Shaking off its failed bid for a full-fledged merger with Germany's Gleiss Lutz, Britain's Herbert Smith Freehills is taking another run at the German legal market.

After lawyers at Gleiss Lutz and would-be Benelux merger partner Stibbe voted down merger plans, Herbert Smith Freehills terminated its exclusive alliances with both firms at the end of 2011. Now that its mandatory yearlong postbreakup hiatus from Germany is over, Herbert Smith has returned to plant its own German flag.