McDermott Chief Bets on ‘Scale’ With Schulte Merger

McDermott Will & Emery is putting the finishing touches on a merger with Schulte Roth & Zabel, a combination that will create a 1,750-lawyer firm with nearly $3 billion in gross revenue. On today’s On The Merits podcast, we speak with McDermott Chairman Ira Coleman about the firm’s audacious goals, why he thinks it’s important to listen to everyone in the organization, and the firm’s bet on tech.

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“If you’re going to put $30 million in AI this year, you have to have scale,” he told podcast host Jessie Kamens. “You can’t do that if you’re a four or five hundred lawyer firm. It’s pretty hard to do it if you’re a 1,500 lawyer firm.”

This conversation is a part of our Leading Law Firms project, in which we score law firms using more than just traditional metrics like a firm’s bottom line. Throughout the rest of this month, we’ll be sharing more interviews with the leaders of other firms like Cahill Gordon & Reindel, DLA Piper, and Susman Godfrey.

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