The first three months of 2015 saw 29 mergers announced. DLA Piper's combination with Davis of Canada was another large merger. Consultant Ward Bower of Altman expects this trend to be the springboard for the enlarged firms to carry out further mergers abroad. He said: 'I think we are going to see a resurgence of cross-border mergers.'  The mergers affected 21,000 lawyers globally - with the majority (16,000) acquiring the minority (4,700). But Altman expects that some firms which would like to merge will be held back because of conflicts of interest. Source: Bloomberg