Partners at the newly combined Faegre Drinker Biddle & Reath will spend the next 100 days selling the size and reach of the potential Am Law 50 firm to their clients.

Minneapolis-based Faegre Baker Daniels and Philadelphia-based Drinker Biddle & Reath formally merged into Faegre Drinker on Feb. 1, creating an entity with more than 1,300 lawyers, consultants and professionals located across 22 offices, including locations in the United Kingdom and China.

The firm on Monday announced its executive leadership, practice group leaders, industry group leaders and office leaders.

Faegre Drinker plans to take advantage of its newfound scale by reaching out to its clients and hearing what kind of issues and problems they're facing, and then checking to see if the merged firm has those capabilities, said Thomas Froehle Jr. and Andrew Kassner, the firm's co-chairs. Kassner said this was part of a 100-day plan the firm's partners have.

"I can sum it up in one sentence: We're going to take our whole firm to our clients," Kassner said.

Feb. 1 also saw Philadelphia-based Duane Morris officially tying the knot with New York's Satterlee Stephens. That merger adds 65 lawyers to Duane Morris' New York office, bringing the total number of lawyers there to 160.

Following the Faegre Drinker and Duane Morris mergers, the only publicly pending large-scale merger that hasn't taken effect yet is the upcoming marriage of Troutman Sanders of Atlanta and Pepper Hamilton of Philadelphia. Come April 1, those firms will become Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders.

Apart from Faegre Drinker, 11 other law firm mergers are scheduled to close in the first quarter of 2020, according to consultancy Fairfax Associates. This included the mergers of Taft Stettinius & Hollister and Briggs & Morgan to become Taft and Lathrop Gage and Gray Plant Mooty to become Lathrop GPM.

Faegre Drinker's focus for the immediate future is to ensure a smooth integration between the two firms, but both Kassner and Froehle said the firm is open to adding more lawyers and opening more offices.

"We've had groups contact us because they see the compatibility and the possibilities that are being brought by our new firm," Kassner said. "The question is, and the question we'll answer in a conservative way, is what is strategic growth? It might mean adding talent and adding new offices."

To that end, Faegre Drinker will host a retreat for its partners and principals within the next six weeks. Froehle said their lawyers have spent the past few months reaching out and making connections with each other. The firms approved their merger in mid-December.

"We were intentional about not waiting until today to start the integration," Froehle said. "Partners have met with each other. It's not like we're starting from scratch."

At this point, no one has left Faegre Drinker as a result of the merger, Froehle said. He added that the firm was unable to resolve "a pretty small number" of client conflicts that were created as a result of the merger.

Correction: An earlier version of this story misidentified the number of lawyers in the New York office of Duane Morris. The office hosts 160 lawyers following its merger with Satterlee Stephens. 

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