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Mergermarket Names Top 50 M&A Dealmaking Firms for Texas Clients in Q1

May 2, 2021 Mark Curriden

The closest office Ropes & Gray has to Texas is 968 miles from Dallas in Chicago.

Despite having no presence in the Lone Star State, the Boston-headquartered corporate law firm advised a dozen buyers and sellers in a dozen mergers and acquisitions involving Texas-based companies and private equity firms during the first three months of 2021.

New Mergermarket data, provided exclusively to The Texas Lawbook, shows that Ropes & Gray tripled the number of deals the firm’s lawyers handled during the first quarter of this year over a year earlier, jumping the firm’s ranking from 23rd to third.


Law Firm Q1 Rankings for 2021 by Deal Count
Numbers in red = year-over-year decline

Kirkland & Ellis once again dominated the Mergermarket M&A rankings in Texas during Q1 with 26 transactions at a combined value of $9 billion.

Vinson & Elkins ranked second with 14 deals valued at $10.5 billion. Ropes & Gray’s dozen transactions had a combined price tag of $8.85 billion. Latham & Watkins and Sidley Austin each handled 10 deals.

White & Case and Latham ranked one and two in deal value – each topping $16 billion.


Law Firm Q1 Rankings for 2021 by Deal Value
Numbers in red = year-over-year decline

Only five of the Mergermarket top 50 law firms during Q1 2021 are headquartered in Texas.

Two dozen law firms increased the number of deals they did this January, February and March compared to a year earlier, while exactly one dozen saw their transaction count decline.

White & Case jumped from one deal during Q1 2020 to eight transactions during the same period this year. Skadden Arps and Shearman & Sterling each doubled their M&A activity, according to the Mergermarket data.

Several law firms saw their deal count decline significantly during the first three months of 2021, including Latham (dropped from 18 to 10), DLA Piper (went from 13 deals to eight), Norton Rose Fulbright (dropped from 15 to seven).

Mark Curriden

Mark Curriden is a lawyer/journalist and founder of The Texas Lawbook. In addition, he is a contributing legal correspondent for The Dallas Morning News.

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