Ashurst Ends Decades-Long Quest to Find Its Way Into America

Ashurst’s pending merger with Perkins Coie ends a decades-long hunt for a trans-Atlantic partner for a London firm hit hard in its own backyard by US rivals.

Once near the top of the second-tier of UK firms in London known as the Silver Circle, Ashurst’s position relative to local rivals has been in decline over the last 15 years largely because of withering competition from US law firms, UK legal recruiter Scott Gibson said in an interview.

“Ashurst has been seeking a US partner for the past 20 years, and Perkins Coie is an excellent brand,” Gibson said. “It is generally easier for law firms to achieve higher margins in the US because clients tolerate higher charge-out rates.”

The merger announced Monday shows how UK firms are continuing a years-long trend of looking to US shores for a brighter future as American giants such as Kirkland & Ellis and Latham & Watkins have swallowed their hometown business and forced them to jack up pay to nearly unsustainable levels to retain talent.

Set to close in the third quarter of next year, the merger will create a trans-Atlantic behemoth called Ashurst Perkins Coie with revenue of about $2.7 billion, big enough to place it among the 20 biggest law firms in the world, while opening new markets to the firms’ combined core strengths of energy, technology and financial services.

The tie-up captures two of the biggest waves rippling across the legal industry—the need to scale up in size, and the push to compete in the trans-Atlantic deals market, said Bruce MacEwan, president of Adam Smith, Esq., a legal consultancy for strategic and economic issues.

“Money and deals are a major, major vertical category for law firms,” MacEwan said. “Litigation could be episodic, but dealmaking keeps going, whether it’s mergers in good times or spinoffs in challenging times—they call for the same set of legal expertise.”

Ashurst’s Need

UK firms over the past decade have been grappling with increased competition from US rivals, with top operators such as Allen & Overy, Clifford Chance, Freshfields losing their historic market-leading positions in London.

To try to compete with the US interlopers, the UK firms have been forced to raise salaries to attract and keep talent. Linklaters last year boosted salaries 20% for newly qualified lawyers after a similar move by Freshfields.

As Ashurst weathered the storm, it turned to 10-year partner Paul Jenkins to take the reins in 2016. The change came after a period of turbulence, when the firm’s average profit per equity partner crashed by almost 20% and its revenue fell by 10% in the 2015-16 financial year amid a regular flow of partner departures.

Under Jenkins’ leadership, the firm moved to shore up its finances by delaying its quarterly profit payouts to partners—something it hadn’t had to do since 2012—and overhauled its remuneration system to introduce an extended lockstep ladder and new bonus pool to try to keep talent.

Now, top partners at the firm can command between £2 million ($2.6 million) and around £3.5 million ($4.6 million) for a reserved handful, according to two people familiar with the firm who requested anonymity to discuss compensation issues. Those figures are in line with the average profit per equity partner at elite UK rivals.

“Paul has done a remarkable job at keeping the firm together and ensuring that they have a common purpose,” said Freddie Lawson, head of partner search at Montresor Legal. “To think where the firm was 10 years ago, the only way was up.”

Ashurst reported $1.2 billion in revenue in 2024, a 9% jump over the previous year. But Jenkins had a task remaining on his to-do list—he wanted the firm to grow in the US with the right partner.

“We needed significant growth, as opposed to incremental growth,” he said in an interview Monday. “Given the needs of our clients, we thought the rationale was there for a combination.”

US Attempts

Ashurst had looked to the US before, but its merger talks with US heavyweights Latham & Watkins, Sidley Austin and Fried Frank failed in the early 2000s.

Other attempts to grow in the US brought mixed results. It operated a US referral relationship with Washington, DC-founded firm McKee Nelson until the acquisition of that outfit by Boston-founded Bingham McCutchen in 2009. It also opened a New York base in 2009, launched an office in Santa Monica, California in 2020 and opened an office in Austin, Texas in 2022. It completed a merger with Australian outfit Blake Dawson in 2013.

The firm’s presence in the US, however, has been small. Ashurst’s website has 40 lawyers listed in New York, 16 lawyers—including three partners—listed in Santa Monica and one in Austin.

Meanwhile, UK rivals Allen & Overy and Herbert Smith Freehills in 2024 and this year successfully concluded mergers with US firms Shearman & Sterling and Kramer Levin.

Ashurst and Perkins Coie began discussing the possibility of a tie-up in February, before Perkins Coie was hit with an executive order from President Donald Trump that sent the latter firm to court to get the directive overturned.

“There wasn’t a month that’s gone by that these discussions haven’t progressed in some way,” said Perkins Coie managing partner Bill Malley, who will co-lead the new firm with Jenkins.

The tie-up will boost each firm’s footprint in global markets, respectively, according to David Neff, a former Perkins Coie bankruptcy partner who retired late last year.

“If it’s not financial driven, then it’s usually driven by client considerations,” Neff said. “Either major clients or major partners say ‘Gee I really want an office here because it’s gonna be accretive to my business, and that’s gonna help the firm.’”

—With additional reporting by Justin Henry