Lovells was named Law Firm of the Year, the most prestigious award, at the 2008 JUVE publishers’ annual awards ceremony held in Frankfurt on 6 November 2008. The award criteria include law firms’ legal expertise, strategic direction, service mindedness and future prospects. Lovells also won the JUVE Award for Intellectual Property – this marks the second time since 2005 that the IPMT practice has won the award for its excellence in trade mark, patent and unfair competition law.

In addition to the awards presented at the ceremony, the new JUVE Handbuch directory for 2008/2009 names further winners for various practice areas and regions. Lovells was named Law Firm of the Year for patent law, insurance law and for the Western region of Germany.

The JUVE Awards are the most esteemed for business law firms in Germany and reflect their achievements and standing in the market. They are based on months of research and interviews with thousands of clients and practitioners carried out by JUVE’s editorial staff. In its rationale for selecting Lovells as Law Firm of the Year, JUVE said, "There is little that Lovells has left out : there is hardly any office or practice that has not been on the rise lately. Never before has Lovells had a more coherent strategic approach, driven by a unified and homogeneous partnership and the strong management of Dr. Harald Seisler."

Commenting on winning JUVE’s highest honour, Dr. Harald Seisler, Regional Managing Partner for Continental Europe, said :

“We are proud of this exceptional award, which reflects the performance of our firm and confirms our position amongst the top business law firms in Germany. I would like to express thanks to the Lovells lawyers and staff. Their excellent work and the satisfication of our clients have made this possible."

JUVE’s rationale in awarding IP Law Firm of the Year to Lovells mentioned its top-class team, the convincing strategy and the success of its renowned trademark lawyers – including being selected over many other firms by Deutsche Telekom to manage its trademark portfolio – and the most spectacular patent decision of the year (Re. Elly Lilly/Olanzanpin case) achieved by a team led by Dr. Andreas von Falck.

Dr. Andreas von Falck, head of Lovells’ global Commerce and Real Estate practice stream, said :

“All of us are delighted about this award. The JUVE award demonstrates that IP can be practised successfully as one of the core areas of a major law firm. Intellectual property counts among the key assets of global companies and we want to continue to help clients protect it by employing innovative litigation strategies."

With these awards Lovells was able to build on the success it achieved last year in winning Law Firm of the Year for Dispute Resolution and Junior Staff Development. In 2005 and 2006 Lovells received the Law Firm of the Year awards for IP and Employment Law respectively.