The great big merger: Chasing elite status in the legal world
The ever-evolving legal market continues to expand, particularly when it comes to law firm names, which have become longer as a result of a flurry of recent mergers.
The ambition to join the ‘Global Elite’ continues to drive change, as two major firms have recently followed A&O Shearman’s lead by merging with New York law firms.
Several US firms are dominating the global legal market, such as Kirkland & Ellis, the highest-grossing and most profitable law firm in the world, which generated nearly $9bn in 2024.
To try and get a seat at the ‘Global Elite’ table, a firm has to have a defined and strong international brand, with a significant presence in all major global regions.
However, in the US, the Big Apple is the market that is the most important to break through, a city already overcrowded with law firm names.
“There is a general consensus that for a firm to be a truly global player, it must be strong in both the US and London,” stated Nick Woolf, partner at Woolf&Co.
The elite English firms’ strategy has already been implemented, with a focus on establishing a strong presence in the US. To which, as Eyes on the Law reported in May, those in the ‘Magic Circle‘ have even distanced themselves from the esteemed British phrase to try and resonate with an American audience.
One even went for the merger; magic circle Allen & Overy opted for a merger with New York-based Shearman & Sterling to become A&O Shearman.
Others following suit
“There is definitely a massive push for size at the moment, with the world’s largest firms getting bigger and bigger all the time,” stated Woolf.
Australian-British firm Herbert Smith Freehills merged with Kramer Levin, which went live in June, to become a £1.6bn “global legal powerhouse”.
The firm, which originally formed in 2012 when the Australian law firm Freehills merged with Herbert Smith, a British firm based in London, has already established a strong presence in London, with revenues exceeding £1bn. But its vision for this merger was to “accelerate growth in the US”, with a name that has been in New York since 1968.
While McDermott Will & Emery, a Chicago-based firm with a presence in London, merged with New York-based Schulte Roth & Zabel last month to create a $2.8bn powerhouse.
Last July, McDermott’s London office managing partner told City PM that his vision for London was to become “one of the top five elite firms,” as he was pivotal to the firm’s vision for growth.
McDermott Schulte “made total sense”, says Christopher Clark, director at Definitum Search, who explained that “both have a private capital overlap and for London, it gives McDermott a market-leading funds practice from day one.”
While Herbert Smith Freehills Kramer also “made sense”, as Clark noted, “Herbert Smith Freehills now has a great presence in the largest legal market, the US, with Kramer instantly becoming a truly global firm.”
When deals go sour
However, despite this ambition to enter the Big Apple by teaming up with a notable name in that market, not all transatlantic mergers go smoothly.
From cultural issues to egotistical problems, there have been examples in the past of law firms that have merged with those on the State Side, and the main beneficiary of the merger was recruiters from the vast number of CVs they had on their desk.
An example of this is Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, known as BCLP, a 2018 merger of St. Louis-based Bryan Cave and the notable London firm Berwin Leighton Paisner. In the year following the merger, the firm experienced a loss of rainmakers and high turnover after leadership was shifted to Missouri.
However, despite a merger being successful, from a recruitment perspective, “there is always fallout for a variety of reasons,” noted Woolf, including individuals losing out on leadership positions or facing significant conflicts.
Ultimately, as the race for the ‘Global Elite’ title continues, law firms must balance ambition with careful integration to ensure long-term stability. Only time will tell which of these newly merged giants will thrive in the ever-competitive legal landscape.
Eyes on the Law is a weekly column by Maria Ward-Brennan focused on the legal sector.