Areas of focus

My primary responsibility is the handling of cases before all civil panels of the Federal Court of Justice. Thus, as an appeals lawyer, my work spans the entire spectrum of civil and commercial law.

My activity in all branches of Banking and Capital Markets Law goes back to my study programme and doctorate and to my time as an in-house lawyer at a well-known private bank. I can also draw on my considerable experience in this field as a lawyer before courts of instance, which is why Banking and Capital Markets Law continues to constitute an important area of focus within my work as a lawyer at the Federal Court of Justice. With this area of focus in mind, in 2008, I gained the additional qualification of Specialist Lawyer (Fachanwalt) for Banking and Capital Markets Law shortly after the qualification was introduced. This area of law is therefore also a focal point of my work as a lawyer at the Federal Court of Justice, before which I frequently appear on behalf of investors and consumers.

In addition, medical law, in particular medical malpractice law, is the focus of my interest as an appeals lawyer. In this area of law in particular, the third instance is fundamentally different from the factual instances. Because there, the dispute about the actual course of events and the professional assessment of the treatment is often the sole focus of the interest of the parties to the proceedings. However, once a case has reached the Federal Court of Justice, this way of dealing with the case has initially come to an end. In contrast, what is often decisive for success in the third instance is a downright meticulous examination of the procedural method used by the courts of instance in determining and assessing the facts of the case. I carefully follow the case law of the Federal Court of Justice, which is highly differentiated particularly in this area, and use my expertise as an appeals lawyer primarily for patients.

Especially in medical malpractice law, my clients benefit from a special feature of my law firm: My son Jesco Hartung is a doctor in Berlin and at the same time a graduate of the First State Examination in Law (for which he was awarded the Faculty Prize of the Law Faculty of the Humboldt University of Berlin). He brings his medical expertise to the meticulous preparation of medical law cases described above, so that in my law firm a lawyer-doctor four-eyes principle applies. On the part of the medical practitioners and their liability insurers, the intensive involvement of doctors in the handling of cases has always been common practice. Through the four-eyes principle described above, I can therefore make an important contribution to equality of arms whenever I act for the patient side.

Areas of focus of my work as an appeals lawyer are: