Faegre Baker And Drinker Biddle To Merge

Big news for a soon-to-be big firm.

onDecember 17, 2019 at 4:12 PMDecember 17, 2019 at 4:06 PM

So many firms announce “advanced merger talks” that end up going nowhere, it’s nice to see some crazy kids go out and actually make it work. While the firms have not made a public announcement yet, reports are that the Faegre Baker’s and Drinker Biddle’s partnerships voted overwhelmingly to merge effective February 1, 2020 to become Faegre Drinker. That tracks with a domain name that was preemptively registered in October.

The merger creates a new firm of nearly 1,200 lawyers and over 400 equity partners that ALM Intelligence recently predicted would be sufficient to push the new firm into the Am Law 50.

The new firm will have 22 offices, overlapping in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. That’s actually a surprisingly low amount of overlap for two firms of this size.

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From Above The Law

Consolidation is the name of the game if you’re trying to crack the top tier these days. This may be the final merger we hear about in 2019, but 2020 should bring us fresh announcements. Perhaps even that rumored Pepper Hamilton-Troutman Sanders tie up.

Headshot Joe Patrice is a senior editor at Above the Law and co-host of Thinking Like A Lawyer. Feel free to email any tips, questions, or comments. Follow him on Twitter if you’re interested in law, politics, and a healthy dose of college sports news. Joe also serves as a Managing Director at RPN Executive Search.