Law-firm mergers returning to prerecession levels

Law-firm mergers are bouncing back to their prerecession levels, providing further evidence the industry is stabilizing after the financial collapse of 2008 and 2009, according to a survey by the legal-consulting firm Altman Weil.

Nationally, the Newtown Square firm said, there were 60 mergers in 2011, including a handful involving Philadelphia-area law firms. Altman Weil said the merger pace reflected confidence about expanding into new markets.

"We saw a dip during the recession," Altman Weil principal Ward Bower said. "Nobody was concentrating on strategy. Everyone was concentrating on survival. Now that we are out of the recession, and although it is not a strong recovery by any means, it has inspired a lot of confidence in a lot of firms who are looking to grow again."

Four Philadelphia firms acquired firms outside the city last year. Fox Rothschild picked up a small intellectual-property group in downtown Los Angeles, adding to its existing group in that city's glitzy Century City area.

Saul Ewing added seven lawyers in Boston, Blank Rome picked up 10 lawyers in Houston, and Archer Greiner of Haddonfield merged with the firm Herten Burstein in Hackensack, in North Jersey.

"This was an opportunity for us to get into the downtown market," Abraham Reich, cochairman of Fox Rothschild, said of the firm's 2011 acquisition of the Chan Law Group in Los Angeles. "Is the worst behind us? The answer is yes. But with a footnote. People are still very conservative, as opposed to being bullish."

Law firms are a powerful economic engine for the Philadelphia region, and they took a hit during the downturn, although the pullback regionally was not as severe as in some cities, notably New York, where firms were more closely tied to Wall Street. Still, hundreds of lawyers and administrative staff who worked for Philadelphia-based firms lost their jobs, and the return from the abyss has been a slow climb.

An earlier Altman Weil report provided additional cause for optimism. The consulting firm said late last year that a survey of corporate legal departments showed that companies were spending more on legal services, both through internal hires and additional spending on outside counsel.