Addleshaw Goddard is set to merge with Scottish firm Maclay Murray & Spens.

The Lawyer reports that the firms' management teams met in the summer, with the merger due to go live next May subject to a partnership vote. It would provide Addleshaw Goddard with offices in Edinburgh, Glasgow and Aberdeen, and Maclay Murray & Spens with salvation.

MMS would be the latest in a string of Scottish firms to merge with Sassenachs, following McGrigor's tie-up with Pinsents in 2012 and Dundas & Wilson's absorption into CMS Cameron McKenna last year. This autumn the UK's largest insurance litigation firm, Simpson & Marwick, merged with Clyde & Co, creating an insurance powerhouse.

Addleshaw's reason for housing Maclays is less clear. The Scottish market has been in difficulties since the collapse of the banks, and so has MMS. In recent years, it failed to merge with Bond Pearce in 2012, made rafts of staff redundant, froze pay, lost partners and won a reputation for being stingy (although that doesn't quite excuse the actions of the staffer who embezzled £180,000). It even employed a secretary who wrote to a client that she didn't "give a fuck".
 

  AG's thinking explained
 
A spokesman for Addleshaw Goddard said mergers are "an option we keep under regular review, but there’s nothing to report". While an MMS spokesman said that although it has discussions with firms, "Many of these conversations are exploratory and come to nothing". Poor bairn.

     


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Comments

Anonymous 26 November 15 23:39

It looks like a case of turkeys voting for christmas following the rapid decline of MMS over the last few years as a result of very poor management.

Anonymous 27 November 15 08:41

Around a decade ago, MMS was already on the lookout for a "major merger" and its Partners flattered themselves that they would attract a City heavyweight. The quality of potential suitor declined as the firm was mismanaged by a series of individuals whose ineptitude was matched only by their greed. AG? The wallflower that one reluctantly asks up for the last dance on the basis it is marginally better than standing alone and bitter on the sidelines while you watch your peers copping off with all the talent.

Anonymous 27 November 15 10:14

In 2012 Bond Pearce chose to merge with (then) woeful law firm Dickinson Dees ahead of MMS.

MMS must have improved a lot in the last few years to get taken over by AG

Anonymous 04 December 15 21:12

Considering the secretary involved in the final comment died in tragic circumstances shortly after your original vile rant don't you think its time to let her rest in peace