A heavyweight committee, which includes joint chief executives Nigel Knowles and Chicago-based Lee Miller and senior partner Peter Wayte, is meeting in the US this month to thrash out outstanding details with a final blueprint due by the end of the year.
Knowles told Legal Week he would be “very disappointed” if the firm was not financially integrated by 2009 but stopped short of revealing the extent to which the new system would go, including whether it will see the firm move towards a single profit pool.
DLA Piper currently has two profit pools but rivals claim that to ensure successful transatlantic co-operation, both sides need a financial interest in the other’s performance.
One partnership specialist commented: “The single profit pool is a holy grail for City law firms and very much separates us from the accountancy firms’ remuneration model.”
He added: “If there are two profit pools, there is less of an incentive to refer work to the other side. If each office is affected by each other’s performance, it enhances the ‘one firm’ ethos.”
DLA Piper — the product of an audacious three-way merger in January 2005 — has been wrestling with the prospect of financial union since its conception. A move towards a single accounting system, which will include one cost-sharing account and provisions for tax and profit pools, was approved this year.
Commenting on the process, Knowles said: “We said that we would take until 2007 to articulate all the questions that needed asking. We are coming to the end of that period and we are on track.”
