A Sensible Merger: Say What?!

So it's official:  DLA is merging with Piper Rudnick (which has already, more or less, merged with Gray-Cary).  The resulting firm, whose name will not long remain "DLA Piper Rudnick Gray Cary," will be the second largest globally by revenue, and third largest by lawyer headcount, with over 1,000 lawyers on each side of the Atlantic.  Weirdly, neither The New York Times nor The Wall Street Journal has anything remotely interesting to say about this, but The Washington Post and The Financial Times nail the story.

Predictably, it's being compared to the Clifford-Chance/Rogers & Wells deal, but I'd say the comparison is uninformed and unhelpful to analyzing the odds of success of this deal.  Faithful readers know that I approach any big-deal merger with a jaundiced view, knowing that (a) most fail to deliver the promised benefits in the long run; (b) simply pulling them off—integrating the plethora of essential systems from finance to email to matter and knowledge management, closing duplicative offices, reassuring clients and staff alike—can plunge the firms into a year or two of unproductive navel-gazing; and that (c) with cultural issues uniquely pivotal to success in law firm land, true "integration" can be excruciating to attain.

But surprise!  I give high marks to this deal, and wish them well with my heart and my head:

• the firms have duplicative offices in precisely zero cities;
• it's a merger of pretty-much equals, which starts relations off on the right foot (remember the Daimler takeover of Chrysler which was disastrously labeled inaccurately?);
• without of course being privy to the inner councils, it sounds as though the make-or-break issue of partner compensation has been addressed rationally and sanely, with the ultimate determination combining ingredients ranging from seniority to billable hours to intangible contributions to cost-of-living.

Also promising is that both DLA and Piper Rudnick have credible track records of entrepreneurial expanion through mergers heretofore.  Nor are they swinging for the fences and trying to become a super high-end Skadden displacer; they declare their focus to be the "upper middle market" or multinationals.

"Stay tuned," as they always say, but this definitely sounds promising.  Next, anyone?