Austria’s legal experts – Kollmann and Wolm

When getting in conflict with the law, having a good lawyer at hand is essential – especially when facing criminal charges. The Vienna-based lawyers Lukas Kollmann and Philipp Wolm are specialised in this field, advising and representing national and international clients in court, consulting them in advance or carrying out internal company investigations.

The law office of Dr Lukas Kollmann and Mag Philipp Wolm inVienna has a boutique approach. “We are solely specialised in criminal law and criminal trial law and lend our professional and personal support to clients,” explains lawyer Philipp Wolm. While many other law firms work in quite different areas of law, Kollmann and Wolm focus on one field and its neighbouring areas only, allowing them and their clients to profit not only from experience but also extensive expertise. Instead of covering many legal topics but only scratching the surface in all of them, Lukas Kollmann and Philipp Wolm’s emphasis on criminal law allows them to carve out even the finest details and think through cases more thoroughly, maybe identifying legal loopholes and always working on the best solution for their clients.“Through our long experience and expert knowledge we can guarantee our clients a high level of competence even in delicate situations,” says lawyer Lukas Kollmann, who founded the law office together with Philipp Wolm.

International recognition as experts on commercial criminal law

After studying law in Vienna, Lukas Kollmann obtained a doctoral degree at the same university and worked for law firms in Vienna. From 2009 to 2014 he worked for the renowned law firm Soyer & Partner – first as an independent lawyer, later as partner – before founding Kollmann, Wolm Rechtsanwälte in 2014. His main competences are criminal law and criminal trial law, commercial criminal law, corporate criminal law, internal company investigations, corruption law and penitentiary law. Lukas Kollmann was voted among the top ten Austrian criminal law specialists in the FORMAT ranking 2015, the law office itself was among the top ten law offices working in the field of commercial criminal law. Lukas Kollmann is recognised as a leading authority on corruption-related law and internal investigations and writes for Who’s Who Legal. So while only existing for a short time, the Kollmann Wolm law office is already internationally recognised and counted among the leading authorities on criminal law.

Philipp Wolm impresses with a similar portfolio featuring experience in criminal law and criminal trial law, compliance, internal company investigations, penitentiary law and commercial criminal law. Above that he works on cases concerning drug abuse and crimes surrounding illegal substances. Philipp Wolm has also studied law inVienna and has worked for the same law office as Lukas Kollmann. In 2014 he not only became partner at Kollmann, Wolm Rechtsanwälte but also successfully passed an examination as certified compliance officer.

Doing the best for clients – even when proven guilty

“We represent clients in all areas of criminal law – so to speak from a drug dealer to an imposter suspected of fraud amounting to millions of Euros,”says Philipp Wolm.“But in total our main focus lies on commercial criminal law proceedings. Always sticking to the codex ‘everyone is entitled to a lawyer’, there are only very few cases we would refuse – sexual offences for example.”

In addition to court proceedings, the second focus lies on criminal compliance – counselling clients before they do something illegal in business. For many working in an international market this is quite important, since often quite different – and unknown to the client – regulations might apply. Lukas Kollmann and Philipp Wolm can rely on a team of two trainee lawyers and a legal assistant supporting them in both work areas: consulting and representation at court.

“Our success is based on our integrity, our know how in commercial criminal law and the partisanship towards our clients,” explains Wolm, providing arguments why clients should and could rely on their work. While a strong emphasis is on individual clients – with a strategy to bring criminal proceedings to an end as soon as possible – Kollmann and Wolm also work for companies when needed. Here it is essential to keep the impact as small as possible to avoid damage to a company’s reputation. This is also the case when conducting internal investigations on behalf of a client.

On the other hand both lawyers also legally support employees affected by this kind of investigation. No matter what reason someone might have to employ Lukas Kollmann and Philipp Wolm, they promise not only to do their best, but also to calculate their fees fairly and transparently.

Text: Jessica Holzhausen

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