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Leadership in the Law: The Fallacy of Merger Math

By Timothy B. Corcoran
February 27, 2013

In recent months, trade publications have been filled with breathless accounts of the exciting and unprecedented number and nature of law firm mergers, each of which creates a distinct advantage over moribund competitors and, naturally, the financial outlook of each merger is rosy. Two firms with overlapping global footprints have joined forces to take advantage of the obvious synergies; two firms with not a thing in common have joined forces to exploit the obvious opportunities; two firms with fundamentally different compensation systems have joined forces without conflict by embracing a novel corporate form that eliminates the mingling of profits; two firms whose respective client bases are perennial adversaries have joined forces because the combined industry expertise of the merged firm's lawyers will outweigh any potential client conflicts; and so on.

There is always optimism at the inception of a law firm combination, since few partners or clients would embrace a combination positioned as “a last-ditch effort to improve partner compensation when all else has failed.”

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