Luther adds Dr. Gerd-Ulrich Kapteina to its Real Estate legal team

Ex-administrative judge will be joining the Essen office as a Partner

As of now, lawyer Dr. Gerd-Ulrich Kapteina will be starting his tenure as a Partner in the Essen Real Estate legal team at law firm Luther. The previous presiding judge at the administrative court of Dusseldorf specializes in the areas of construction planning and building regulations, landscape conservation law, historic preservation law, and other areas related to construction and property law. Dr. Kapteina will be primarily involved in project development at Luther, and will provide legal consulting services for investment decisions at companies and financing institutes. In addition, he will advise cities and municipalities in establishing development plans and individual building projects. In addition to Kapteina, Dr. Nora Otoo, LL.M., will also be joining the Essen Real Estate legal team as an Associate. She is an attorney specializing in public law, and is coming to Luther from Cologne law firm Köhler & Klett.

Gerd-Ulrich Kapteina: "I have found a successful team of partners at Luther, where my consulting work on site preparation projects can blend seamlessly into the overall context of professional business consulting and a committed real estate law practice."

Achim Meier, head of the real estate legal practice at Luther: "We are very happy to be adding Dr. Kapteina and Dr. Otoo to our team. With their support, we will be able to underscore our integrated approach to real estate project advising encompassing the full project life cycle. Our clients will benefit from their unique experience and specialized expertise."

From 1982 to the end of April, 2016, Dr. Gerd-Ulrich Kapteina served as a judge in the administrative court in Dusseldorf. For the past ten years, he has also been the PR spokesman of the court, as well as a judicial mediator, and professional judge for architects and city planners.

After studying law at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and completing his legal clerkship, he began his professional career as a lawyer in Essen in mid-1979. In April 1980, he completed his doctorate on the antitrust law topic "Sec. 5 GWB (Act against Restraints on Competition) – mid-sized business cooperations", which was published as a book. In May 1982, Dr. Kapteina moved into administrative litigation for the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, where he was also responsible for public construction and planning law. Dr. Kapteina is a full member of Deutsche Gesellschaft für Baurecht (German Society for Construction Law), and a part-time lecturer at the Akademie der Architektenkammer (Academy of the Chamber of Architects) in North Rhine-Westphalia and the International Real Estate Business School (IREBS), as well as in various municipal training institutions. Besides his work as a teacher and author, he is also a co-editor of Entscheidungssammlung zum Denkmalrecht (EzD - Report of Judgements and Decisions on Memorial Law). In addition, for many years Dr. Kapteina has been the honorary spokesman of the non-partisan working group Essen 2030, Architektur und Stadtkultur (Architecture and urban culture).