New York’s Cadwalader Wickersham & Taft is merging with Hogan Lovells, uniting Wall Street’s oldest firm with a transatlantic powerhouse.
The combination offers a lifeline for Cadwalader, which saw a slew of partner exits this year and has been seeking a merger partner for months. The departures included more than 30 partners this year alone, with key losses of leaders in corporate and finance.
Hogan Lovells has served as the landing spot before for troubled firms. It absorbed more than 30 partners from now-defunct Stroock & Stroock & Lavan in 2023. Hogan CEO Miguel Zaldivar said at the time the Stroock acquisitions were “definitely not the end of our growth plan for New York.”
The announcement comes about four months after another storied New York firm, Schulte Roth & Zabel, combined with McDermott Will & Emery. Schulte, like Cadwalader, was known for its work in a narrow category of practices and faced pressure from rapidly growing rivals.
Big Law has seen a string of tie-ups as firms seek scale in a bid to compete with other growing rivals that conduct bidding wars for top talent. Cadwalader and Hogan Lovells reported around $3.6 billion in combined gross revenue last year, American Lawyer data shows. As a single entity, that would place the merged firm among the five largest.
The roots of Hogan Lovells go back more than a century. Lovell, White & King was founded in London in 1899 and Frank J. Hogan started a practice in Washington five years later. Hogan & Hartson merged with Lovells in 2010 and has more than 2,800 lawyers practicing in more than 18 countries, according to its website.
Zaldivar took Hogan Lovells’ leadership reins in 2020, and the firm re-elected him to the chief executive role last year for a term that runs through 2028. The firm surpassed $3 million in profits per equity partner for the first time last year, a goal Zaldivar set when he took the leadership role.
Cadwalader, founded the same year President George Washington was elected to a second term, is known in the areas of fund finance and securitization. However, it slid down the revenue rankings over the last decade and came under fire for striking a deal with President Donald Trump to provide $100 million in free legal services in order to avoid a punitive executive order.
Cadwalader in September added a second managing partner, Wesley Misson, leader of the fund finance practice, to run the firm alongside Patrick Quinn, a corporate lawyer whom the firm named managing partner a decade ago.
The firm hired Davis Polk & Wardwell—now a leading adviser on law firm mergers—to advise it on the deal. Davis Polk also served as Shearman & Sterling’s outside counsel in its 2024 merger with Allen & Overy and is advising Ashurst in its tie-up with Perkins Coie, according to firm announcements.
Chicago-founded Winston & Strawn and London’s Taylor Wessing said Dec. 15 that the firms plan to merge next year. A transatlantic tie-up of Ashurst LLP and Perkins Coie is also slated to close next year.
