Faegre Baker Daniels will merge with a large Philadelphia firm to form one of the 50 largest law firms in the U.S.
Faegre and Drinker Biddle & Reath announced last month that they were in merger talks. Partners at the two firms have now voted to form Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath on Feb. 1.
"We've been in discussions with the Drinker firm for a better part of a year," said Tom Froehle, the chairman and managing partner of Faegre. "We've taken a pretty deliberative process in terms of getting to know their leadership team and then some of the practice group leadership."
Talks included what Froehle called "socializations" or opportunities for partners at the similar-sized firms to get to know each other and judge the cultural fit.
"Both firms take a lot of pride in the collaborative culture they've had over the years where they both team with each other but also with their clients," Froehle said.
A good cultural fit was nonnegotiable to both firms, Froehle said, and both sides share the ideal of providing clients "excellence without arrogance."
The geographic fit of the two firms will create a national law firm with 1,300 attorneys and consultants in 19 U.S. markets and three international cities: London, Beijing and Shanghai. The firm will have limited overlap at offices in Chicago, Los Angeles and Washington, D.C.
Going forward, the largest offices will be Minneapolis, Chicago, Indianapolis, Philadelphia and Washington, D.C.