It was one year ago Sunday that Allen & Overy and Shearman and Sterling announced that their respective partnerships had voted to merge their two firms, creating a huge, fully integrated global firm.
It was also one year ago last week that Hamas launched its brutal attack in Israel, igniting a conflict that had long been brewing but has now erupted into turmoil and tragedy, creating a pivotal moment in the Middle East and beyond, including for the legal community.
A host of other changes have taken place in the past year. And it's a fitting time for reflection, as not only did these transformative events occur one year ago, but the anniversaries come at the end of the holiest days in the Jewish Calendar, a 10-day period when Jews recite an ancient prayer that asks them to reflect on mortality and acknowledge life's uncertainties, asking, "Who will live and who will die?" The singer-songwriter Leonard Cohen adopted words from the prayer when he sang, "Who by fire, who by water?"
For most of the largest global and international law firms, it is not a question of survival, of course. They are, in fact, doing quite well. But they have been confronted with forces that have propelled rapid change. Do they acknowledge that they may be vulnerable? Do they learn from the past? Or do they merely react to the present, confident that they know how to ensure their future?
When partners at A&O and Shearman overwhelmingly voted to merge, it was viewed as a game-changer and a time of celebration—a transformational step for the legal industry that would result in a law firm of 3,950 lawyers and approximately 800 partners across 48 offices worldwide.
One year later, the merged firm has closed offices, discontinued business lines and cut about 80 equity partners—10% of its equity partnership...
