Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer has quietly scrubbed nearly all mention of ”Kaye Scholer” from its public image, changing its brand name, email addresses and web domain.

The shift in how the firm markets itself comes just over a year after Arnold & Porter and Kaye Scholer consummated a major merger. A representative did not directly explain the reason for the change in an email responding to questions from The National Law Journal. But the firm noted a majority of leading law firms use just one or two names.

“The full legal name of the firm continues to be Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer LLP,” the representative said. “The trend in the legal industry over the last 10 years has been toward shorter trade names.”

The firm's web domain lengthened with the latest change, however, growing from apks.com to arnoldporter.com, and employees' email addresses changed accordingly. The firm's full legal name still appears in small print at the bottom of its web pages. (See here and here to view the website rebrand.)

Before the merger went live at the beginning of last year, Arnold & Porter was the much larger firm, with over $624 million in 2016 revenues and more than 650 lawyers, according to ALM data. Kaye Scholer clocked in at around 350 lawyers and about $320 million in revenue.

Whether the decision to eventually scrap “Kaye Scholer” from the firm's brand name was already in place when the firms inked their $1 billion merger last year remains unclear.

The firm's branding reorientation toward the name most familiar with Beltway insiders comes soon after Arnold & Porter Kaye Scholer announced the addition of former U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd and the former head of litigation for pharmaceutical company Eli Lilly to its Washington, D.C., offices in January.