I’ve been thinking about the integration that would need to happen in the Asia offices of Allen & Overy and Shearman & Sterling should the merger be voted through. After years of working inside law firms that have themselves been results of large-scale mergers, I have a niggling interest in law firm compatibility.

Let’s call it “门当户对” (mén dāng hù duì), which is a Chinese expression typically used to describe Chinese marriages when two marrying parties are from similar social classes and share the same economic status. It literally means “matching doors and parallel window,” but is best translated as “an appropriate match.”