03.19 Legal Briefs - LSAG Newsletter

NUMBER OF DEALS (3+)

Over the past two years there have been 163 acquiring firms and 208 acquired firms involved in the 208 deals. There have been 21 law firms that acquired or merged with more than one other firm. The repeat customers were involved in almost a third of the deals (67 of 208), and there were three firms with five or more acquisitions in the last two years. Not surprisingly, the firms involved in multiple mergers over the past 24 months are bigger. The median size of these 21 firms is 725 lawyers, while the median size of acquiring firms involved in just one deal in 2017 and 2018 is 69 attorneys. An Annual Comparison: 2018 vs. 2017 Although the total number of mergers was a close comparison between 2018 and 2017 there were variations across regions and attorney headcounts. Acquisitions were numerous for small to low-midsize firms (<20 lawyers) in 2017 and 2018 although 2018 saw a noticeable uptick in acquisitions of firms in the low-midsize range (6-20 lawyers). Among the largest set of acquisitions (100+ lawyers) five of the thirteen acquired firms were headquartered outside the U.S. The majority of these firms were based in Europe with the two largest based in London. In February 2018, St. Louis, Missouri based Bryan Cave merged with London based Berwin Leighton Paisner to form Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner LLP, ranked one of the most active global M&A practices and the world’s 4th largest real estate practice 4 . In 2017, London based Bond Dickinson merged with Winston-Salem, North Carolina based Womble Carlyle to form Womble Bond Dickinson, a new middle- market, transatlantic law firm 5 . Additionally, it was notable from a regional perspective that five of the six large set acquisitions in 2018 were for firms headquartered in the South, three of which are in Texas.

Source: Altman Weil

ACQUISITION COUNT BY FIRM SIZE

Source: Altman Weil; Cushman & Wakefield Research

4 Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner, “ Merger creates new global law firm, ‘Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner’ LLP ” February 26, 2018, available from Nlplaw.com, accessed January 14, 2019 5 Law.com, “ Womble Deal With UK’s Bond Dickinson Creates Mega-Middle-Market Firm ” June 2017, available from Law.com, accessed January 14, 2019

4 | Legal Sector Advisory Group | ADVISING FOR EXCELLENCE

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