© 2018 The Texas Lawbook.
By Mark Curriden
(Feb. 21) – The long-expected merger between Virginia-based Hunton & Williams and Andrews Kurth Kenyon was announced publicly Wednesday.
The combined firm will be called Hunton Andrews Kurth.
As reported last week by The Texas Lawbook, the newly combined firm will have more than 1,000 attorneys – including about 300 in Texas – and an estimated $700 million in revenues.
Lawyers at AKK, speaking on the condition of anonymity, told The Texas Lawbook that the merger is expected to be completed within the next six weeks.
In doing the merger, Hunton acquires a highly-respected oil and gas legal practice and one of the leading securities offerings practices in Texas. AKK represented 234 Texas-based companies involved in mergers and acquisitions with a combined value of $132 billion between 2010 and 2017, according to the independent research firm Mergermarket.
The road for the two firms to finalize the deal has been rocky.
During the past three years, a handful of other law firms – DLA Piper, Winston & Strawn and Orrick – approached Andrews Kurth about possibly combining. Leaders at AK rejected those offers and instead merged with IP boutique Kenyon & Kenyon in 2016.
More than 60 AKK lawyers have left the firm during the first seven weeks of 2018. Those lawyers departed for DLA Piper, Haynes and Boone, Katten Muchin, Orrick, Shearman & Sterling, Sidley and White & Case.
“When a law firm such as Andrews Kurth considers a merger, key partners at the firm start looking around to see what is best for them and their practices,” says Houston law firm consultant William Cobb.
“Firms involved in merger talks suck the air out of legal practices,” Cobb says. “There are so many meetings that the lawyers involved don’t have much time to practice law.”
Cobb says firms can expect to see additional departures in the months following a merger.
“We will see if the huge egos at one law firm will mesh with the huge egos at the other firm,” he says.
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