What's It Going To Take To Get This Biglaw Megamerger Across The Finish Line?
All of the partners need to be on board, and that could be difficult.
Ed. note: Welcome to our daily feature, Quote of the Day.
There is typically a lot of wood to chop to get to the finish of a transformative law firm combination. They will need to develop a business case that captures the hearts and minds of the equity partners.
There is also often a multidimensional chess to play because as much as a firm hopes its partners act in their firm’s best interests, unsurprisingly, there are some partners who start to think, ‘If our firm is not going to be the firm it has always been, maybe I should look at this like being a free agent’ and compare the new firm with others on the open market. Some firms have a culture where that happens a lot; others are more committed to the firm’s best interests.
— Kent Zimmermann, a legal industry consultant at the Zeughauser Group who has handled many law firm mergers, in comments given to the American Lawyer on the proposed merger between Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling. Zimmerman went on to note that “[c]omplacency during a combination in one firm can be a deal breaker,” adding that in prior mergers, he’s seen a lot of “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” from certain practice areas.
Staci Zaretsky is a senior editor at Above the Law, where she’s worked since 2011. She’d love to hear from you, so please feel free to email her with any tips, questions, comments, or critiques. You can follow her on Twitter or connect with her on LinkedIn.
