Clifford Chance has made the sort of New Year's resolution that Genghis Khan would have been proud of.
The firm's youthful management has cast aside former managing partner Geoffrey Howe's cautious approach to merging with foreign firms and has launched an aggressive wish list for the new millennium.
The US, Germany and Australia have been identified as priorities.
The US and Germany because of the importance of their markets to the global economy, and Australia because of its strong economy and positioning as a base from which to resource Clifford Chance's Asian practices.
Wall Street firm Rogers & Wells is the frontrunner for the US and negotiations are believed to have started between the two firms in New York and London.
Clifford Chance's UK rivals are questioning the logic of talking to what they see as a second-tier US firm, but opting for Rogers & Wells makes sense when you look at the firm's profitability, its client list and its willingness to consider a merger with a UK firm.
According to The American Lawyer magazine, Rogers & Wells' average profits per partner last year were in the region of £403,000, which is similar to profits at Clifford Chance.
Historically, one of the biggest barriers to a transatlantic merger between the leading Wall Street firms such as Simpson Thacher & Bartlett, Sullivan & Cromwell or Cravath Swain & Moore and a UK firm, is the disparity in profits brought home by senior partners in the two countries.
On the client side, Rogers & Wells enjoys strong working relationships with a number of US investment banks, including Merrill Lynch, which Clifford Chance would love to buy into. And the Wall Street firm also has solid US anti-trust, litigation, property and IP practices, which would give Clifford Chance a strong base from which to expand a full service US law practice. (See US sidebar)
Partners at the US firm previously have considered a merger, albeit a domestic US one. Several years ago, talks with San Franciscan firm Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe are understood to have started, but they did not lead to anything.
Equally important for Clifford Chance is its position in Europe, particularly Germany. Peter Cornell, Clifford Chance's managing partner for Europe, says: "While all the European jurisdictions are important, the one we are concentrating on is Germany."
Clifford Chance is concerned that it is slipping behind the likes of Freshfields and Linklaters & Alliance in the race to develop a depth of local law advice across the country's various business centres.
This time last year Freshfields announced its intention to merge with Deringer Tessin, while last summer Linklaters convinced Oppenhof & Radler to join with it and three other European firms to form Linklaters & Alliance.
Clifford Chance on the other hand, has grown its own Frankfurt and Duesseldorf offices through organic growth and lateral hires – including a team of corporate lawyers from Duesseldorf-based Wessing & Berenberg Gossler.
"What would be nice would be greater depth on the German corporate side," Cornell says. "One can do it by a combination of organic growth and lateral hiring, but that will take time. The alternative is to find a partner to integrate with."
Clifford Chance is understood to have approached Frankfurt firm Boesebeck Droste to discuss the possibility of a link up, but things are at an early stage and Cornell insists the firm is keeping its options open. (See Germany sidebar)
And then comes Australia. Clifford Chance is understood to be arranging a deal with leading banking firm Mallesons Stephen Jacques.
The Australian market was awash with reports that the two firms were poised to announce a tie-up before Christmas, a move that one senior Australian lawyer said would catapult Mallesons into a league of its own.
However, it is thought the move has been put on the back burner to allow Clifford Chance to pursue its negotiations with Rogers & Wells.
The thinking is believed to be long-term – a deal struck now would give Clifford Chance a guarantee, in that Mallesons would not line up with a UK or a US rival.
The Australian economy has come out of the Southeast Asian economic crisis relatively unscathed. And the country's lawyers have been feeding off a record level of corporate takeover activity (Corporate Securities Data puts Australia fourth, behind the US, the UK and Canada by volume of mergers and acquisitions activity last year) as well as government-driven infrastructure and privatisation work.
If Mallesons took over the running of Clifford Chance's Asian practice, the City firm could make huge savings on recruitment costs and the bonuses paid to English ex-pat partners staffing the regional offices. Similar time zones and ready access to nearly 700 Australian lawyers would make Clifford Chance more flexible in its approach to the region as a whole.
Taken as a whole, Clifford Chance's merger discussions fit perfectly with the stated ambition of its 10-year mission statement to grow in the Americas, Europe and the Far East.
But the firm's City rivals are not quite sure how to react to the sheer scale of its ambition. One managing partner at another City firm said: "It is difficult to know what to make of it. The firm's previously declared ambition was to build a full service practice in the US from scratch. Rogers & Wells is a second-tier firm. Without a tie-up with a first-tier firm, they are making themselves into a different animal to the rest of the magic circle."
Another source points out management issues that Clifford Chance's plans raise. "It will be difficult for Clifford Chance to maintain the one firm brand quality we all strive for as they will start to look like a franchise operation."
But in a way Clifford Chance is drawing on its own history. When Clifford Turner merged Coward Chance to form Clifford Chance in 1987, the City's interpretation of the deal was of two second tier firms trying to cheat the established order by leap-frogging into the top circle of firms by size.
While Clifford Chance still has some issues on the corporate side to iron out, the merger has been a complete success.
It looks as though the firm has its sights set on a repeat performance.