Orrick Herrington & Sutcliffe has decided against a merger with SJ Berwin, according to an email sent by chairman Ralph Baxter to the firm's partnership on Monday night (3 May), writes the Am Law Daily.

The email does not give offer specific reasons why Orrick is abandoning a potential deal but it does confirm that the two firms had considered a tie-up.

"Based on our discussions to date and the information now available to us, the team working on this does not recommend pursuing it further," Baxter wrote in the email. "No one issue led us to this decision, and we leave the process with great respect for SJ Berwin."

Two sources familiar with the matter said that senior lawyers at the two firms met on 13 April to discuss a possible tie-up, but those sources and another close to the matter have insisted to us that a deal was never close.

As Legal Week revealed in February, Orrick was one of a handful of US law firms that SJ Berwin had included on a list of potential merger partners, a line-up that included Proskauer Rose and Goodwin Procter.

SJ Berwin on the Legal Week Wiki