Dentons, the world’s largest law firm, today formalised its combination with leading Scottish firm Maclay Murray & Spens. Clients of the firm now benefit from the experience of 8,800 lawyers and professionals in 158 locations across 66 countries, with a significantly enhanced presence in the UK where some 800 fee earners, including 200 partners, operate from offices in Aberdeen, Edinburgh, Glasgow, London, Milton Keynes and Watford.

“Our UK and Middle East region continues to make strong progress capitalising on the opportunities presented by the firm’s global platform,” said Dentons’ Global Chairman Joe Andrew. “By joining forces with such a high-quality firm in one of the world’s most competitive legal markets, we are significantly enhancing our ability to serve clients of all sizes, across all sectors, as they increasingly instruct firms that can offer a deeper level of relationship commitment in all of the places they do business.”

“Our UK strategy is built around the three pillars of creating stronger ties with key clients, investing to further develop a high-quality lower-cost platform, and growing UK market share,” said Dentons CEO for the UK and Middle East Jeremy Cohen. “Maclay Murray & Spens is one of Scotland’s leading law firms, and combining with them enables us to offer clients a combination of size, quality and smarter resourcing that few of our competitors in the UK can match.”

“Our Scottish clients will benefit greatly from the fact that we have now become the only truly global law firm with a significant presence in the Scottish legal market,” said Kenneth Shand, UK Board member and Senior Partner, Scotland. “We are particularly excited by the fact that this combination offers our lawyers, as well as the next generation of Scottish lawyers, the opportunity to work at one of the world’s most innovative and forward-thinking law firms.”

“We are delighted to welcome our new Scottish colleagues to the firm,” said Dentons’ Global CEO Elliott Portnoy. “Following recent combinations with equally high-quality firms in Latin America and Africa, launching in Scotland demonstrates that our journey ‘from largest to leading’ means pursuing growth opportunities in both established and developing markets as we continue to meet the needs of sophisticated global clients.”