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Driven by a slowdown in completed mergers in the second quarter, law firm mergers in the first half of 2019 are lagging behind the same period last year, according to data collected by law firm consultancies Fairfax Associates and Altman Weil.

Fairfax recorded just five completed mergers in the second quarter of 2019, bringing its count for the first half of this year to 30. In the first half of last year, it counted 37 completed mergers in the same time period. Fairfax uses published reports, press releases and direct reports from law firms to collect data when the acquired firm has five or more partners.

Law firm mergers so far this year have also been notably smaller than the mega-mergers of recent years. Three of the five combinations Fairfax tracked in the last quarter involved firms with fewer than 10 lawyers each. The two larger deals both involved global behemoth Dentons gobbling up a smaller overseas firm.

Altman Weil, which tracks merger announcements and news reports rather than completed deals, has counted 45 mergers so far in 2019. That figure includes just three U.S. mergers involving an acquired firm larger than 10 lawyers, however, and just one where the acquired firm was larger than 20 lawyers. Twenty-eight of the deals in Altman's data set involve firms acquiring small shops of five lawyers or fewer.

In contrast, last year Altman Weil tracked six mergers involving acquired firms with more than 100 lawyers, and 15 deals where the acquired firm had 21 to 100 lawyers.

While second-quarter totals are down compared to last year, Fairfax Associates principal Kristin Stark said the numbers don't reflect the many merger discussions in which her firm's clients are engaging.

“The interesting part about the second-quarter data is that it's a bit in contrast to our actual experience right now,” she said. “One of the themes here is that the data is simply not reflective of the reality of how many firms are talking about mergers.”

Stark added that it was unusual to see so many more mergers completed in the first quarter than in the second—25 compared with five—and that in other years those deals have been more spread out. Still, she said that based on the discussions Fairfax's clients have been engaging in, she still expects the 2019 totals to be comparable to last year, when mergers hit a 20-year high.

Fairfax found that although there were fewer completed mergers in the first half of this year compared with last year, the 2019 count so far is close to its 10-year average count of 31 mergers.

Three combinations are scheduled to be completed by the end of 2019, said Fairfax: Foster Pepper and Garvey Schubert Barer will create a six-office, 180-lawyer firm named Foster Garvey in September; Greenberg Traurig will merge with Italian firm Santa Maria Studio Legale in July; and Dentons and MawereSibanda will combine 21 lawyers in Zimbabwe.

Meanwhile, talks are continuing between West Coast-based O'Melveny & Myers and U.K. Magic Circle firm Allen & Overy.