Lathams Law Raid
Latham & Watkins has raided Freshfields’ in Germany to secure four of Europe’s most pedigreed private equity partners – Markus Paul, (pictued) who has two decades’ of deal-making experience behind him, Wessel Heukamp, Verena Nosch and Carsten Haak.
The raid comes from a firm already sitting atop Bloomberg’s global M&A rankings, now doubling down on Germany just as the buyout market starts flexing again.
The Move That Puts Europe on Notice
The foursome arrive with decades of experience in leveraged buyouts, cross-border puzzles, financial-sector complexities, and every other complex deal.
Latham’s global chair Rich Trobman kept it diplomatic, but the subtext is unmistakable: this is a power play. Germany is already one of the firm’s crown jewels and, inconveniently for the competition, this quartet brings deep market relationships and the kind of deal flow you don’t win by smiling nicely.
Europe’s PE Arms Race
Latham has spent 2025 racking up number-one rankings for global M&A and private-equity deal counts. Now it adds four lawyers who have been fixtures of the European deal table for years.
As German partner Oliver Felsenstein noted, the firm is approaching its 25th anniversary in Germany. What better birthday present than onboarding a strike team of operators who know every banker, fund manager and boardroom from Munich to Mayfair?
Frankfurt Meets Munich
Paul and Haak land in Frankfurt; Heukamp and Nosch take Munich. Together they plug straight into Latham’s cross-border engine room, giving clients a smoother runway from German mid-market plays to continental mega-deals.
German managing partner Burc Hesse said in the firm’s media statement that this hire cements Latham’s standing as a European heavyweight. The firm now has even fewer natural predators.
Private Equity’s Global Law Firm
Corporate chair Charles Ruck said private equity is one of Latham’s core pillars, and this hire strengthens that pillar in every key market. With dominant positions across M&A, capital markets, private credit and restructuring, the firm has essentially built the legal version of a fully integrated supply chain.
