The agreement comes after months of internal discussions across both firms, which have been looking for ways to deepen their presence in the US, the world’s most profitable legal market. Ashurst, a long-established Anglo-Australian practice, has been steadily expanding its international footprint while Perkins Coie, headquartered in Seattle, has been seeking a way to scale up amid intense competition from global rivals.
Under the approved deal, partners at both firms voted to combine into a single operation with at least 50 offices and around 1000 partners worldwide, creating a business with revenue of about $3.9 billion. The merger vote required a two-thirds majority at each partnership and both sides comfortably cleared that hurdle, even after Perkins Coie saw roughly two dozen of its approximately 450 partners leave for competitors following the initial proposal in November.
In the bigger picture, this looks like part of a broader push by UK- and Australia-based firms to secure a stronger foothold in the US, where deep-pocketed corporate clients and complex cross-border work continue to drive growth. The new combined firm seems poised to compete more directly with other global legal giants, but how smoothly it integrates its people, systems and client relationships will likely determine whether the headline numbers translate into long-term advantages.
