Another strong business year for GvW Graf von Westphalen

The internationally active law firm GvW Graf von Westphalen is looking back at an excellent business year: In 2014, the firm’s lawyers and tax advisors generated a total turnover of almost EUR 37.5 million. This means an increase in turnover of one million Euros in comparison to the previous year. With an almost identical number of fee earners, workload and therefore profitability could be significantly increased. As a result, the profit per partner rose by more than 17% compared to the year 2013.

What is particularly satisfying is the positive development across all locations in all practice groups: The three most profitable practice groups are still corporate/M&A, construction/real estate law and public law (including customs and foreign trade law). However, the largest climbers are the practice groups IP/IT and employment law with increases in turnover of 24% and 23% respectively as opposed to the previous year.

“Our strategy of a sustainable cooperation across locations and practice groups while at the same time promoting the specialization idea has proven to be very successful in the past five years” stated the firm’s two managing partners, Christof Kleinmann and Dr Robert Theissen. “Our clients appreciate the full-service approach and advice from one single source, since they know that they get reliable quality in legal advice and service in different specialist fields. This is precisely why we have been able to constantly increase the profit per partner in the last few years.”

The employees also benefit from this upswing of course: With effect from 1 January 2015, the firm appointed three new equity partners, five new associated partners and one local partner. The majority of these new partners were trained at GvW (more).

The figures demonstrate that GvW remains an attractive employer for young lawyers: In 2013/2014, 191 trainees and interns were educated in Germany and in China - in the firm’s five German offices, but also in Shanghai.

Christof Kleinmann and Dr Robert Theissen comment in this regard: “The most important component for the upswing is our highly qualified and motivated personnel - lawyers and administrative staff alike. We are grateful for our employees’ great commitment and pleased that as a German independent law firm with strong international focus, we are increasingly perceived as an attractive employer.”