The study, conducted by London-based professional services consultancy Gulland Padfield, is based on analysis of the business and strategic objectives of recent law firm mergers, as well as interviews with management at 20 global and UK firms that have combined in the past 18 months. It found that most law firms merge for defensive rather than strategic reasons and then poorly manage the merging process, with too much emphasis placed on integrating operational aspects such as technology platforms and billing systems at the expense of client relationships.

James Edsberg, a partner at Gulland Padfield and one of the report’s authors, commented that ensuring everyone has the same email address isn’t what will determine whether a merger is successful. Instead, the litmus test of a merger should be whether the combined firm can bring value to clients in a way that the firms could not separately.

The management team members interviewed for the report also identified a number of factors that they believed to be useful indicators of whether merging firms are well suited. These included partner remuneration systems, client billing rates and policies, each firm’s attitude to non-billable time and employee diversity.

Source: law.com