Paris. Photo: Shutterstock

Freshfields Bruckhaus Deringer has hired the co-founder of French boutique disputes firm Betto Seraglini as a partner in its Paris office.

Highly-rated litigator and arbitrator Christophe Seraglini is set to leave the eponymous firm six years after launching it alongside former Hogan Lovells Paris partner Jean-Georges Betto.

Prior to starting up the boutique firm, Seraglini was a counsel at White & Case, and has been a lecturer in international arbitration law at the University of Paris II Panthéon-Assas since 2015.

Alongside his new full-time role at Freshfields, Seraglini will continue to lecture on the law, which Paris disputes partner Peter Turner QC said "will deepen and broaden the [firm's] expertise in Paris and worldwide".

Freshfields Paris disputes partner Noah Rubins told Legal Week that a substantial amount of disputes work the firm is involved in is French language and law-denominated, which plays to Seraglini's strengths.

Jean-Georges Betto, co-founder of the firm, commented on the departure in a statement: "With the recent many additions to the partnership, our vision of the firm has expanded from an arbitration boutique to a 360-degree international dispute resolution firm with senior figures in arbitration, litigation, white-collar crime and investigation.

"Christophe is our beloved friend, a brillant professor of law and a superb addition to our esteemed colleagues at Freshfields."

Freshfields' hire of Seraglini comes on the back of a handful of departures in the Magic Circle firm's Paris office to U.S. firm Jones Day, which hired Freshfields' entire Paris real estate team in early 2017 and returned in 2018 to pick up its Paris office head and disputes partner Elie Kleiman.

The Magic Circle firm did, however, hire a five-partner private equity team in Paris from Ashurst in 2017, including Guy Benda, now head of Freshfields' Paris corporate practice.

More firms to have recruited in Paris in recent months include King & Spalding, which picked up its fifth partner in the French capital since mid-2018 with the hire of Baker McKenzie banking and finance partner Anne Vrignaud in July. Simmons & Simmons, meanwhile, hired Gowling WLG partner Jérôme Patenotte as the new head of its Paris private equity team.