Biglaw, Dewey Ballantine, Dewy Orifice, Law Firm Mergers, Law Firm Names, LeBoeuf Lamb, Mergers and Acquisitions

Law Firm Merger Mania: Dewey LeBoeuf? (You Heard It Here First)

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People in the offices of both Dewey Ballantine and LeBoeuf Lamb have been gossiping about a possible merger between their firms.
Here’s some circumstantial evidence in support of the rumors. If you go to Whois.Net and enter the domain name DeweyLeBoeuf.com, you get this info:

We have a call and an email in to Michael Groll. We’ll let you know if and when we hear back from him.
Update: Might this be a practical joke, as one commenter suggests? Quite possibly. That’s why we’ve reached out to Mr. Groll for comment.
Further Update (4:45 PM): No, this is the real deal. About an hour after our post went up, the WSJ Law Blog chimed in with this write-up: “LeBoeuf Lamb and Dewey Ballantine are in merger talks, with an announcement of a deal expected as early as Monday, according to people familiar with the situation.”
Further Further Update (8/25/07): The New York Times has an article on the merger talks here.
More discussion, plus links, after the jump.


So, will a Dewey-LeBoeuf merger go through? Or is it just Dewey Ballantine, on the rebound from its failed relationship with Orrick, doing some flirting to boost its ego?
In this recent article about law firm mergers, Tom Kane of Kane Consulting Inc., a legal marketing consulting firm, notes: “LeBoeuf has always been a tongue twister for me, but what are you going to do, change it? No way, you’d lose the brand.”
As a law firm moniker, “Dewey LeBoeuf” may be a little ungainly (and it looks even worse as a domain name, deweyleboeuf.com). But if Dewey Ballantine was willing to put up with Dewy Orifice, er, Dewey Orrick, we think they’ll be okay with “Dewey LeBoeuf.”
Registration Information for deweyleboeuf.com [Whois.Net]
LeBoeuf and Dewey In Advanced Merger Talks [WSJ Law Blog]
Two Big Law Firms in Merger Talks [New York Times]
Name Games Loom Large in Mergers [The Recorder]

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