Womble Bond Dickinson’s newly announced merger with Cooper, White & Cooper, one of San Francisco’s oldest law firms, will give the trans-Atlantic Am Law 100 firm a new presence in the city and will push it over the 50-lawyer threshold in the state.

The combination, effective Sept. 1, follows a series of boutique buys that dominated law firm merger activity in the second quarter of 2022, as Big Law pursues geographic expansion in key markets like Northern California.