Lexpert Magazine

NOW THAT the merger of Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, Salans LLP and SNR Den- ton has been given the green light by part- ners, the firm's leadership team is quickly making plans to leverage the global reach of the new 2,500-lawyer firm, which will operate under the name Dentons. Once the merger is complete in the first quarter of 2013, the firm's operations will encompass 79 locations in Canada, the United States, Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Africa, with the notable excep- tions of Australia and South America. Bloomberg estimates that the newly estab- lished top-10 global law firm will have an- nual revenue of $1.3 billion. With no head office and no dominant national culture, Dentons will have a "fun- damental focus on polycentricity," says FMC's CEO Chris Pinnington. "We are building a firm which we believe reflects increasingly what our globalizing clientele looks and feels like." e firm will operate under a Swiss Ver- ein structure, which "allows us to function in a highly integrated way" across 52 coun- tries, says SNR Denton's Elliott Portnoy of Washington, DC, who will be global CEO. He adds that it's "impossible, under local regulations and law, to have a completely integrated single-profit pool in many of the locations in which we operate." is merger story is not about a Cana- dian law firm being swallowed up by larger US- or UK-based firms, insists Pinnington, but is instead "a combination of three foun- dational firms – aligned in value, vision and strategy – coming together." As a large Canadian firm with no footprint outside Canada, FMC's ability to continue to serve its clients' increasingly international needs had become limited, he adds. "For us, this was the clear path forward." In addition to the key sectors in which FMC specializes – namely, real estate and financial services – the merger creates an opportunity to leverage its consider- able strength in the mining and natural- resources sector. is was one of the main attractions for Salans and SNR Denton, says Portnoy. "e brand that FMC has on a global basis in mining, energy and natural resources is well-known to our mining law- yers in the US, in the UK, in Russia, in cen- tral Asia, and in Africa. And the ability to unite that extraordinary depth and brand in Canada with the existing teams of both Salans and FMC to create what we believe will be the dominant and premier mining law firm in the world is at the heart of the strategy we're pursuing." e combination also provides major inroads to the United States for lawyers on the Canadian side. Despite the fact that Leveraging the Dentons Behemoth the two countries enjoy the world's largest bilateral trading relationship, Pinnington says the merger constitutes the broadest and deepest cross-border integration effort between law firms to date. "Many observ- ers," he says, "have been mystified that this is only happening now." e merger with the Canadian firm also provides an advantage for the Europeans, says François Chateau, the current Chair- man of Salans' global board and a partner in the firm's New York office, who will be global Vice-Chair of Dentons. He says the relationship between Canada and Europe has always been close and that many Eu- ropean companies use Canada as a gate- way to enter the North American market. "ey're scared – and rightly so sometimes – by US regulation, US companies and the size of the market." He adds that "western European companies love the fact that it's a very good platform to then go in the second wave, the second step, to the US." Portnoy says that the three firms share a similar culture because "none of us would be prepared to be acquired and fold our firms into something or someone else, but we wanted to come together on equal footing and build a brand new law firm. We think it's a distinctive difference and believe it will become competitive in the marketplace." The merger of FMC, SNR Denton and Salans creates a top-10 firm with close ties to the US BY ANN MACAULAY UP FRONT LEXPERT MAGAZINE | JANUARY 2013 15

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