The merger of Canada’s Ogilvy Renault and London-based Norton Rose, reported earlier this week by The Am Law Daily, is more than just the legal industry’s latest splashy trans-Atlantic union.

In joining forces with a firm in the United Kingdom, Ogilvy becomes the first leading Canadian firm — it ranks 11th in size nationally — to expand internationally via a merger, rather than through green-fielding offices or cherry-picking laterals.