When the National Law Journal published the new NLJ250 (now expanded to the NLJ 350) in late March 2012, the headline was “For Large Firms, Time to Grow Again.”  We certainly see an uptick in merger and acquisition activity among our clients, but that is not representative of the industry as a whole.  Both the Hildebrandt Institute and Alman Weil actively track merger activity – and their reports on mergers in 2011 suggests that law firm combinations have indeed returned (and even surpassed) pre-recession levels (see the links to their respective blogs).

This month we want to get a broader sense for what law firms’ future plans are regarding mergers and acquisitions.  In that context, we want to examine the factors strongly influencing the search for (and evaluation of) merger and acquisition candidates.  And, for those firms that are not pursing strategic combinations, to get a sense for the strategic considerations that went into the decision to forego mergers for the time being.

The survey embedded below (click here if you do not see the survey in the box) is entirely confidential and should take no more than two minutes to complete.  Deadline to respond is midnight, Saturday, April 28, 2012.  Thank you for your continuing help with these monthly strategy surveys.