Breaking the transatlantic stalemate

Legal Week’s survey of US law firms operating in London remains the most-read story on this website for a second day running. It has also attracted considerable interest on the other side of the pond, both on our sister site law.com and at the New York Times.

Back in the UK, the prospect of a concerted attempt by US firms to secure mergers in London has generated some provocative posts from readers speculating about which firms they would or, more accurately, would not like to end up working for as a result of a merger.

Legacy firms Rowe & Maw and Piper Rudnick come in for some criticism, while CMS Cameron McKenna and O’Melveny & Myers are also mentioned in an unfavourable light.

Legal snobbery remains one of the biggest hurdles facing any transatlantic merger. It was snobbery and mutual suspicion on both sides that derailed the negotiations between Ashurst and Fried Frank Harris Shriver & Jacobson a few years ago. The same cultural problems dogged the Clifford Chance(CC) tie-up with Rogers & Wells.

On this side of the Atlantic, CC was accused of aiming too low. But more than a few big billers at Rogers & Wells had precisely the same attitude towards CC – understandably, some might argue, given the magic circle firm’s virtually non-existent profile in the US at the time.

Then again, one of the most well-received UK mergers of recent times involved two firms that in different circumstances might have been regarded as the most unlikely of matches. There was a time when proud City firm Theodore Goddard would have been horrified at the prospect of tying up with the regional firm Addleshaw Booth & Co, no matter how logical the fit. In the event, it was Addleshaws that found itself in the position of coming to the rescue of the ailing London firm, which had been brought low by management dithering.

The result has been a merger that has won plaudits from across the profession. Perhaps it will take a similarly quirky and opportunistic transatlantic merger to break the current stalemate.

paul.hodkinson@legalweek.com