What Merger Talks? Some Partners Got News of Brief Akin Gump-Orrick Courtship Online
As a brief courtship between two major law firms ended this week with news that leaders had decided to call off their very preliminary merger discussions, observers—and even partners at the affected firms—are scratching their heads over what happened.
At both Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld and Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe, some partners only heard about the merger talks once they were making headlines in legal publications, recounts the Blog of Legal Times.
Meanwhile, partners on both sides reportedly saw little need for a merger and significant disadvantages in having to reconfigure to avoid potential conflicts.
“It’s not that we didn’t like Orrick. We have a great deal of respect for them,” an unidentified partner in the New York office of Akin Gump tells the legal publication.” But it was frustrating to some of the partners … to not be in the loop.”
