The Milan and Rome offices will be run as a single, integrated practice, with the Roman team concentrating on administrative law issues.

'There's a great deal to be done on the government side,' said Faulkner. 'Tax and competition law are undergoing a massive overhaul in Italy at the present time.'