Taylor Wessing hires, boosts its Polish finance team

Taylor Wessing hires, boosts its Polish finance team

Hires are latest of series of team moves in Warsaw as international firms exchange blows

Taylor Wessing has enhanced its Polish banking and finance practice with the hire of a 10-lawyer team from Deloitte Legal.

The group is led by former Deloitte Legal head of banking and finance Zbigniew Korba and banking and insurance regulatory specialist Łukasz Szymańsk. Besides it includes three counsel, four senior associates and one associate.

Leaving aside one senior associate, who specialises in real estate and construction, the team will all join Taylor Wessing's Warsaw banking and finance practice, which will be headed by Korba.

Szymański joined the firm on 1 December. With the arrival of the remaining team members due over the next two months, Taylor Wessing's Poland office headcount will increase to 30 lawyers out of a total of 50 staff.

"The incoming partners were 'renowned in the Polish legal market' with the firm highlighting banking and finance and the real estate sector. These are the areas of strategic focus with increasing growth opportunities in Poland," informed CEE managing partner Raimund Cancola.

Advising on transactions and regulatory issues, Korba's practice focuses on the financial and real estate sectors. Previous firms include PwC Legal and Salans, now Dentons. Szymańs has enjoyed stints at K&L Gates, Wardynski & Partners and Poland's financial services regulator.

With offices in Bratislava, Brno, Budapest, Kiev, Klagenfurt, Prague and Vienna, Warsaw Taylor Wessing has an extensive network across Central and Eastern Europe.

According to the 2021 annual ranking by the newspaper Rzeczpospolita, with around 90 lawyers Deloitte Legal, which practices in Poland, Deloitte Legal Ostrowski Gizicki i Wspólnicy, is Poland's 18th-largest law firm by size.

Tomasz Ostrowski took up the role of Poland managing partner, when hired in October 2021. Together with it hired a 12-strong banking team from White & Case.

There have been a series of large team moves in Poland in recently. Last week, Greenberg Traurig hired a seven-strong group of real estate lawyers, including one partner and two senior associates from Dentons.

Greenberg, in turn, lost a 10-strong property team in November to CMS. In September CMS took on a five-strong finance team from Baker McKenzie.