Legge Farrow is a 20-lawyer civilian litigation firm based in Texas. The tie-up is structured as a full merger and will go live on 3 January next year, creating a 170-partner firm with 15 offices across the United Kingdom, Europe, the United States, Latin America and Asia. Legge Farrow will switch for its current cash-based accounting and calendar financial year to Holman Fenwick’s accrual system and 31 March year end. The Texas firm’s managing partner Gerard Kimmitt will stay on as chief of the firm’s practice in Houston, but will not initially join the merged firm’s 10-strong management and strategy boards.

Groundwork for US growth

Holman Fenwick senior partner Richard Crump believes that Houston is an important market for the firm’s energy practice, and also provides an ideal springboard for further US expansion. ‘This is a statement of intent – we don’t want to stop at a presence in Houston,’ he told Legal Week. ‘It’s not some grandiose thing about wanting to be in 58,000 jurisdictions – it’s about looking at where our clients are going and trying to remain relevant to them. It’s a key part of the firm’s strategy.’ New York, Los Angeles, Miami, Chicago and San Francisco are all cities that have ‘significant relevance’ to Holman Fenwick’s clients, he said.

Rate stability

Legge Farrow has reportedly held merger conversations with three other international firms over the last four years, with one set of negotiations reaching the stage of exchanging financial information and signing nondisclosure agreements. However, Holman Fenwick reportedly made it past the post by inviting partners from Legge Farrow to its annual partner conference in Barcelona last month. Name partner Glenn Legge said: ‘It was a great experience and probably one of the things that tipped us to going with this merger without reservation.’ The merger will also allow the Texas firm to retain its current rate structure, an issue that Mr Legge says is ‘hugely important’ for the firm’s clients: ‘We didn’t want to go from Legge Farrow one day to Holman Fenwick the next, accompanied by a marked increase in rates… That was a very big issue for us and hugely important to our clients – particularly in the energy market, where depressed commodity prices have made the sector extremely cost conscious.’

Sources: Texas Lawyer; Legal Week