Bird & Bird has lost a 20-lawyer team in Hamburg, including five partners, to DLA Piper.

The partners moving to DLA are technology, media and telecommunications partner Stefan Engels, corporate partners Jorg Paura and Daniel Weiss, litigation partner Michael Stulz-Herrnstadt and intellectual property partner Ulrike Grübler.

The partners all previously joined Bird & Bird from Hogan Lovells when it launched in Hamburg in 2011 following the merger between legacy firms Lovells and Hogan & Hartson in 2010.