1 novembre, 2006 18:20

Day, Berry & Howard and Pitney Hardin to Merge

By Charles Toutant

New Jersey Law Journal

11-01-2006

One of New Jersey's oldest and largest firms, Pitney Hardin, is merging with Connecticut's biggest, Day, Berry & Howard, to create a 395-lawyer power with branches ranging from Boston to Washington, D.C.

The new firm, to be known as Day Pitney, will come into being at year end.

The amalgamation reflects both firms' need to compete in a market that is becoming increasingly regional, in which practices restricted to individual states can no longer thrive. It mirrors similar moves by McCarter & English, which has joined with practices in Hartford and Boston.

"We had recognized at Pitney for some time that it is necessary to expand geographically and increase our depth in various areas," says Dennis LaFiura, managing partner of Pitney Hardin in Florham Park, N.J. "We saw this as an opportunity to accomplish that and accomplish that quickly."

With 225 lawyers concentrating principally in commercial transactions and litigation, Day Berry matches 170-lawyer Pitney Hardin's practice areas across the board and adds strong departments in estates planning and utilities regulation.

Day Berry was also looking to expand its territory and its capacity to serve clientele. Based in Hartford with three other Connecticut offices, it has branches in Boston, New York and, since August, Washington, D.C. (The New York office will be combined with Pitney Hardin's.) The merger brings not only a middle-Atlantic presence but also some beefy practice areas: labor union management, franchises, patent prosecution and public mergers and acquisitions.

Like Pitney Hardin, Day Berry had rarely used merger to achieve growth, preferring to add practice groups and open new offices as needed. While the merger evinces a change in strategy, the reasons are unchanged. "This move, for us, is focused on the need to serve our clients, and not a reaction to what anyone else is doing," says James Sicilian, chair of Day Berry's executive committee.

Day Berry, established in 1919, was traditionally an insurance defense firm but diversified during the recession of the 1970s, which hit hard the insurance companies that were mainstays of Connecticut's economy. More recently the firm has found a niche representing high-tech companies in environmental, regulatory and litigation work. In 2002, the firm merged with six-lawyer Hughes Whitaker in New York.

Pitney Hardin, founded in 1902, was the premier management-side labor firm in New Jersey for most of the last century. Supreme Court Justice William Brennan Jr. was a partner there before going on the bench in the 1950s. In the late 1980s, the firm began an aggressive hiring strategy to build practice areas from within. Its only merger was with New York's eight-lawyer Kane Dalsimer in 1999.

Pitney Hardin is coming off a strong year in 2005, posting revenues of $85.4 million and jumping to fourth place in the New Jersey Law Journal's Top 20 ranking of top-grossing firms.

They recently bulked up in merger-and-acquisition work, representing Hudson United Bancorp in its $1.9 billion merger with Banknorth Inc. of Portland, Maine, and advised home products retailer Linens 'n Things on its purchase by private investors for $1.3 billion.

Day Berry had revenues of $122 million in 2005, placing them first in the Connecticut Law Tribune 25.

The two firms were in negotiations for 18 months over the merger. Day Pitney will be co-managed for two years by LaFiura and Sicilian and by an executive committee comprised of four partners from each firm.

Sicilian doesn't rule out further expansion of the combined firm's geographic footprint, but he says the immediate focus will be on integrating the two firms and building business in their existing markets, particularly New York.

The geographical positioning of Day Pitney bears close resemblance to McCarter & English's "Amtrak strategy" of confining its practice to the area served by the railroad's main line. In 2003 McCarter picked up 30 lawyers from Hartford's Cumming & Lockwood, and in April McCarter announced a merger with 67-lawyer Gadsby Hannah of Boston.

"It is a strategy that we think is advantageous in the long run and therefore I'm not surprised that other smart people would see the strategy as advantageous," McCarter Chairman Andrew Berry says of the plan. "It doesn't surprise me that Pitney would look at the environment and decide it was worthwhile, even at the cost of their name."