Law Firms
These 2 law firms will be called FBT Gibbons after January merger
Frost Brown Todd and Gibbons plan to merge in January, creating a law firm with 800 lawyers in 25 offices. (Image from Shutterstock)
Frost Brown Todd and Gibbons plan to merge in January, creating a law firm with 800 lawyers in 25 offices.
The new firm will be called FBT Gibbons, according to an Oct. 8 press release.
The Cincinnati Business Courier and Law.com are among the publications with coverage.
Frost Brown Todd currently has more than 650 lawyers in 18 offices. Its merger with Gibbons gives Frost Brown Todd new offices in the Northeast, including in New York and New Jersey.
“From FBT’s standpoint, we’ve been on a journey to grow into a national law firm that is very well situated and serving the interests of clients in the middle market economy,” said Adam Hall, the CEO of Frost Brown Todd, in an interview with Law.com. “We’ve had a lot of clients in the financial services industry asking when we’d be in New York and the Northeast, and this combination helps us serve those clients better. It’s a really key piece in that puzzle to become a national firm serving the middle market.”
The focus will first be on integration, firm leaders told Law.com. But it may not be the last merger.
“Our focus will be of course on integration, on connecting and getting the value out of this combination,” Robert Sartin, the chairman of Frost Brown Todd, told Law.com. “We’re also looking at other parts of the country to help us as we continue to grow to build out this national firm and to continue to build out our clear and compelling value for clients.”
Sartin will be chairman of the merged firm, while Hall and Peter Torcicollo, the managing director at Gibbons, will be co-managing partners.
Frost Brown Todd, ranked No. 128 in Law.com’s financial rankings, had $336.5 million in gross revenue, while Gibbons had $115 million in revenue. Both firms had similar profits per lawyer, although Gibbons had higher revenue per lawyer than Frost Brown Todd, according to Law.com.
Merger discussions began after Sartin met Gibbons leaders during a retreat several years ago that was hosted by the Zeughauser Group, a legal consulting company, according to the Cincinnati Business Courier.
“After a couple of years, Peter Zeughauser saw that we had a lot of things in common and thought a combination (of the firms) would help both pursue their strategic plans,” Hall told the publication.
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