U.S. law firms Arnold & Porter and Kaye Scholer on Thursday announced they would merge at the beginning of 2017.
The combined firm, which will be known as Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer, will have about a 1,000 lawyers with over a dozen offices. Current Arnold & Porter chair Richard Alexander will chair the combined firm.
The merger is the largest between law firms so far this year. While many big firm combinations in recent years have been driven by international expansion strategies, both Arnold & Porter and Kaye Scholer have relatively small overseas presences.
Arnold & Porter is one of Washington, D.C.’s largest firms with about 700 lawyers. Kaye Scholer, founded in New York, has about half as many.
Arnold & Porter has strong regulatory practices and also specializes in representing nations in arbitrations and financial transactions. In the past year, it has advised Brazil, Colombia, Turkey and others on billions of dollars in sovereign bond issues.
Kaye Scholer’s clients include Pfizer Inc (PFE.N), Novartis Pharmaceuticals and Olympus America.
Kaye Scholar said it had revenue in 2015 of $370 million, a slight drop from the year before. Profits per partner were $1.38 million, down 2 percent from 2014.
According to American Lawyer magazine’s Am Law 100 survey, Arnold & Porter had revenue last year of $650 million, down 6.4 percent from 2014. The firm’s profits per partner also fell 12.6 percent to $1.21 million.
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Source: Reuters.com
