International law firm Reed Smith ranked in 24 practice areas, including five new entries for the firm; and seven of its individual lawyers were honored, two for the first time, in the 2021 Legal 500 EMEA rankings.

The five new practice rankings are linked to the firm’s recent establishment of a Brussels office to contend with trade-centered questions. The five practices are:

  • Belgium Customs, trade, WTO and anti-dumping
  • Belgium Industry focus: Transport
  • France Industry focus: Energy
  • France Intellectual property: Patents
  • Germany Restructuring

The firm had two practice areas appear in Tier 1: Kazakhstan Dispute Resolution and United Arab Emirates Construction.

The two new individual entrants to the list for the firm are Andreas Splittgerber – Germany Information technology: Data protection (Leading Lawyer); and Minas Kitsilis – Greece Energy (Rising Star).

Five other individual lawyers who were ranked are repeat winners:

  • Jean-Pierre Collet – France Tax: Property tax (Leading Lawyer)
  • Sachin Kerur – United Arab Emirates Construction (Hall of Fame)
  • Vassilis Mavrakis – Greece Shipping litigation (Rising Star)
  • Michelle Nelson – United Arab Emirates Construction (Hall of Fame)
  • Marianne Schaffner – France Intellectual property: Patents (Leading Lawyer)

The Legal 500 defines "Rising Stars" as lawyers below partner level who frequently appear in their rankings. And it defines “Hall of Fame” as lawyers who have a sustained leading presence in their respective practices over several years.

Most of the lawyers mentioned in the editorial sections appear for more than one practice category. Here is the full list of editorial mentions ordered by country and practice category:

Belgium

  • Customs, trade, WTO and anti-dumping: Leigh Hansson, Mike Lowell, Yves Melin.
  • Industry focus: Transport: Christian Filippitsch, Geert Goeteyn, Isabelle Rahman.

France

  • Dispute resolution, Commercial litigation: Benoît Charot, Daniel Kadar.
  • Dispute resolution, International arbitration: Ana Atallah, Clément Fouchard, Peter Rosher, Andrew Tetley.
  • EU, competition and distribution: Marc Lévy, Natasha Tardif.
  • Industry focus, Energy: Fernand Arsanios, Clément Fouchard, Peter Rosher, Victoria Westcott.
  • Healthcare and life sciences: Benoît Charot, Daniel Kadar, Marc Lévy, Natasha Tardif.
  • Intellectual property, Patents: Thierry Lautier.
  • Real estate: Stéphane Illouz.
  • Shipping: Ana Atallah, Florent Rigaud, Andrew Tetley, Victoria Westcott.
  • Shipping finance: Victoria Westcott, Florent Rigaud.
  • Tax: Florence Bilger, David Colin, Jean-Pierre Collet.

Germany

  • Compliance, Internal investigations: Rolf Hünermann, Philip Schmidt, Christian Stempfle.
  • Information technology, Data protection: Thomas Fischl.
  • IT and outsourcing, Information technology and digitalisation: Thomas Fischl, Andreas Splittgerber.
  • Private equity, Venture capital: Justus Binder, Florian Hirschmann, Silvio McMiken, Octávio de Sousa.
  • Media, Entertainment: Alexander Klett.
  • Restructuring and insolvency, Restructuring: Volker Kammel.

Greece

  • Shipping litigation: Vassilis Mavrakis, Sally-Ann Underhill.

Kazakhstan

  • Banking, finance and capital markets: Belinda Paisley, Askar Zhansagimov.
  • Commercial, corporate and M&A: David Boutcher, Adil Idrissov, Azhar Kuzutbayeva, Askar Zhansagimov.
  • Dispute resolution: Chloe Carswell, Belinda Paisley.

United Arab Emirates

  • Construction: Simon Harvey, Sachin Kerur, Jane Miles, Michelle Nelson.
  • Infrastructure and projects (including project finance): Simon Harvey, Sachin Kerur.