"We believe that the profession is going to change structurally over the next three to five years and we want to be at the front end, not the back of that process. That takes strong leadership." So says Francis B Burch, Jr, the US-based co-chairman of DLA Piper, referring to the vote that has just ratified the firm's headline-grabbing appointment of former Linklaters head Tony Angel.

I don't often use this column to recount an interview, but there is something very distinctive about how the Baltimore-based veteran discusses the ambitions of one of the most, well, distinctive forces in global law. Several minutes into the conversation and it is easy to see how DLA hooked up with Piper Rudnick – Burch's energy and direct style is not unlike a US version of one Nigel Knowles.

Essentially, Burch sees DLA's recruitment of Angel as a major step towards making good on the firm's plans to forge a globally potent giant distinct from the deal-driven firms that have dominated the international legal market so far. "We have no religious convictions about how to structure a law firm. It's about the market dynamics and what allows you to capture business in a bumpy economy. The pecking order is changing and we want to influence that."

Burch also reminds critics who play down DLA's progress that the firm has only existed in anything like its current form for six years, when DLA merged with Piper Rudnick and Gray Cary Ware & Freidenrich in 2005.

Burch sees the firm's development since then in three phases. The initial "assembly" period ran in the three years after the merger, when the firm focused on rapidly building its global platform (on occasion too rapidly, some insiders would now concede). The second period saw the firm deal with the recession where, as Burch says, it "hit some bumps in the road".

Indeed, the firm's trademark sure touch seemed to have deserted it, judged by an awkwardly handled series of cuts in the UK several years back. But according to Burch the firm is now moving into its third phase, in which it begins to truly realise its potential. The plan for the next three years will include securing material improvements in its London practice, its Asia network and three or four key strategic markets in the US, as well as gaining a substantial practice in Canada. Burch confirms that DLA intends to "evolve" its dual profit centre model to something more suiting its global ambitions.

With the firm predicting robust growth in its current financial year, it's easy to see why DLA is in a confident mood once more. As I've noted before, DLA shouldn't kid itself about how far it still has to go to achieve its lofty goals. But it has a shot – and a pretty good one – at executing its status-disrupting playbook. Burch puts it more poetically: "We are going to play offence – that is what it's all about."