Norton Rose to merge with Fulbright
16 November 2012
Norton Rose confirmed on Wednesday that it will merge with US firm Fulbright & Jaworski next year.

Norton Rose Fulbright will be a big firm. NR has recently tied the knot with outfits in Canada and South Africa and the merger with the 850-lawyer Houston-headquartered Fulbright will result in a firm of 3,800 lawyers. That's enough to put it in the top ten globally. Peter Martyr, NR's Chief Exec, said that it would be a "truly global pratice with significant depth of expertise in the world's principal business and financial centres".

At first sight the merger makes a lot of sense. PwC's latest survey showed the top ten UK firms steaming away from the rest of the market, and suggested that the future belongs to elite international firms, huge global players and niche City outfits. This will catapult NR into that second bracket overnight, along with the likes of Baker & McKenzie, Eversheds and DLA Piper.

How it might look

But you can't make an omlette without breaking some eggs. NR refused to make any redundancies in the downturn and is generally seen as a great place to work. Whether this culture can be maintained with a board full of Americans focussed on the dollar remains to be seen.