Pan-European firm Noerr is undertaking a significant overhaul of practice heads and an organisational rethinking of certain practices.

For starters, it will have seven new equity partners from January 1, 2022: Katrin Andrä, Dr. Jennifer Bryant, Dr. Benjamin Jahn, Dr. Torsten Kraul, Dr. Alexander Schilling, Simone Schönen and Dr. Laurenz Tholen.

A further three lawyers will act as senior counsel (salaried partners) going forward: Dr. Morris Besch, Ben Kempe and Robert Korndörfer. In addition, the firm has appointed 11 associate partners and five counsel.

“The partner appointments of lawyers from different areas demonstrate our approach of offering all top talents career prospects and growing sustainably,” remarked co-managing partner Dr. Alexander Ritvay, with the firm's other co-managing partner, Torsten Fett, highlighting the fact that the firm will now have more women in leadership roles. “Overall, we are becoming younger with more female colleagues in leading roles.”

Let’s take a look at the newcomers:

• In the Capital Markets practice group, Julian Schulze De la Cruz (44) will take over from Gerald Reger (51) as co-head alongside Holger Alfes (51).

• Marlies Raschke (45) will succeed Martin Kleinschmitt (61) as co-head of the Restructuring & Insolvency practice group together with Thomas Hoffmann (57).

• Christian Mayer (44) will take over from Dominik Wendel (57) as co-head of the Automotive & New Mobility practice group alongside Albin Ströbl (47).

• Hans Christian Kirchner (57) will hand over leadership of the Class & Mass Action Defense practice group to Henner Schläfke (41).

• Evelyn Schulz (45) will succeed Fabian Badtke (44) as head of the Healthcare practice group, who will focus instead on leading the Antitrust & Competition practice group.

• Bärbel Sachs (46) is taking over from Holger Schmitz (59) as head of the Regulatory, Governmental Affairs & Investment Controls practice group.

The Corporate/M&A practice group will be split into:

• Corporate, headed by Michael Brellochs (45) and Martin Neuhaus (47); and

• M&A, headed by Natalie Daghles (41) and Alexander Hirsch (51). The current co-head Florian Becker (49) will move to Noerr’s London office in mid-2022.

• Stock corporation law advice, which has so far been part of the Capital Markets practice group, will be integrated into the Corporate practice group. The Capital Markets practice will focus on advising on equity and debt capital.

“Through this reorganisation, we will be better reflecting the structures in the market and further strengthening our profile in all three areas,” said Dr. Ritvay. “However, this does not mean that the practices will be separated. On the contrary: the lawyers of these practice groups will continue to work together closely.”