Legal Business

Dentons becomes world’s most lawyered firm with Dacheng tie-up

legal-business-default

Firms set to create a 6,600-lawyer, $1.7bn law firm giant

In a bid to create the world’s largest firm by lawyer headcount, Dentons is to combine with China’s biggest firm, Dacheng Law Offices, to form a 6,600-lawyer giant operating under a Swiss verein structure.

With offices across over 50 countries, combined revenues will be in the region of $1.7bn. At the end of the financial year 2013/14, Dentons’ turnover was $1.3bn, while Dacheng confirmed that its revenues currently stand at $400m, although revenues were reported to have hit just RMB1.78bn ($287m) in the 2013 financial year. The firm will have revenue per lawyer of $257,000, compared to $769,000 across the Global 100. Both partnerships confirmed the tie-up in late January, although at the time of press, both firms were awaiting approval from Chinese regulators.