US firm Paul Hastings has bagged desirable German independent firm Smeets Haas Wolff in Frankfurt following a long search for a suitable merger partner in Germany.
Twenty seven German lawyers will join the US firm and Smeets Haas’s five partners will join the partnership’s equity on 3 January 2008, concluding five months of negotiations. Smeets Haas was set up in 2001 by a group of associates from Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer and Hengeler Mueller.
The two firms have several large mutual clients, such as Credit Suisse, Deutsche Bank, General Electric, Morgan Stanley and Royal Bank of Scotland.
