City law firm Rowe & Maw broke into the US legal market today after unveiling a merger with transatlantic rival Mayer Brown & Platt.
The two have agreed, after months of talks, to combine their operations to create a new firm called Mayer Brown Rowe & Maw with more than 1,300 lawyers.
As well as ramping up Rowe & Maw’s US coverage, the deal will also push up combined fee income to around £400m a year.
In 2001, Rowe & Maw is estimated to have had annual turnover of £55.6m with partners taking home an average of around £400,000 each.
The City-based firm employs just under 300 lawyers, of which 77 are partners, in London, Manchester and Brussels and specialises in corporate and commercial law.
Chicago-based Mayer Brown is one of the US’s biggest law firms with around 1,000 lawyers and offices in New York, Washington, Los Angeles and Houston.
Outside of the US, it has operations in London, Cologne, Frankfurt and Paris as well as a presence in China.
Paul Maher, partner at Rowe & Maw, said the merger was the “starting point of an ambitious strategy” that will see the newly created firm expand its legal and international coverage.
Today’s deal is one of only a handful of transatlantic mergers between law firms.
Apart from Rowe & Maw, others that have managed to strike deals include UK giant Clifford Chance, which expanded its global presence by merging with New York practice Rogers & Wells in 2000.
EGi News 28/01/02
