Every combination starts from one of two positions, and they are not symmetrical. What you need to know depends entirely on which side you are standing on. We have represented both.
Position one
You are approaching
You have identified a firm or a group. Now you need to know what you would actually be buying.
- Is this a group hire or a merger? Groups run three to twenty lawyers and leave both firms standing. A merger absorbs one firm into the other, usually the smaller into the larger, and that alone multiplies every issue.
- Which client relationships are institutional, and which walk out with one partner
- Whether the group will integrate or only have each other. Groups arrive with their relationships already in place, which is exactly why some never build new ones.
- Where the practices compound yours, and where you would pay twice for one bench
- What this costs you in leadership attention for two years
Position two
You are being approached
Someone has opened the conversation. Now you need to know what you are worth before you answer.
- What your practice is worth to this suitor specifically, not in general
- Which of your partners the new structure protects, and which it exposes. In a merger, the smaller firm stops existing, and its partners land inside someone else’s compensation system.
- How exposed you are today. A firm that has five rainmakers and loses two is in trouble. A firm with fifty barely notices. Sometimes the approach is the answer to that.
- Whether there is a better counterparty you have not spoken to
- What walking away looks like, so this stays a choice and not a drift
The honest framing
Biggest impact. Most issues. Both are true at once.
- A group lands with more weight than any single hire, however high-profile. Clients, competitors, and other laterals all notice.
- Six lawyers produce revenue no individual can.
- The transition is often smoother. When a whole group leaves, there is nobody left at the old firm to fight for the clients.
- A single hire that fails is costly. A group that fails costs far more, because you took a bigger chance.
- Integration. They already have each other, so some of them never build the relationships across your firm that make them yours.
- Conflicts. Put more rainmakers in one building, and someone will be displeased. Do that too often, and it costs you laterals.
A group hire is a classic risk-and-reward decision. A merger is the same decision with the stakes raised. We will not pretend the downside is not there. We will tell you whether this particular combination is worth it.
Where a combination sits among the five moves a firm can make
Exploratory and confidential
Have a combination in view?
Most of these conversations begin years before anyone is ready to act, and nothing leaves the room.
Either way
Four things have to travel, or the combination does not work.
The clients
Revenue attached to a person moves. Revenue attached to an institution frequently does not. That difference is the whole valuation, and it is verified, not assumed.
The team
A group is only a group if the associates and the support come too. Partners without their bench arrive unable to do the work you bought.
The economics
Compensation, origination credit, and rate structures have to reconcile. Two workable systems can be mutually unworkable, and if they are, the combination should be rethought before anyone is told.
The culture
Decided in year one, felt in year three. Who has a say, how disagreements settle, and what the firm rewards when nobody is watching.
After the handshake
Agreeing to combine is the easy part.
Even with culture, practices, conflicts, rates, and compensation all aligned, everything below still has to be negotiated. Any one of them can stall a combination that both sides want, which is why our founder tells firm leaders to walk in with a specific plan for the complexities that will inevitably arise, not a hope that they will not.
- Management structure
- Firm policies
- Technology and telecom
- Staff
- Capital contributions
- Assets of both firms
- Liabilities of both firms
- Office leases and real estate
The reasons that hold up
Scale is not a reason. These are.
- Geographic expansion
- A market you need to be in, entered with a practice already running rather than a nameplate and a lease. Usually because a client has said they will send the work if you are there.
- Bench strength
- Depth in a practice where you are already winning work you cannot currently staff.
- Stability
- Succession, concentration risk, and the partners whose retirement would take a practice with them.
- Combined capability
- Real when the merged firm can win work neither side could bid alone. Not real when it is only a bigger number.
Start here
Whichever side you are on.
These conversations stay entirely confidential. Yours would not be the first hard one.
Both sides of the transaction. Nationwide. Confidential from the first word.