Why Corporate Law Firms Merge with Chris Batz

“It’s astonishing; it’s just mind-blowing,” says Chris Batz about the exponential growth in revenue generated by the AmLaw top 100 firms in the last 22 years. On today’s episode of The Future is Bright, Chris takes a closer look at these numbers, what’s driving them and which firm comes out on top. He also takes a look at the increasing number of firms who are choosing to merge in order to, among many reasons, increase competition, deepen their benches, and to increase their geographic reach.

On his first solo episode of the podcast, Chris draws from quotes from executives at several high-profile firms who explain their motivation for merging. So often, it was a matter of shared values—very often people-focused values—aligning and that the decision benefits the internal teams just as much as it does the client. Chris, who is now exclusively focused on assisting firms with this process, offers his own insights on the topic.

Join today’s episode of The Future is Bright to learn how far corporate law firms have come in the past 20 years, and what it means for the future.

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Episode Breakdown:

00:00 Why scale matters for law firms

01:00 Am law 100/200 revenue and growth trends

03:00 Headcount expansion and firm size evolution

04:30 The impact of consolidation

06:00 Comparing am law 100 and am law 200

08:00 Recent major law firm mergers

12:00 Key themes and merger rationales

14:00 Client expectations and competitive pressures

15:30 Growth strategies for smaller firms

17:00 Conclusion

Quotes

“I am assisting firms where they are really feeling the effects of these incredibly large law firms and the consolidation that is taking place at a rapid pace right now.” (3:08 | Chris Batz)

“Twenty-two years ago, in 2002, there were only two law firms that were generating a billion in revenue annually, a year. The other 98 were, of course, less than a billion in revenue. Twenty-two years later, it is astonishing, but more than half—54 firms—now, of the AmLaw100, are generating more than a billion. To break that down, 33 firms are generating a billion to just under 2 billion. The two to three billion mark, or just under three billion is 14 firms. And then we have three billion and more—seven firms. It’s just mind-blowing.” (4:44 | Chris Batz)

“We’ve had substantial consolidation, explosive growth, and of course, there have been price increases, clients are reducing the amount of firms they’re working with, generally speaking. They’re finding firms with broader benches and deeper benches, especially sub-specialties is a really important thing, as well as geographic reach.” (7:11 | Chris Batz)

“Clients have ‘reputational risk.’ General counsel, the boards, CEOs, CFOs, decision-makers of these large clients. And perception—even though you think reality is different—perception shows that smaller firms are riskier decisions to give valuable work to. So, that valuable work goes to the bigger firms—not always, but consistently—it’s happening. Valuable being higher rate work, more headline-making work, probably requiring deeper benches, subspecialties, all these things, so that’s one of the reasons consolidations happen.” (17:30 | Chris Batz)

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