Wilmer Cutler and Hale and Dorr forge ahead with merger

Washington’s Wilmer Cutler & Pickering and Boston’s Hale and Dorr have voted through their lightening quick merger, creating a firm with combined revenue of $649m.

The firms, to be co-managed from Boston and Washington, will officially merge on 31 May and will house around 1,050 lawyers.

Wilmer Cutler’s managing partner William Perlstein and Hale and Dorr’s managing partner William Lee will jointly lead the new firm to be known as Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr.

The combined firm will have offices in London, Oxford, Munich, Berlin and Brussels.

After initial discussions started last year, both firms have moved quickly to push the merger through, culminating in a partnership vote last week. Both firms have merit based partner compensation though Hale and Dorr had slightly higher average profits per partner in 2003 at $810,000 compared to Wilmer Cutler’s $776,000.

The newly merged firm is predicting that revenues for 2004 will rise to $700m, placing it within the top ten highest grossing firms in the US.