| Turnover: | £215.7m |
| Profit per equity partner: | £673,000 |
| Revenue per lawyer: | £429,000 |
| Total number of lawyers: | 502 |
While Dewey Ballantine posted impressive gross revenue of £215.7m ($392.5m), its average profit per equity partner barely rose. It went up by just 1.2 per cent, from £664,000 ($1.21m) to £673,000 ($1.23m) during the last financial year. As a result, the US firm fell 13 places down the profit table and six places in the revenue table in The Lawyer Global 100.
New York-headquartered firm Dewey's domestic strategy came into sharp focus during 2006 with its tie-up with Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe. In October 2006, the management and executive committees of both firms recommended the merger to their respective partnerships.
When the merger comes to fruition, the combined firm will house nearly 1,500 lawyers and come close to £530m ($1bn) in revenue. The combined firm will have one of the largest US presences in Europe with 300 lawyers spread across seven offices. With Orrick having successfully obtained the Shanghai and Beijing offices of Coudert Brothers, the merged firm would also have a China presence.
The new firm will be named Dewey Orrick, but will retain Orrick's 'O' brand. The partners are due to vote on the merger by mid-December and complete the deal by 1 January 2007.
Meanwhile, Dewey has not hung around. The firm, which has historically focused on representing investment banks in M&A transactions, has been busy strengthening its reputation as a strong finance player in London.
After losing three of its UK partners to Berwin Leighton Paisner during the past 12 months, Dewey began raiding its US rivals in the City. Shearman & Sterling of counsel Stephen Jurgenson joined Dewey as a partner in its project finance department while Cleary Gottlieb Steen & Hamilton associate Abesh Chowdhury became financial services counsel. The firm further augmented the team by transferring project finance counsel Karen Goepfert from New York.
Elsewhere in Europe, Dewey's Italian practice has been one of the success stories of its international expansion. Last year the US firm advised on what was then Europe's largest leveraged buyout, the £8.32bn ($15bn) acquisition of telecoms group Wind by Weather Investments.
The firm surprised the legal market in 2003 when it raided three firms and an investment bank to launch its Italian practice, with six partners, and offices in both Milan and Rome. Most recently it raided an Italian firm for two partners, Adriano Pala and Emanuela Ciaffi, for its Milan office.
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