French independent Lefevre Pelletier & Associes has been rocked after losing eight of its 33 partners – including the heads of M&A and litigation – to the Paris launch of UK outfit Wragge & Co.

When the new Paris office opens, Wragge & Co will have six offices. These are Paris, London and Birmingham, an EU-law focused Brussels office, and intellectual property-led offices in Guangzhou and Munich. The firm was ranked second in Legal Week’s 2009 Client Satisfaction Report, scoring 9.4 out of 10 for quality of legal advice and 9 out of 10 for service delivery

The English firm has announced its new practice is expected to open later this year, subject to approval by the Paris Bar, and will be headed up by joint managing partners Pierre Appremont – a tax specialist – and Simon Lowe, who previously managed the referral relationship from the LPA side. It will be a 10-partner team; eight of the 10 are already partners in Lefevre with five of the group currently serving as heads of department. These are Arnaud Guerin (head of M&A), Laurent Jourdan (head of litigation, arbitration and restructuring), Pierre Appremont (head of tax), Henry Ranchon (head of real estate) and Jerome Patenotte (head of the China).

The practice, which will become UK top 25 firm’s sixth office, will provide high-quality commercial advice and solutions across a range of disciplines. It will cover corporate, real estate, funds, tax, finance, commercial litigation, corporate recovery, IP and commercial contracts. The other Lefevre partners are David Blondel, Simon Lowe and Phillippe Rousseau while associates Pierre-Emmanuel Chevalier and Eglantine Lioret also join Wragges as partners, pushing the firm’s equity to 121.

Quentin Poole, Wragges’ senior partner, said: “This is an exciting development for Wragge & Co; part of an international strategy focused on providing clients with a high-quality service from Wragge & Co offices or trusted best friend firms.”

The loss, which represents a quarter of Lefevre’s equity, is a blow for the practice. The French firm drops down to 25 partners. The Wragge & Co launch is the latest in a frenzy of French activity in the first month of 2010, including the launch of a new Parisian boutique called Lawington by a group of former Clifford Chance lawyers.