DLA Piper announced today (2 September) that it has hired a pair of partners from Pinsent Masons to launch a legal delivery centre (LDC) in Germany. 

Munich-based duo Michael Zollner and Carl Renner have joined the firm as partners alongside four members of their team after four years at Pinsent Masons, where they co-headed the firm’s flexible lawyering arm, Vario, in Germany. At DLA Piper they are expected to establish and lead the new LDC. 

The LDC, part of DLA Piper’s New Law arm, Law&, will offer services such as legal project management, electronic document management, technology solutions and flexible staffing. DLA Piper said it would make advisory services “more efficient for projects with different levels of complexity, thereby adding considerable value to clients”.

“The establishment of the LDC as a cost-efficient and technology-supported basis for supporting our clients is a further building block of our growth and innovation strategy in Germany,” said Kai Bodenstedt, co-managing partner of DLA Piper in Germany. “We’re delighted that Carl and Michael, two partners with many years of experience in the field of managed legal services, will be building up this area in Germany together with their team.” 

A DLA Piper spokesperson said the firm already operated LDCs in Leeds, Amsterdam and across its Australian network with further locations to be unveiled in the coming months. Significant opportunities had been identified in Germany, particularly by the mass claims and IP and technology teams, and for the provision of support in the transactional teams, the spokesperson added. 

Zollner and Renner set up and led the German arm of contract legal services business Lawyers on Demand (LOD) before moving over to Pinsent Masons in 2020 and before that ran their own boutique focused on advising tech companies on commercial law. Zollner also brings in-house experience at Atoss Software and semiconductor manufacturer Infineon Technologies. 

“Certain tasks of legal departments require economic and technical understanding and can be completed faster and more efficiently with innovative tools, optimised processes and appropriate resources,” Renner and Zollner said in a joint statement. “This is precisely why we offer clients in Germany and internationally a real competitive advantage with DLA Piper’s Law& solutions.”

Four members of their team at Vario joined DLA Piper in July: senior transaction lawyers Alexander Ebner and Maximilian Badmann, client solutions manager Sissy Vogel and senior operations manager Susanne Mühlbauer.

The LDC’s launch follows DLA Piper opening its fifth German office, in Düsseldorf, earlier this year. The office is led by Michael Cieslarczyk, head of the firm’s German energy team, and includes employment partner Christian Freiherr von Buddenbrock and his team, who joined from German firm Advant Beiten in April and specialise in company pension plans. The firm has more than 300 lawyers in Germany, according to its website. 

Other law firms expanding their New Law offerings recently include Ashurst, which launched a global delivery centre (GDC) in Krakow, Poland in February operated in partnership with legal software and resourcing provider Elevate. The centre is the Anglo-Australian firm’s third after its GDCs in Brisbane and Glasgow. 

Meantime in May Herbert Smith Freehills launched a global digital legal delivery practice that brought its alternative legal services team and its newer legal operations, digital transformation and emerging tech teams together in one practice, while early this year Mishcon de Reya made its first acquisition in the alternative legal services market, snapping up flexible working platform Flex Legal.