McDermott Will & Emery hires 12 lawyers from Italian firm for Milan office as US firms accelerate Continental European expansion
McDermott Will & Emery has hired 12 lawyers from an Italian law firm to staff its Milan office, in one of the largest single-team lateral moves into an Italian market by a US firm in recent memory. The move follows a broader pattern of US law firms deepening their presence in Continental Europe — particularly Italy and Germany — as M&A and private equity deal flow from American clients investing into European markets continues to grow. Milan is Italy's commercial and financial centre, and the anchor city for private equity, finance, and M&A transactions in the Italian market. A team of 12 represents a substantial commitment to building a full-service transactional capability rather than a boutique presence. Separately, Beijing-headquartered Grandall Law Firm has opened offices in Milan and Budapest, its fourth and fifth European locations after Paris, Madrid, and Stockholm, through a strategic partnership with Milan-based CHORD Legal (now rebranded) and a renamed Hungarian firm. Grandall described the expansion as driven by demand from Chinese companies 'going global' and a strategic move to integrate Chinese legal services into global governance structures — signalling that the Milan market is now attracting simultaneous investment from both US and Chinese law firms as a gateway to the EU's third-largest economy.
Why this matters
The McDermott Milan team expansion and Grandall's dual Milan-Budapest launch reflect a structural shift in the European legal market: both US and Chinese firms are simultaneously targeting Continental Europe as a platform for serving clients with cross-border investment flows. For UK-trained lawyers, this matters because London firms traditionally dominate cross-border European M&A as the neutral, English-law seat of choice — but US firms building full Italian or German practices reduce the need to route transactions through London. The Grandall expansion adds a further dimension: Chinese outbound investment into Europe (where Chinese companies are 'going global') is generating legal demand that Chinese firms are now positioning to capture directly rather than ceding to Western advisers.
On the Ground
A trainee working on a cross-border matter involving a newly opened Continental office would draft local counsel instruction letters coordinating the Italian team's role, assist with cross-border legal opinion coordination to ensure opinions from Italian counsel align with English law transaction documents, and prepare choice-of-law summaries for any contractual dispute resolution clauses.
Interview prep
Soundbite
US and Chinese firms building parallel Milan presences compresses the space for London firms to anchor European M&A through English law alone.
Question you might get
“How does a Chinese law firm opening offices in Milan and Budapest affect the competitive dynamics for a UK Magic Circle firm advising on Chinese outbound investment into Continental Europe?”
Full answer
McDermott Will & Emery has hired 12 lawyers into its Milan office from an Italian firm, while Grandall Law Firm simultaneously opened Italian and Hungarian offices — both moves targeting the same Continental European deal market. For UK commercial lawyers, this matters because it signals that American and Chinese firms are no longer content to rely on London as the primary European legal hub, and are building the local-law capabilities to capture transactions on the ground. The structural trend is the gradual fragmentation of European M&A legal mandates away from a London-centric model, driven by post-Brexit proximity advantages for firms with direct EU-law capacity. This reinforces the strategic importance of Magic Circle and top Silver Circle firms maintaining strong German, French, and Italian networks to preserve their cross-border positioning.
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