Linklaters trio joins breakaway firm

Two more German Linklaters partners and a managing associate joined breakaway Cologne firm Oppenhoff & Partner for its launch on 1 January.

Partner and ex-head of Linklaters' German litigation team Peter Klappich, ex-Linklaters environmental partner Stephan Müller and ex-Linklaters property managing associate Lars Böttcher all joined Oppenhoff's partnership.

Another seven former Linklaters managing associates have also become partners.

Oppenhoff was set up after Linklaters shut up shop in Cologne to move to Düsseldorf. With the new recruits and recent promotions, Oppenhoff houses 21 partners.

A spokesman for Oppenhoff said: "Small is beautiful. It's a return to traditional values, away from the pressure on lawyers that you had at Linklaters, where if in the first year there was no performance you'd get the red card."

Michael Oppenhoff, one of the founding partners, said: "We founding partners are very happy that we managed to convince young talents of our common goals."