Ballard Spahr to Merge With Pacific Northwest’s Lane Powell (2)

Ballard Spahr is merging with Lane Powell as a Big Law consolidation spree continues.

Philadelphia-founded Ballard Spahr and Seattle’s Lane Powell are set to officially tie up on Jan. 1, the firms said Monday. The combined firm, to be led by Ballard Spahr’s Peter Michaud, will have more than 750 lawyers across 18 US offices.

Some large firms have looked to merger talks to keep pace with rapid growth across the legal industry. Troutman Pepper, another Philadelphia firm, said last week it will officially merge with Texas-based Locke Lord in January.

“We’re very strong in our market, but we feel like we’re just hitting the limits of our platform and this combination will really allow us to do so much more for our clients and for our talented lawyers and business professionals,” Barbara Duffy, Lane Powell’s president, said in an interview.

Lane Powell was founded in 1875, making it one of the Pacific Northwest’s oldest law firms. Its clients include Starbucks, Nordstrom, Bank of America, Safeway, Cigna, Aetna, Wells Fargo, and Chevron. The firm has roughly 180 attorneys working across 35 practice areas in offices in Anchorage, Portland, and Seattle.

Those offices will be new outposts for Ballard Spahr, which has more than 600 lawyers across 15 US locations. The firm brought in more $484 million in gross revenue in 2023, according to figures released by the American Lawyer, landing just inside the 100 largest US-based firms by that metric.

‘Material’ Growth

Lane Powell has often been approached by law firms looking to expand into the Pacific Northwest, according to Duffy. The firm formed a strategic growth committee after she took the leadership role in 2019.

“We decided that we wanted to grow in a material way, and that we wanted to grow in a way that helped us better provide services to our clients and we felt like our opportunity would lie outside of the Pacific Northwest,” she said.

Firm leaders began having conversations with a number of potential merger partners coming out of the pandemic, Duffy said. That included talks with Peter Michaud, who is in his first year as Ballard Spahr’s chair and joined the firm via its 2018 acquisition of Minneapolis-based Lindquist & Vennum.

Michaud’s experience and perspective on how the Lindquist & Vennum merger allowed the firm to expand client relationships and attract talent “really got us interested and the conversations took off from there,” Duffy said.

Lane Powell attorneys voted unanimously on Sept. 5 to approve the combination. Duffy will serve on the combined firm’s executive committee following the merger.

The more he got to know Lane Powell, “the more I knew that this was just a great match for us,” Michaud said.

The combination gives Ballard Spahr access to a new geographic areas where it already has clients, he said.

“They’re excited about having boots on the ground offices there and then we’re excited about other companies getting to know us and hearing from us about what we can do for them,” Michaud said.

Seattle has attracted a handful of large firms over the past decade, including Fox Rothschild, Morgan Lewis, and Polsinelli, said Greg Walther, Seattle-based partner at Emerald Search Partners.

The local legal economy is driven by major tech companies like Microsoft and Amazon, an emerging biotech industry, and natural resource law, he said. It also serves as a jumping-off point for servicing clients in Alaska and Asia.

The merger will likely force other midsize Seattle and Pacific Northwest firms to reconsider their strategies for fear of being left behind, according to Walther.

“This is just the tip of the next iceberg,” he said. “I’m not surprised at Ballard Spahr’s move. I’m sure there are a lot of other Am Law 50 firms looking at merging or planting a flag here in the Pacific Northwest.”

Partner Tiers

The combining firms still have some finer points to work out in the months leading up to the merger.

Ballard Spahr is a single-tiered partnership, in which all partners have equity in the firm. Lane Powell has a two-tier partnership of equity and nonequity partners, which are paid an annual salary.

Ballard Spahr will continue to have a one-tier partnership “for the foreseeable future,” Michaud said. But a board committee appointed earlier this year is already looking at whether the firm should implement a two-tiered system, he added.

“It’s actually something that we’ll probably tackle as a combined firm,” Michaud said. “In the meantime, what we just need to do is really focus on helping every attorney who joins us from Lane Powell understand that they’re important to us and that we are excited to help them develop as attorneys and to grow their practices, regardless of what their what their title is.”

Growth is still on the table for Ballard Spahr. The firm is focused on looking at growth opportunities in all three of Lane Powell’s current offices, particularly in the intellectual property space, Michaud said. It’s also eyeing opportunities in Texas and Florida.

“As the combined firm, all of us will work together to figure out what what the next move should be,” he said.