Norton Rose has done it again, this time with U.S. law firm Fulbright & Jaworski. The UK law firm is set to combine with the U.S. firm on June 1, 2013 to create a new global powerhouse in the legal industry under the name Norton Rose Fulbright. The move comes a little more than three years after the firm merged with Australian firm Deacons.

Managing partner of Norton Rose in Australia, Wayne Spanner, told ALB that the tie up with a U.S. firm had been part of the firm’s strategy all along and would provide clients with capabilities across the entire United States. “The importance of the U.S. market cannot be underestimated… U.S. clients, despite where the U.S. economy is at this stage, are not to be underestimated, they continue to invest in Australia and into Asia,” he said.  “We in Australia are exceptionally excited to embrace the Fulbright name into our business, because it captures the depth and experience in the U.S. that we can now bring to the market in Australia.”

The addition of Fulbright will also lead to the establishment of a global regulatory and investigations practice, said Spanner: “Globalisation and regulatory issues are fundamentally important since the global financial crisis, and through this tie up we now have the capability to offer a complete solution in terms of our regulatory capability worldwide in terms of financial institutions, major safety instance response work, and a broad range of regulatory issues across the world.”

According to Spanner, the entire Norton Rose partnership, including the 140 partners in Australia voted overwhelmingly for a tie-up with Fulbright  & Jaworski.  The National Law Journal's annual law survey of U.S. firms ranked Fulbright & Jaworski 37th in terms of number of lawyers and partners, with 810 lawyers and 345 partners. Meanwhile, U.S. firm K&L Gates, which is in discussions with Australian firm Middletons about a merger is ranked eighth by the journal with 1,762 lawyers including 907 partners.

Norton Rose Fulbright will continue to operate under the Swiss Verein model that Norton Rose has used in recent years to build a global network of lawyers, whereby partners are not financially integrated across regions. During the past three years Norton Rose has embarked on an aggressive merger spree that has transformed it from a UK and European focused-firm to one of the world’s largest and fastest-growing firms.

Spanner said he and his predecessor, Don Boyd, would retain their roles in the operation of the global law firm post tie-up. Current global chief executive of Norton Rose Peter Martyr will be the global chief executive of Norton Rose Fulbright, while chair-elect of Fulbright, Ken Stewart, will serve as managing partner of the U.S. operations and will take a senior position on Norton Rose Fulbright’s global executive committee, which Spanner also sits on.

In the five locations where the two firms already co-exist, the offices will be integrated by June 1. The new firm will have a total of some 3,800 lawyers, 1,250 partners, 55 offices and an annual turnover of approximately US$2 billion, making it one of the 10 largest firms in the world.

Norton Rose Fulbright key statistics:
Lawyers: 3800
Partners: 1250
Staff: More than 7500
Turnover: Approximately US$2 billion
Offices: 55