Locke Lord, a Texas-founded firm with a history of more than 135 years in Texas, has agreed to combine with Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders. The firms, which acknowledged in April that merger talks were taking place, voted in favor of the deal Thursday.
The combined firm will launch operations on Jan. 1 as Troutman Pepper Locke.
Under the agreement reached Thursday, Tom Cole and Amie Colby, Troutman Pepper’s chair and managing partner, will continue in those roles. Troutman vice chair Ashley Taylor and Locke Lord chair David Taylor will serve together as vice chairs.
The merger will create a firm of more than 1,600 lawyers in 35 offices which last year reported more than $1.5 billion in revenues, placing it in the top 30 of the Am Law 100 rankings. Both firms have 20 offices, only seven of which overlap. Troutman Pepper, which has no current offices in Texas, gains a presence in Dallas, Houston and Austin.
Beyond Texas, Locke Lord has offices in Florida, London and Brussels where Troutman Pepper has none. Troutman Pepper, on the other hand, has three offices in California (Orange County, San Diego and San Francisco), as well as four in Pennsylvania where Locke Lord does not.
This is Troutman Pepper’s second serious effort to combine with a Texas-based firm. In 2018, they were in merger talks with Dallas-based Winstead. Those talks collapsed. Likewise, Locke Lord is no stranger to merger. Known half-century ago as Locke Purnell Rain Harrell, Locke Lord became the firm of that name in 2007 when the two Texas firms, Lord Bissell & Brook and Locke Liddell & Sapp, combined.
Kent Zimmermann, a strategic adviser and principal with the Zeughauser Group, introduced the two firms and describes the combination as “the most appealing in recent history.”
Zimmermann says the benefits of the merger run beyond the math. The value to both firms is the benefit in depth and talent and broadening of structure within the practices they share. Too often, he said, merging firms are trying to fill in gaps — of talent or geography or practice fields. That was not the case with Troutman Pepper and Locke Lord, Zimmermann said.
“Both firms independently had a focus on the same industry sectors,” said Zimmermann after Thursday’s vote had been announced. “It’s not every day that there’s a combination this strategically elegant. Advising on the combination early in the discussion it felt like the business case was writing itself. That doesn’t always happen.”
Zimmermann said the merger was not only a matter of scale and geographic appeal, but a merger of two firms that were in a position to build on their practice strengths.
“If you look at the Am Law 100 and you count up Chambers-ranked practices they have, (the combined firms) would rank tenth,” said Zimmermann, reiterating observations he made at time the two firms acknowledged merger talks. “If you rank the number of Chambers-ranked lawyers, they would rank sixth.”
But aside from the synergies of talent, said Zimmermann, are the benefits of scale.
“In addition to the strategic elegance (of the merger), the benefits of scale are becoming clearer to a very large group of firms. That’s true in New York. That’s true in California. That’s true in Texas, London and beyond,” said Zimmermann.
“Those benefits include such things as raising the firm profile and to make it appealing for high stakes work, attracting excellent lawyers to be in the mix more often for the most desirable clients and to have more money to invest, to retain and attract lawyers who are in high demand — as well as having more to invest in technology and other forms of innovation for the firm’s future.”