Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and the U.K. firm Denton Wilde Sapte have reached an agreement to merge, creating a 1,400-lawyer firm that will have offices on four continents, according to higher-ups at Sonnenschein we spoke with this morning.
Sonnenschein and Denton first started discussing a merger late last year as Sonnenschein came to realize its international presence — it has just two offices outside the U.S., one in Brussels and one in Zurich — was not sufficient in order for the firm to compete on a global scale, says Elliott Portnoy, Sonnenschein’s chair. “It is an international platform that falls short of what our clients need,” Portnoy says. Denton has nine offices in the Middle East and Africa and one in Singapore.
