Morgan Lewis announces merger with Singapore law firm
Morgan Lewis has announced a merger with Stamford Law Corp., a law firm with about 80 lawyers in Singapore.
The combined law firms will have about 2,000 lawyers and will be known as Morgan Lewis Stamford in Singapore, report the Am Law Daily, the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Philadelphia Business Journal. The combined law firm will be among the world’s five largest law firms, according to the Inquirer. A press release is here.
The merger will take place on April 1. The announcement comes about four months after Morgan Lewis acquired more than 750 lawyers and staffers from Bingham McCutchen. Discussions between Morgan Lewis and Stamford began in September.
Morgan Lewis chair Jami McKeon told the Philadelphia Business Journal that Morgan Lewis had targeted Singapore before the Bingham laterals came aboard. “So for us, we asked whether we would be willing to do Bingham knowing that we were committed to doing Singapore,” she said. “And we concluded that we could handle it.”
McKeon said all Stamford partners will become Morgan Lewis partners. “No [Swiss] vereins for us,” she told the Am Law Daily.
Stamford managing partner Suet-Fern Lee will continue to lead the Singapore office after the firms combine. Regulations prevent the acquisition of a Singapore firm, but there is no ban on the “internationalization” of a law firm, Lee told the Am Law Daily.
