White & Case has boosted its Berlin corporate team with a three-lawyer raid on Clifford Chance’s Dusseldorf office.
The former head of Clifford Chance’s Berlin office, which was closed in November 2004, and corporate M&A partner Jorg Kraffel will move to White & Case at the end of this year after 16 years as an equity partner at the firm, according to German publication Juve.
Clifford Chance corporate counsel Carsten Rodemann will join Kraffel as a local partner at White & Case, bringing with him a further associate from the Dusseldorf office.
The hires comes seven months after White & Case’s Berlin office lost partners Rainer Markfort and Ralf-Friedrich Fahrenbach and two associates to Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw.
White & Case Berlin’s executive partner, Nils Clemm said: “We have found the ideal addition to our German corporate team in Mr Kraffel.”
In 2004 White & Case poached former Clifford Chance partner Manfred Ungemach from the Dusseldorf office, taking two associates with him to head an energy practice in the same city.
Clifford Chance Germany managing partner Hans-Josef Schneider said: “We understand his decision to shift his life focus back to Berlin.”
