Mergers, group acquisitions, and office expansions, advised end to end with discretion.
Sometimes the fastest way to enter a market or build a practice is to acquire a team or combine with another firm. These are sensitive, complex transactions, and they live or die on discretion and trust.
We advise firms through practice-group acquisitions, mergers, and office expansions, from the first quiet conversation through diligence, economics, and integration. Both sides are protected throughout, and nothing becomes public before it should.
Most combinations do not fail on the numbers. They fail because the wrong two firms were introduced, because compensation and governance were papered over rather than resolved, or because no one owned the transition once the deal was signed. Our role is to close those gaps before they become the story.
A merger or group acquisition is not a single event. It is a sequence of decisions, each of which can end the conversation. We manage that sequence so the principals can stay focused on running their firms.
We start with your strategy, not a list. What practice areas, geographies, client types, and revenue profile would actually strengthen the firm? From there we map the market quietly — firms and groups that fit the thesis, including those that have never signaled they are open to a conversation. You see a short, considered slate with the reasoning behind each name, not a directory pull.
The first approach is the most fragile part of the process. We open it on a no-names basis, describing the opportunity in enough detail to be real and not enough to identify anyone. Neither side learns who the other is until both have signaled genuine interest. That protects your firm from a leak that unsettles clients and partners, and protects the target from a rumor that damages them if nothing comes of it.
Beyond the financials, we press on the things that decide whether a combination holds: client overlap and concentration, rate structures and billing practices, leverage and staffing models, technology and back-office compatibility, and cultural questions such as how partners are held accountable and how decisions actually get made. We give you a candid read, including when the answer is that this is not the right combination.
This is where most deals stall. We work through compensation systems and how they reconcile, origination and client-credit treatment, capital contributions and buy-in, partner classes and equity structure, unfunded retirement and pension obligations, lease and debt exposure, and the governance questions that follow — board and committee seats, practice-group leadership, voting thresholds, and what happens at the management level after year one. We surface the hard items early rather than letting them emerge at signing.
Conflicts can end a combination late and expensively. We build the conflicts question into the process from the beginning, coordinating a staged, confidential review so both firms can assess exposure before disclosure widens. Where conflicts are material, we work with counsel on what can be waived, what can be walled, and what genuinely cannot be resolved — and we help you weigh whether the remaining book still justifies the transaction.
The deal is not done at announcement. We stay engaged through the transition: sequencing client notices and consents, coordinating the announcement and market messaging, supporting the moves of associates and staff who come with the group, and checking in through the first year on compensation, credit, and whether the combined practice is performing the way both sides expected. When something is drifting, it is easier to fix at month three than month eighteen.
Bringing over an intact team — partners, associates, and often staff — to add a capability the firm does not have. Faster than building a practice hire by hire, and the group arrives with its clients and its working relationships already in place.
A full combination of two firms, whether a merger of equals or an acquisition of a smaller platform. The most complex path, and the one where governance, compensation alignment, and cultural fit carry the most weight.
Entering a city with a founding group rather than a single lateral. We identify the team that can anchor the office, and structure the arrangement so the new market has real leadership from day one.
Managing partners know their market. What they often cannot do is call a competitor and ask whether they would consider combining. The call itself carries risk: it signals weakness or intent, it can reach the wrong ears, and once it is made it cannot be unmade.
An intermediary removes that exposure. We can hold the conversation on your behalf, take a no for an answer without either firm losing standing, and keep the process moving without anyone in either partnership knowing it exists until the principals decide otherwise.
Every engagement begins with a discreet discussion of your goals. Nothing reaches the market without your direction.