Blake Dawson is "very confident" of consummating a full financial integration with Ashurst in 2014, managing partner John Carrington has told ALB.  "What we are driving towards is creating a partnership with a single profit pool and that will really set us apart," said Carrington. "Both Ashurst and ourselves took the view that having a commonality of interest is what enables you to really provide a seamless service. If you end up with several profit pools, whether it's Australian state based or international jurisdiction based, you do not have a commonality of interest."

There is currently a 10 percent disparity in profitability between the two firms in favour of Ashurst, a gap which Carrington says he is confident will disappear by 2014. "I'm confident that we're going to do it for a number of reasons," he said. "If you look at the trend line, in the previous two financial years we've increased profitability by an aggregate of 25 percent.  Our revenues are up eight to nine percent on a year on year basis and our profitability will be up again this year, not withstanding we're going to have a number of [rebrand] costs."