Editor’s note: This is the second in a three-part series from Hugh Simons looking at what makes for successful law firm mergers. The first part can be found here.

History shows that Big Law mergers involving a falling knife, i.e., a firm whose profitability was dropping sharply in advance of the merger, don’t perform well: the mid-performing such merger suffered a three place drop in Am Law profit per equity partner (PEP) rank upon merging and only regained its pre-merger rank five years post-merger.