Critics said it would never work. On 2 February 1987, an announcement was made which shocked the upper reaches of the legal profession. On 1 May that year, Coward Chance and Clifford-Turner were to merge to create Clifford Chance and the largest law firm in Britain. Mergers nowadays tend to be foretold and analysed in the legal press long before they happen, but this link had not attracted as much as a whisper—so the news had the effect of a bombshell.
To boldly go…
What was seen by many as an audacious move aroused considerable interest outside the firms, with many ‘management experts’ convinced the new giant would be at risk because lawyers weren’t necessarily good managers. Modern mergers attract professional help from experts from the outset, but in 1987 it was a question of making it up on the hoof.
35 years on, it would appear that something must have worked. At the time of writing, Clifford Chance
