A&O Shearman: Texas is Strategic to New Firm’s Success

Weeks into the creation of the global law firm A&O Shearman — the result of the May 1 merger of London’s Allen & Overy and New York-based Shearman & Sterling — the 800 partners kicked off their new firm by holding their first partnership retreat in historic and beautiful Copenhagen and not in Texas, where the attorneys would have been greeted by a heat and humidity dome, record-high temperatures, hurricane force winds, massive flooding and, to quote David Letterman, hail the size of canned hams.

It was an indisputably wise decision that would cause any Texas lawyer whose firm conducted its annual partnership meeting in The Woodlands or Plano to give serious thought to making a lateral move.