A little German lawfirm became hugely successful in... Scandinavia. This is the story of Sagawe and Klages, a German Eurojuris member who decided to offer business in German for Nordic clients.
Johannes Klages and his associate Christian Sagawe are German... but also a bit Scandinavian. “My associate”, says Johannes, “was married to a Swedish interpreter. I worked in Norway myself when I was a student, I did my thesis in criminology there.” Back in Hamburg, both men have created a small but extremely efficient lawfirm dedicated to businesses going from Scandinavia to Germany.
“We are a niche, boutique type of lawfirm”, explains Johannes, “targeted at Scandinavian countries. Ninety percent of our clients are Scandinavian businesses wishing to work in Germany. We assist them in real estate, contracts, establishing affiliated companies... This is a lot of contractual law.” Lawyers in the Sagawe & Klages lawfirm can speak Swedish, Danish... “I speak Norwegian myself”, says Johannes, “which is tricky because there are actually several Norwegian languages, dialects and a harmonised, artificial version that no one actually speaks! Nevertheless, Scandinavian languages are all more or less mutually intelligible: if I speak Norwegian to someone who answers me in Danish or Swedish, we understand each other.”
Johannes thinks that his knowledge of Nordic countries is what allowed his small lawfirm to encounter such a success with big businesses despite its small size. But they do more than just speak the language: “you have to know the culture. Scandinavians are much more relaxed than Germans”, he says with a laugh, “they do not wear ties, you never see a tie in Oslo! It is far less formal than here.” According to Johannes, this is very important to make business smoother. “I will give you a precise example: in Scandinavian countries, when you first write to someone you do not know, you can just greet them using their family names with no title before. They would write to me saying 'hello Klages', no Sir or anything. I remember once a Nordic businessman wrote to a German one this way, and the German man wrote to me complaining, saying that he wanted them to show respect and writing herr before his name! Such issues can complicate things so it is important to be in the middle and make everything comfortable for everyone.” Johannes says in the end everyone is always understanding with each other.
Sagawe & Klages is one of the very few lawfirms to offer such a specialisation. “We use Eurojuris a lot, I had a Danish client dealing with Russia, Spain, Turkey... So I called Eurojuris lawyers there. I am part of a practice group and I go to meetings, I can trust these lawyers, I know them personally, we even played football together!” Johannes advises everyone to get to know another country if you want to work with it. “The language is of course important, even if they all speak awesome English in Scandinavia it always makes a difference to talk in their language. You must go there and see, get an internship or use a European program as a student. And when you decide to start working with a country, network extensively: call the chamber of commerce, the consulate, the embassy... They all can be very useful in the end.”
