So it’s official: DLA is merging with Piper Rudnick (which has
already, more or less, merged with Gray-Cary). The resulting
firm, whose name will not long remain "DLA Piper Rudnick
Gray Cary," will be the second largest globally by revenue, and third
largest by lawyer headcount, with over 1,000 lawyers on each side of
the Atlantic. Weirdly,
neither
The New York Times nor The Wall Street Journal has
anything remotely interesting to say about this, but The
Washington Post and The
Financial Times nail the story.
Predictably, it’s being compared to the Clifford-Chance/Rogers & Wells
deal, but I’d say the comparison is uninformed and unhelpful to analyzing
the odds of success of this deal. Faithful readers know that
I approach any big-deal merger with a jaundiced view, knowing that
(a) most fail to deliver the promised benefits in the long run; (b)
simply pulling them off—integrating the plethora of essential
systems from finance to email to matter and knowledge management, closing
duplicative offices, reassuring clients and staff alike—can plunge
the firms into a year or two of unproductive navel-gazing; and that
(c) with cultural issues uniquely pivotal to success in law firm
land, true "integration" can be excruciating to attain.
But surprise! I give high marks to this deal, and wish them
well with my heart and my head:
- the firms have duplicative offices in precisely zero cities;
- it’s a merger of pretty-much equals, which starts relations off
on the right foot (remember the Daimler takeover of Chrysler which
was disastrously labeled inaccurately?); - without of course being privy to the inner councils, it sounds
as though the make-or-break issue of partner compensation has been
addressed rationally and sanely, with the ultimate determination
combining ingredients ranging from seniority to billable hours to
intangible contributions to cost-of-living.
Also promising is that both DLA and Piper Rudnick have credible track
records of entrepreneurial expanion through mergers heretofore. Nor
are they swinging for the fences and trying to become a super high-end
Skadden displacer; they declare their focus to be the "upper middle
market" or multinationals.
"Stay tuned," as they always say, but this
definitely sounds promising. Next,
anyone?
