Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca have agreed to merge in a tie-up that will create a top 70 US firm by revenue.  

The combined firm will have more than 1,300 lawyers and revenue north of $742m when it goes live, planned for 1 January 2025.

The deal is structured as a merger between Womble Bond’s US arm and Lewis Roca, with Womble Bond retaining its current branding. The US LLP will be led by Merrick Benn, current chair and CEO-elect of Womble Bond in the US, with Lewis Roca managing partner Kenneth Van Winkle serving as vice chair.  

In a joint statement, the two firms said the tie-up would provide clients with “enhanced capabilities across practices and sectors, as well as the resources of an expansive geographic platform”.

“One of the first parallels that emerged between our two firms was a shared vision for serving clients in fast-growing cities and innovation hubs,” said Betty Temple, chair and CEO of Womble Bond Dickinson’s US business, and Benn, in a joint statement. “The combined firm’s platform will offer greater depth in these high-growth markets and beyond, enabling our attorneys to deliver sophisticated legal counsel to companies at the forefront of change and disruption.”

The merged firm will have 37 offices, including 29 across 15 US states and Washington DC and eight in the UK. 

Womble Bond, born of a 2017 merger between North Carolina-based Womble Carlyle Sandridge & Rice and UK firm Bond Dickinson, is by far the larger of the two firms. Its 1,000 lawyers brought in revenue of $570.9m in 2023 according to Law.com, up 7.2% on the year before and a figure that saw it rank just inside the US top 90.  

Meantime Lewis Roca had around 220 lawyers and had turnover of $171.2m in 2023, up from $162.2m the year before. The firm is similarly the product of a merger in 2013 of Phoenix, Arizona-founded Lewis and Roca with Denver-based Rothgerber Johnson & Lyons, growing further in 2016 through a tie-up with Los Angeles intellectual property firm Christie Parker & Hale. 

Lewis Roca has slightly higher profit per equity partner, at $748k in 2023 compared to Womble Bond’s $706k, as well as higher revenue per lawyer – $775k compared to $607k, Law.com’s data shows, though Womble Bond has a higher proportion of ranked lawyers, according to publicly available data tracked by Pirical (see table below). The firms have overlapping strengths in dispute resolution and litigation, insurance, intellectual property and real estate, with Womble Bond also bringing a sizeable corporate team to the table. 

The tie-up will also see Womble Bond gain strength in IP disputes and expand its presence in the Southwest and Mountain West, where Lewis Roca has eight offices across California, Arizona, Nevada and Colorado.

Conversely, it will expand Lewis Roca’s reach across the US, particularly in the Mid-Atlantic and Southeast, and see it gain an international presence through Womble Bond’s eight UK offices, operated by the firm’s UK LLP. Womble Bond has 24 US offices, including three that overlap with Lewis Roca’s arms in Denver, Los Angeles and San Francisco. 

“This combination is a natural fit and a clear win-win, with both firms placing a high value on long-term relationships with clients and complementary practices that offer a unique value proposition for clients,” said Kenneth Van Winkle, managing partner of Lewis Roca. “Bringing together our capabilities and experience is a rare opportunity to take both firms to new heights and chart a path for our ongoing success.”

News of the merger follows Troutman Pepper and Locke Lord confirming last week that they would merge to create a 1,600-lawyer firm with revenue in the region of $1.6bn, with the tie-up set to go live at the start of next year. 

There has been increased merger activity among US law firms, with 29 completed in the first half according to Fairfax Associates, up from 28 in H1 2023 and 25 in each of the previous two years.  

Activity was focused on small and midsize firms, though there was a large merger – defined by both firms having at least 100 lawyers – between Shearman & Sterling and UK firm Allen & Overy, which created a 3,500-lawyer behemoth when it went live at the start of May.  

Last year the number of large mergers grew to five from just two the year before, as big firms looked to greater scale to outpace rivals and shore up profits. The largest was Miami-based Holland & Knight’s (1,400 lawyers) tie-up with Nashville-based Waller Lansden Dortch & Davis (257).  

Womble Bond’s tie-up with Lewis Roca is the largest to emerge so far this year after Troutman Pepper’s. 

For its part, A&O Shearman confirmed last week that it would cut around 10% of its 800-strong global partnership by the end of the financial year to enable it to focus on growth areas, and would also close its Johannesburg office and its consulting arm.