Schalast | Our growth history: Growth for impact
The 2020s - growth spurt during the pandemic
Our law firm has grown since it was founded in 1995. Today we are available to our clients with more than 75 lawyers in five locations. But we don't grow for the sake of growth. Our mission is "Growth for Impact." We grow where our expertise creates real entrepreneurial added value.
We have recently strengthened our healthcare & life sciences and property law practice. We already advise numerous healthcare companies, particularly in the areas of labour law and M&A. In recent years, our advice to start-ups and investors in the biotech and healthtech sectors has also increased. These interfaces are now being merged and expanded. Our real estate team at the Hamburg office is thus strengthening our nationwide expertise in real estate law, which is also complemented internationally by the network of Multilaw partner law firms. In addition, our Real Estate practice group provides the interface to energy issues. We established the energy practice in 2022 in order to further develop the special advisory knowledge that we gained from the sensational RWE-Eon case and make a stronger contribution to our economy's sustainable orientation. At the beginning of 2021, we recorded our largest growth to date by opening our offices in Düsseldorf and Stuttgart and expanding the Hamburg office to include a tax law team. Through these expansions, we were able to strengthen our corporate/M&A practice in particular, in order to support German medium-sized companies even more effectively in developing into sustainable innovation drivers in global competition.
Our award as a top law firm in the areas of banking and finance law as well as corporate law by WirtschaftsWoche shows we have now achieved top level nationwide in the core business of our Frankfurt location and advising other industries.
The 2010s - turbulent times and LegalTech
In the 2010s, we took up the topic of LegalTech and LegalProjects early on by acquiring the subsidiary CLARIUS.LEGAL in the summer of 2017 and expanded it*. This is a development that resulted in the internationally leading industry magazine The Lawyer naming Schalast as "Law Firm of the Year Germany" in 2018. One reason for this was certainly the successful integration into the Tier 1 (so Chambers last 2020) network Multilaw during the 2010s and the accompanying steadily growing cross-border activity.
In addition, the now broad-based Corporate/M&A practice group grew out of the private equity-focused transaction practice, and the NPL transactions with their strong regulatory impact became one of the leading banking and financial law practices in the German financial center of Frankfurt (NPL is of course still there). From the broadband cable boutique to a full service law firm with strong additional accents in the areas of labor law, IT/IP and litigation as well as new offices in Berlin (from 2006) and Hamburg (from 2017).
1990s and 2000s - The founding DNA in finance and infrastructure law
Our founding DNA consisted of supporting a buy and build strategy for a private equity fund in the consolidating broadband cable market - there weren't many in Germany at the time - as well as real estate-based NPL transactions. At first, there were three clients, the British financial investor Alchemy, a Berlin-based mortgage bank and the formerly leading toothpaste producer in the former GDR. At the beginning of the 2000s our law firm developed its important role in the infrastructure and broadband cable/telecommunications sectors. The years were eventful and the crash of the new market in 2000 left its mark, especially noticeable during the first IPO, SMATcom AG, that Schalast accompanied and which had to be canceled three days before the planned IPO. Nonetheless, growth continued, which was then impressively confirmed in 2007 with the JUVE Awards for "Medium-sized Law Firm of the Year," "Law Firm of the Year Frankfurt" and "Law Firm of the Year Telecommunications."
*Clarius Legal became independent in 2023.