Dentons touts ‘powerhouse’ merger with McKenna Long & Aldridge

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The global law firm Dentons says it has boosted its strength in both the United States and Canada by announcing a merger with politically connected Atlanta-based McKenna Long & Aldridge LLP.

In a statement, Dentons boasts that the combination with McKenna Long, which is home to former U.S. ambassador to Canada Gordon Giffin, will make "the new Dentons the premier firm for U.S.-Canada work."

The deal follows the law firm's ambitious and unprecedented merger with Chinese law firm Dacheng, announced in January. That deal adds 4,000 lawyers and makes Dentons the world's largest law firm by head count. After this latest U.S. deal is finalized, Dentons will have about 7,000 lawyers in 50 countries, although with a decentralized "Swiss Verein" structure that does not entail full financial integration of all of the law firms.

McKenna Long has about 430 lawyers and public-policy advisers in the United States as well as an office in Seoul, South Korea. The merger means Dentons will have about 1,100 lawyers in the United States – close to double what it has now – with offices in 21 U.S. cities, bolstering its presence in New York, Washington and elsewhere.

The well-connected Mr. Giffin, appointed by Bill Clinton in 1997, will now share a law firm with former prime minister Jean Chrétien, who was in office while Mr. Giffin was ambassador. Mr. Giffin has long had other connections with Fraser Milner Casgrain LLP, the Canadian firm that became part of the newly created Dentons in a 2013 merger. In an interview, the former ambassador says his goal has long been to create a strong and truly North American law firm.

"While everyone was preoccupied in my view with building relationships and growing in Asia and Europe, I wanted to grow in North America," Mr. Giffin said. "There's just a lot of business crossing that border. … To be able to grow and handle that effectively, it became very clear to me that you had to have assets on both sides of the border."

Elliott Portnoy, the global chief executive of Dentons, said Mr. Giffin "will be together with [Dentons Canada chief executive Chris Pinnington] vital to the way that we really do create not just a U.S. powerhouse … but a North American powerhouse, the likes of which none of our competitors can hope to match."

The deal is the latest in a wave of legal industry mergers that has seen the rise and expansion of large global law firms such as Norton Rose Fulbright and DLA Piper.

Dentons and McKenna Long actually first entered unsuccessful merger talks in 2013. Since then, McKenna Long also saw the departure of a number of partners. The American Lawyer magazine puts the number at about 60. But Mr. Giffin said the departures were what he called "right-sizing" the firm and unrelated to merger talks. An undisclosed number of McKenna Long partners will not be joining the new firm, but Dentons says the "overwhelming majority" are on board.

Recently, McKenna Long, at Mr. Giffin's insistence, had been increasing its focus on Canada. Mr. Giffin recently brought in retired upstate New York congressman Bill Owens, who focused on Canada-U.S. border issues, in a move aimed at Canada.

Despite the controversy over the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, Mr. Giffin said the current relationship between the United States and Canada remains strong, particularly at the business level. Keystone is a project of Calgary-based TransCanada Corp., a long-time client of Mr. Giffin's, and Mr. Giffin is a booster of the controversial plan to transport oil from Alberta's oil sands to U.S. refineries on the Gulf Coast.

"I think it is a little overdramatized because it gets so much attention in the political conversation," Mr. Giffin said. "… I ignore the headlines and keep focused on what is necessary in order to facilitate the interests of our businesses."