Eversheds and US firm Sutherland Asbill & Brennan could combine as early as January, Legal Week has learned.

Partners told Legal Week that voting is set to take place on 16 December, with the deal potentially going live as soon as late January, if approved by partners at both firms.

Details of the transatlantic merger talks, which were confirmed on Tuesday (29 November), had been restricted to a tight group of senior partners at Eversheds, with some partners only informed of the discussions within the last week.

According to partners, despite the secrecy, meetings have been going on at a senior level for some time, with practice group heads at Eversheds meeting US counterparts in recent weeks.

The secrecy around the discussions with Atlanta-based Sutherland was prompted by the failure of Eversheds' merger talks with US firm Foley & Lardner in 2015.

Within Eversheds, there is a view that press coverage of the Foley talks contributed to their failure.

One partner said: "The senior management team didn't want this leaking after the Foley leaks – the coverage of Foley was very unhelpful."

A US merger has been a longstanding ambition for Eversheds; however, partners and ex-partners said the firm is keen to remain in control of its own destiny, making a tie-up with a smaller firm more attractive.

An ex-partner said one of the reasons Eversheds has taken so long to find a US counterpart is that it "wanted to be the larger partner in the merger" rather than "merging with a large practice and becoming a European subsidiary of a US firm".

Eversheds is larger than Sutherland by both revenue and lawyer count. Eversheds posted turnover of £405.5m in 2015-16, compared to Sutherland's $301m (£238m at today's exchange rate) in 2015, with the Eversheds' LLP housing 1,400 lawyers that year, compared to around 400 at Sutherland.

While Sutherland is marginally more profitable, with a 2015 profit per equity partner (PEP) figure of $1.02m (£807,000 at today's rate), compared to Eversheds' £742,000, this should not cause any obstacle to the deal, as the combination will not include any financial integration.

Models for non-financially integrated mergers include the swiss verein, as adopted by firms including DLA Piper, Norton Rose Fulbright and Dentons, or a UK company limited by guarantee structure, used in the union between the UK's Wragge & Co and Canada's Gowlings earlier this year.

The combined firm, which will be known as Eversheds Sutherland, will be governed by a board made up of partners from both sides.

A partner at a rival firm said of the talks: "I get why they would do it – if you want to be a global player you need a US offering. If it is the right merger it makes sense."

An ex-Eversheds partner said: "You would have thought a US law firm would want to merge with Eversheds, given the spread of offices they have."

Sutherland has about 165 lawyers in both Atlanta and Washington, its two largest offices, with another 55 lawyers in New York, 25 in Houston and Austin, Texas, and six in Sacramento. The US firm also has a 10-lawyer outpost in London and a man on the ground in Geneva handling energy commodities trading work, both of which were acquired in 2014 via the takeover of energy boutique Arbis.

In addition to corporate and litigation, Sutherland has well developed practices in intellectual property, tax, real estate, energy and financial services.

In numbers:

Eversheds LLP

• Lawyers: 1,400
• Equity partners: 118
• Revenue 2015-16:£405.5m
• PEP 2015-16: £742,000 ($938,000)
• Offices: London, Birmingham, Cambridge, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Ipswich, Leeds, Manchester, Newcastle, Nottingham, Belfast, Beijing, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Paris, Munich, Berlin, Hamburg, Baghdad, Erbil, Amman, Doha, Singapore, Abu Dhabi and Dubai.

Sutherland

• Lawyers: 400
• Equity partners: 86
• Revenue 2015: $301m (£241m)
• PEP 2015: $1.02m (£816,000)
• Offices: Atlanta, New York, Washington DC, Sacramento, Austin, Houston, London and Geneva.

For more, see Sutherland controls identity in proposed Eversheds deal.