DLA PIPER’SUS operation shot up The Global 100 last year thanks to the newly combined revenues of the now merged Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich.

The merged entity, which went live on 1 January 2005, collared some $890.5m (£489.3m) in revenue for 2005, a 12 per cent increase on the sum of the separate 2004 turnovers of Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary.

Piper Rudnick grew its revenue by a respectable 16 per cent in 2004, when it posted $580.5m (£318.95m), while Gray Cary had a flat turnover of $213m (£116.9m).

PEP rose by 11 per cent in 2005 to an even $1m (£549,000), building on the 10 per cent increase made in 2004 to $900,000 (£494,000). The figure is much closer to the average PEP of the rest of the DLA Piper empire – its combined Europe, Middle East and Africa (Emea) arm – which posted a PEP of $1.1m (£604,000).

As part of the merger, the Emea arm of DLA has changed its financial year-end to 31 December, while the US operation has switched from a cash-based system to the accruals method favoured by UK firms.

But while outside the US the firm went mad with expansion, at home it was busy consolidating its merger with Gray Cary, fending off competition for its West Coast technology lawyers, opening in Raleigh with a team hire and bolstering its New York office with a half-dozen capital markets lateral partner hires in 2005. The firm opened in Atlanta in May 2006.

High-profile US matters for the firm included advising the New York Port Authority on the redevelopment of the World Trade Center site, while the firm’s chairman, former Senator George Mitchell, continues to be highly visible, heading an independent inquiry into steroid use in Major League Baseball.