Hogan's Warsaw office quits for K&L Gates ahead of Hogan-Lovells merger
K&L Gates is to open an office in Warsaw after scooping the entire office of Hogan & Hartson in the city.
The office will go live as K&L Gates’s 36th location worldwide on 15 March. The 33 lawyers due to join K&L Gates include six partners and office head Maciej Jamka.
The exit of Hogan’s Warsaw office from its network comes two months before the firm merges with Lovells, which currently operates one of the largest foreign offices in Poland.
“We’ve enjoyed and appreciated being part of Hogan & Hartson for almost 20 years,” said Jamka. “We all wish our colleagues there much success as they move ahead as Hogan Lovells.”
The Warsaw office will be K&L Gates’s third international launch in 2010, following January openings in both Tokyo and Moscow. It is thought it will add up to $10m (£6.56m) in revenue to the US firm along with a client base focused on both local and international matters.
“Warsaw’s a strategic location for a global law firm, and we’re delighted that this distinguished group of practitioners will found K&L Gates’s Warsaw office,” said the firm’s global managing partner Peter Kalis. “Poland’s a top 20 global economy and one that’s withstood the challenges of the global financial crisis.”
Hogan chairman Warren Gorrell said: “We fully support this arrangement and we’re working cooperatively with our Warsaw lawyers and their new firm to facilitate a smooth transition.”
Readers' comments (4)
Anonymous | 1-Mar-2010 5:10 pm
I suspect Hogan's Warsaw office saw the writing on the wall regarding their place in the Lovells tie-up.
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Anonymous | 1-Mar-2010 5:13 pm
So Gorrell supports the arrangement, does he? I can't imagine Hogan or Lovells are delighted to lose a major office a month before the merger goes ahead, or did the Hogans lot just refuse to get in to bed with Lovells in Poland?
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Anonymous | 1-Mar-2010 9:13 pm
Simply, Gorrell chose the Lovells office over his own office.
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Anonymous | 2-Mar-2010 12:15 pm
By my maths the combined office would have had 12 partners and around 100 lawyers, making it one of the very largest law firm in Poland. There would probably be some overlap in practice areas as well so some sort of scaling back exercise would have been inevitable should the thing have proceeded. This is probably the cleanest solution for all involved.
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