• The merger will create a 1,000-lawyer firm, effective January 2025. The combination has a projected revenue of $875 million forecasted next year.

• Taft gains a Denver presence, while Sherman & Howard benefits from Taft's larger national platform.

• This is part of a broader wave of Big Law mergers in 2024, as firms seek to expand geographic reach and service offerings.

Am Law 100 firm Taft Stettinius & Hollister is set to combine with Denver-based Sherman & Howard in January 2025, creating a legal powerhouse with over 1,000 lawyers and a projected combined revenue of $810 million for 2024 and $875 million forecasted revenue next year, according to a Law.com report.

The combined revenue may push Cincinnati-founded Taft, ranked No. 83 in the Am Law 100 this year, about 20 slots ahead in the rankings. Taft said it completed six mergers over the past 16 years to expand its footprint. Sherman & Howard has also completed four mergers over the past 17 years.

Details of the Merger

• All 125 of Sherman & Howard’s lawyers, including 65 partners, will join Taft, which has about 925 lawyers currently.

• Taft has 10 offices, including one already in Denver, and generated $598 million in revenue last year.

• All of Sherman & Howard’s offices will join Taft in the merger, including Denver, Colorado Springs, Aspen, Phoenix, Reno, Albuquerque, Steamboat Springs, and Las Vegas. 

• The move strengthens Taft’s presence in the Mountain West region and offers Sherman & Howard access to a larger national platform. 

• The merged firm will span several key cities, positioning it to compete in the booming market for high-level corporate legal services.

Taft chairman and managing partner Robert Hicks told Reuters Denver and Phoenix have been on his firm's radar due to their "high growth and relative ease of doing business." 

According to Sherman & Howard CEO Stefan Stein, the firm’s size made it difficult to compete for business in the long term, and that’s why it needed broader and deeper practice area expertise to be successful.

Taft is also targeting markets such as Florida and cities in the Northeast including New York, Boston and Philadelphia,, where it would look for similar middle-market firms.

Why This Matters

This merger is the latest in a series of high-profile Big Law combinations this year, as firms seek rapid growth and expansion of service offerings and geographic reach. Mergers announced this year include:

• Womble Bond Dickinson and Lewis Roca Rothgerber Christie are combining into a firm with 1,300 lawyers and $742 million in revenue.

• Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders and Locke Lord are merging into a firm of more than 1,600 attorneys and more than $1.5 billion in revenue combined.

• Ballard Spahr and Lane Powell will create a firm with 750 lawyers and nearly$600 million in combined revenue.

According to legal experts quoted by Reuters, the wave of mergers is part of a continuing trend of legal industry consolidation. Completed mergers through the first half of 2024 exceeded the same period for each year since 2020.