Gleiss Lutz is a German law firm

Law firm

A law firm is a business entity formed by one or more lawyers to engage in the practice of law. The primary service rendered by a law firm is to advise clients about their legal rights and responsibilities, and to represent clients in civil or criminal cases, business transactions, and other...

 founded in Stuttgart

Stuttgart

Stuttgart is the capital of the state of Baden-Württemberg in southern Germany. The sixth-largest city in Germany, Stuttgart has a population of 600,038 while the metropolitan area has a population of 5.3 million ....

 in 1949 by Alfred Gleiss. Gleiss' initial partner, Arved Deringer

Arved Deringer

Arved Deringer was a German lawyer and politician for the CDU. He was a member of the Bundestag from 1957 and 1969....

, left in 1961 to form his own firm, now part of Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer LLP is a global law firm headquartered in London, United Kingdom and a member of the 'Magic Circle' of leading English law firms. It is the second-largest law firm in the world measured by revenues. In 2010-11 it achieved total revenues of £1.14 billion and profits...

. Gleiss was joined in 1962 by partners Helmuth Lutz, Christian Hootz and Martin Hirsch in the expanded partnership, Gleiss Lutz Hootz Hirsch.

Brussels

Brussels

Brussels , officially the Brussels Region or Brussels-Capital Region , is the capital of Belgium and the de facto capital of the European Union...

 was chosen as location for the firm's second office, established in 1963, in 1990, the firm launched in Berlin

Berlin

Berlin is the capital city of Germany and is one of the 16 states of Germany. With a population of 3.45 million people, Berlin is Germany's largest city. It is the second most populous city proper and the seventh most populous urban area in the European Union...

 and Frankfurt

Frankfurt

Frankfurt am Main , commonly known simply as Frankfurt, is the largest city in the German state of Hesse and the fifth-largest city in Germany, with a 2010 population of 688,249. The urban area had an estimated population of 2,300,000 in 2010...

, expanding beyond the niche of antitrust

Antitrust

The United States antitrust law is a body of laws that prohibits anti-competitive behavior and unfair business practices. Antitrust laws are intended to encourage competition in the marketplace. These competition laws make illegal certain practices deemed to hurt businesses or consumers or both,...

 to become a full service law firm. The firm expanded its German coverage by adding a Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

 office in 2001, a Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf

Düsseldorf is the capital city of the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia and centre of the Rhine-Ruhr metropolitan region.Düsseldorf is an important international business and financial centre and renowned for its fashion and trade fairs. Located centrally within the European Megalopolis, the...

 office in 2009 as well as a Hamburg

Hamburg

-History:The first historic name for the city was, according to Claudius Ptolemy's reports, Treva.But the city takes its modern name, Hamburg, from the first permanent building on the site, a castle whose construction was ordered by the Emperor Charlemagne in AD 808...

 office in 2010.

Gleiss Lutz currently employs 280 attorneys in 7 offices in Europe. Its revenues in 2008 were €130 million.

International Expansion

Gleiss Lutz expanded into Central and Eastern Europe following the fall of the Iron Curtain

Iron Curtain

The concept of the Iron Curtain symbolized the ideological fighting and physical boundary dividing Europe into two separate areas from the end of World War II in 1945 until the end of the Cold War in 1989...

 when German companies quickly became large investors in those countries. In co-operation with local law firms, the firm currently maintains offices in Prague

Prague

Prague is the capital and largest city of the Czech Republic. Situated in the north-west of the country on the Vltava river, the city is home to about 1.3 million people, while its metropolitan area is estimated to have a population of over 2.3 million...

 and Warsaw

Warsaw

Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...

. Gleiss Lutz at that point aspired to build a pan-European practice. In 1998, the firm announced it was to merge with Stibbe Simont Monahan Duhot

Stibbe

Stibbe is a Benelux full-service law firm with an internationally oriented commercial practice. Its primary offices are located in Amsterdam, Brussels and Luxembourg and the firm has branch offices in Dubai, London and New York...

, a Dutch law firm. However, senior partners in the firm blocked the merger. It also briefly explored merger talks with Freshfields (which instead merged with Bruckhaus Westrick Heller Lober, and Deringer Tessin Herrmann & Sedemund).