McDermott Will & Emery has hired a senior duo from Reed Smith to strengthen its German corporate coverage.

Rolf Hünermann and Philip Schmidt both join the firm’s transactions practice group in Frankfurt as partners. They bring with them around three decades of combined experience advising clients on domestic and cross-border M&A, as well as matters related to corporate law, compliance and environmental, social and governance considerations such as supply chain issues.

Jens Ortmanns, McDermott’s German managing partner, said: “We are counting on even stronger collaboration of our practice groups to provide comprehensive and fully integrated legal services to our clients, and to further grow our German capabilities. With their specialisation in investigations and compliance, Rolf Hünermann and Philip Schmidt are an excellent fit for this strategy.”

Hünermann joins McDermott after seven-and-a-half years at Reed Smith, where he was co-founder of the firm’s Frankfurt business and managing partner of the office. Prior to that he spent more than eight years as a partner at Willkie Farr & Gallagher and six years at Clifford Chance. Schmidt meantime joins after just under six years as counsel at Reed Smith, which he joined from Ashurst, where he was an associate.

Harris Siskind, global head of McDermott’s transactions practice, said: “With corporate governance being the cornerstone of any successfully business, we are confident that our clients will be able to further spearhead their operations drawing on the decades of supreme experience that Rolf and Philip bring to the table.”

Other international firms have been seeking to strengthen their German businesses in recent months. In September, King & Spalding added corporate and M&A partner Peter Memminger and a team of four in Frankfurt. The quintet joined from Memminger’s own independent practice, BMP. Also in September, Norton Rose Fulbright opened in Düsseldorf, hiring nine lawyers from a number of elite firms including Eversheds Sutherland, Allen & Overy, Pinsent Masons and Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer.

In August, US peer Milbank hired a trio of equity capital markets lawyers from Clifford Chance in Frankfurt – including partner Philipp Klöckner – as part of a plan to grow its German capital markets practice. Also in August, Eversheds announced plans to open in Frankfurt next year following the hiring of PwC’s German legal head Steffen Schniep.