According to a report by The Herald Star, law firms Orrick, Herrington & Sutcliffe LLP and Pillsbury Winthrop Shaw Pittman LLP were exploring the possibility of a merger agreement.
Chairman emeritus and ex-chief executive of Orrick Ralph Baxter confirmed to the news agency and said, "The current firms are in exploratory talks of a merger. Time will tell how these talks go."
Although Baxter did not confirm a timetable for the consolidation proposal, he said the merger would be able to provide expansion opportunities for the Wheeling Stamping. The Center Wheeling facility based in Ohio is the global operations center of Orrick. Baxter said around 300 to 350 people are working at the law firm headquarters, manning the company's service desk, network operations center, software applications support and web engineering. Wheeling is also home to Orrick's financial functions that include billing and collections, payroll, global taxation and general ledger. About a thousand lawyers from Shanghai, Los Angeles, Paris and New York City work for Orrick.
"If Orrick does a merger such as this, it would increase the activity at the global operations center," Baxter concluded.
Pillsbury partner and the Environment, Land Use and Natural Resources practice head Christopher McNevin said, "Pillsbury is fortunate to have a group of enormously talented, top-ranked environmental practitioners on the East, West and Gulf Coasts. We have deep experience in counseling and compliance across the full spectrum of environmental regulation, as well as in litigation, investigative response, air quality and land use."
Pillsbury had been awarded as "Law Firm of the Year" in environmental law for 2014 by leading ranking agency US News. The San Francisco-based Pillsbury said on its website that it currently has about 15 officers all over the world. Some of the law firm's offices are based in New York, Los Angeles, London, Tokyo, Abu Dhabi, Houston and San Diego.
Join the Conversation