Law firm mergers are off to another strong start in 2024, with multiple combinations that span all corners of the continental U.S announced this week. Kent Zimmermann notes that over the past 24 months, higher-performing, higher-quality firms are putting mergers and acquisitions on the table when they hadn’t done so historically. One huge driver on why so many firms are interested in mergers is the recognition of significant benefits of scale.

Cravath Swaine & Moore’s move to raise associate salaries beyond the scale set by its rival Milbank pressures less-profitable firms to ponder pay bumps they can’t afford. While firms in the top tiers of revenue and profitability are likely to follow Cravath’s lead - and several already have - others in the industry are ill-positioned to do so. Peter Zeughauser observes that the prospect of Cravath-type raises will stress a lot of firms. Some will avoid such raises and suffer the fall-out of “more poaching” from firms that can pay top compensation.

General counsel say they’ve grown exasperated by law firms’ continued lack of transparency, especially related to billing.

Mary K Young observes that some law firms might need to put systems in place to better track clients’ outside counsel guidelines, which she noted are inherently tricky because there’s no uniformity from one to the next. But she suspects that some of the complaints from general counsel stem from communication breakdowns inside their own companies.