Two of Canada's largest law firms have agreed to merge, forming a 400-lawyer firm with offices in five Canadian cities and Hong Kong, reports The Am Law Daily.

The merger between McMillan and Lang Michener, which will be effective as of 1 January 2011, will see the newly-combined firm keep the McMillan name.

The firm will be headed up by current McMillan CEO Andrew Kent.

Both firms are based in Toronto, but Lang Michener has offices in Ottawa, Vancouver, and Hong Kong, while McMillan has operations in Montreal and Calgary. The merger will provide the new McMillan with greater national reach and with an outpost in Asia.

The merger talks started last December, with Lang Michener's strength in outward-bound markets like Vancouver a principal driver for the tie-up.

The new firm will seek to boost its presence in key industries like mining, forest products, oil and gas, financial services, technology, communications, manufacturing, and transportation.

McMillan will be the 12th-largest firm in Canada, just behind Montreal's Ogilvy Renault.

The tie-up is the latest in a raft of post-downturn merger deals, following the union of Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal and Denton Wilde Sapte, which launched as SNR Denton on 30 September, and the merger of US firms Kilpatrick Stockton and Townsend and Townsend and Crew, which created a $400m (£250m) practice named Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton.

The Am Law Daily is a blog on law.com, Legal Week's US affiliate title.