Ashurst seals long-awaited U.S. merger, forming Ashurst Perkins Coie

The Aussie-UK-based firm has finally clinched the American expansion it has spent years pursuing, announcing plans to merge with Perkins Coie.

The combined outfit will:

Leadership will be shared between Ashurst CEO Paul Jenkins and Perkins Coie managing partner Bill Malley, who will serve as global co-CEOs. Ashurst’s Karen Davies and Perkins Coie’s Brian Eiting will co-chair the board.

The merger will be voted on by both partnerships. And while talks have gone on since February 2025, it is expected to complete late 2026.

For Ashurst, the tie-up ends decades of speculation and a long trail of near misses with US firms.

Previous conversations with Latham & Watkins, Fried Frank, Sheppard Mullin and Hunton Andrews Kurth all faltered, leaving the firm with only three small US outposts in New York, LA and Austin.

The firm’s ambition has always been clear. As Jenkins put it, Ashurst has been searching for a partner with a shared culture, entrepreneurial bent and a focus on “the industries shaping the future economy.”

Perkins Coie fits neatly into that story.

Founded in 1912, the Seattle firm is recognised as a pioneering legal advisor. It’s deep relationships with the likes of Amazon and Microsoft, shows its strength in emerging technology and its push into AI. It launched a London office last year under private equity veteran Ian Bagshaw, explicitly branding itself as a firm for “the companies of tomorrow.”

The merger also comes just months after President Trump issued an executive order targeting Perkins for its past political work. A federal judge blocked the order, which Perkins described as posing an “existential risk” to its business. The litigation is now on appeal.

Despite that turbulence, the tie-up stayed on track.

Both sides said trust between the leadership teams kept talks moving.

The merged firm brings together Ashurst’s global platform across Europe, Australia and Asia with Perkins Coie’s tech-heavy US presence.

While it’s a smaller New York footprint than some might have expected, it hands Ashurst a deeper West Coast foundation and opens access to high-growth tech and innovation clients — consistent with its coined ‘firm of tomorrow’ slogan.

Perkins Coie gains the international infrastructure it has lacked, particularly in energy and infrastructure, financial services, real estate, and emerging AI-driven work.

Both firms also have near-identical financial profiles.

Each brought in around US$1.3bn (A$2bn) in the last financial year, with comparable PEP around $1.8m (A$2.8bn), making full financial integration cleaner than most trans-Atlantic mergers.

The merger slots Ashurst Perkins Coie into the same revenue league as newly minted HSF Kramer and the mega-merger A&O Shearman.

The combined firm will adopt a “hub” structure rather than a single headquarters, with key centres in Seattle, London, Sydney and New York.

Partner votes are the final gating item.

But an announcement of a global expansion doesn’t go live without the backers in place.

Once forged, Ashurst Perkins Coie will be:

A global firm built for the industries that will define tomorrow.

Source: FirmofTomorrow.com