On 1 January 2010, while the legal world was focusing on the highly publicised mergers between Norton Rose and Deacons, and Lovells and Hogan & Hartson, a smaller law firm in Asia was celebrating too.
As the new Norton Rose group came into effect, Indochina law firm DFDL Mekong was finalising its own merger, with Bangkok-based McEvily & Collins. While not exactly on the scale of a global merger, after subsuming the McEvily & Collins brand in Thailand, the law firm nevertheless gained a new office in Phuket, two new partners and 15 lawyers. It now has 90 lawyers and professionals across eight offices.
The merger idea came around at the same time as the Norton Rose announcement, but the courting process was somewhat different. The two new partners – Matthew McEvily and Marcus Collins – were well acquainted with DFDL Mekong having worked with the firm on a number of transactions. “[The idea] came during a client party in the second quarter of last year, and it was a mutual decision from both firms – we both had mutual clients and we’d worked with each other before,” said DFDL Chairman David Doran.
Doran said a bigger presence in Thailand will help the firm target the growth area of outbound real estate, taxation and M&A transactions to Cambodia and Vietnam. “We think that developers with projects in Samui, Phuket and Bangkok will begin looking into the resort areas in Cambodia and Vietnam. That’s part of the reason to combine our services here, to build on our Thai real-estate practice.”
The merger is also part of an ambition to be one of the leading firms in the Mekong region, added Doran. “While we have a very good market share and presence in Cambodia, Laos and Vietnam, from a legal market perspective Thailand is the most competitive in the Mekong region,” said Doran. “Thailand is the [market] we needed to focus on the most, because it’s the hub of the Mekong region, it’s the centre-point through which a lot of the work that flows into Laos and Vietnam comes. This merger builds our core team into a much bigger group, to meet that need.”
The firm is already looking to the next legal market to tackle, but for now, it is dealing with the immediate consequences of growth – the need for more space.
“Since the combination of the two firms, there’s certainly a buzz in the office,” said Doran. “Unfortunately, it’s a little bit cramped now, but we have to wait for another tenant to move out before we can expand.”