DLA Piper to Ax Verein Structure in Play to Boost Profits (1)

DLA Piper is ditching its verein structure as the massive law firm seeks to unify its strategy across its global operations and fuel further growth.

DLA plans to dissolve its verein, a structure used by some law firms to connect loose networks of affiliates with separate profits pools operating under the same brand, its leaders said Thursday. A new global holding company will oversee two partnerships: DLA Piper US and DLA Piper International.

“We’ve never had a single leadership team that together drives the strategic direction of the firm,” said Frank Ryan, the New York lawyer who will serve as the firm’s chair and global co-CEO, alongside London-based Charles Severs. “So now we’re going to be looking at the best opportunities for the firm and lawyers in the firm in unified fashion, as opposed to one group is looking after its own or the other after itself,” Ryan said.

Another imperative is to drive profitability in both partnerships of the new company, Ryan and Severs said. The firm is looking to competing with elite law firms for top tier talent and has already made in-roads picking up key hires from Wachtell Lipton Rosen & Katz, Kirkland & Ellis, and Akin Gump Strauss Hauer & Feld.

“Some of that profitability will and can be shared, but not all,” Severs said of the US and international operations, citing regulatory, tax, and other hurdles.

The firm’s partners are expected to vote on the new structure in April, eyeing an implementation date of May 1, Severs said.

Five other DLA Piper partners will also serve on the firm’s new global leadership team—US-based Loren Brown, John Gilluly, and Rick Chesley, along with international partners Sandra Wallace and Ben Parameswaran. The firm also will establish a global executive committee and a global policy committee.

DLA Piper is the product of a 2005 merger between San Diego-based Gary Cary Ware & Freidenrich, Baltimore-based Piper Rudnick and the UK firm DLA LLP. The firm adopted the Swiss verein structure in 2008, amid efforts to expand internationally. It has since grown to a 4,800-lawyer firm with 80 offices across the globe, and revenue topping $4.2 billion in 2024.

“The combination of a global platform that’s been developed over the last 20 years is a combination that no other firm can match,” Severs said.

‘Pressure on Globalization’

The change will give DLA Piper a unified global strategy at a time when it is vital for firms to have deep benches of lawyers in critically important markets across the globe, according to Ryan.

“It’s almost like the world is coming to us right now as there’s more and more pressure on globalization,” Ryan said.

Other large law firms looking to expand their global reach through tie-ups. Seattle-founded Perkins Coie is planning to merge with the UK’s Ashurst. Transatlantic firm Hogan Lovells is combining with New York-founded Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft, while Chicago-founded Winston & Strawn is completing a merger with UK’s Taylor Wessing.

DLA Piper has a running start, Ryan said, and the structure change will allow it to make joint, strategic investments. He also said the change will “absolutely result in greater profitability for the partners.”

“We want to be a destination for great talent, and you can’t be that if you’re not paying people competitively, not just to recruit them, but to retain them,” Ryan said.

DLA Piper paid its partners more than $3.4 million in 2024, a jump of 10% from the year prior.

The verein structure offers some benefits, but its not the best option for firms looking to compete globally for the best talent in the most important markets, said Mark Jungers, chief strategy officer of global recruitment firm Centerpeak LLC.

“There are currently and will be in the future, winners and losers for the battle for talent and the battle for the best work and this enables them to compete more effectively for those two things,” Jungers said.

Jungers brokered Wachtell M&A partner Viktor Sapezhnikov’s jump to DLA in October. The firm also picked up Akin’s private capital team, including the head of its capital solutions team Ranesh Ramanathan, in recent weeks.

Those hires “are just a symptom of what we’re going to do,” Severs said. “It’s the beginning of our ability to attract talent on a global basis—a truly global basis—and we just have not done enough of that before,” he said.

“This is growth,” Ryan said. “We’re going to further scale in our most important practice areas, our power alley practices, our major geographies where we need to compete more,” he said.