Thacher, who did not respond to a request for comment about the sale of New York–based Thacher Associates, told The Times that joining up with K2 will allow his firm to expand its investigative services on a national scale.
Also not returning requests for comment about the deal and any potential legal advisers for the firm: COO Joseph DeLuca and Edwin Stier, a former federal and state prosecutor in New Jersey who merged his Garden State investigative shop with Thacher Associates in 2007.
Testimonials from a plethora of current and former Am Law 100 partners adorn the websites of both Thacher Associates and PLC, which tout their respective expertise aiding attorneys in both the litigation and transactional realms.
The deals come on the heels of what has been a busy past few years for transactions in a rapidly consolidating legal services sector.
One of those transactions saw Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati advise the parent company of legal newswire Law360 on its sale to LexisNexis, a unit of London–based publishing giant Reed Elsevier Group being advised by Simpson Thacher & Bartlett.
LexisNexis, which is the archrival of Thomson Reuters's Westlaw, was reported around this time last year to be for sale, with Bloomberg said to be a likely buyer. While no such deal materialized, one in-house lawyer with a legal industry competitor who requested anonymity when speaking with The Am Law Daily last fall said that Reed Elsevier has been shopping its Martindale legal directory unit, lawyers.com, and a web marketing business.
Contacted at the time by The Am Law Daily, a Reed Elsevier spokesman said it is company policy "not to respond to marketplace rumors regarding any transactions with third parties."
Reed Elsevier has been keeping its outside lawyers at Morgan, Lewis & Bockius busy in recent months. The firm advised the company on its $25 million fire sale of Hollywood trade publication Variety last October to Penske Media (advised by Jeffer Mangels Butler & Mitchell).
As for Bloomberg, the company turned to longtime legal adviser Willkie Farr & Gallagher in August 2011 for its $990 million acquisition of The Bureau of National Affairs, a privately owned provider of legal and business information.
Bloomberg subsequently picked up SCOTUSBlog, a website founded by appellate litigator Tom Goldstein that dedicated to coverage of the U.S. Supreme Court, as well as 20 lawyers from Willkie, including new chief legal officer Richard DeScherer, a longtime confidante of the company namesake and current New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.
