The FOCUS Investment Banking Legal Services M&A team is comprised of professionals with a long history of relevant industry experience advising law firms, strategic Investors and private equity firms on acquisitions, sales and transaction financing solutions.

Our team is “focused” in both buy-side and sell-side transactions related to: Law Firm Mergers & Acquisitions – U.S. & UK (including Alternative Business Structures (ABS)), Alternative Legal Service Providers (ALSPs), and Legal Staffing Firms.

We provide comprehensive M&A advisory services tailored to the needs of law firms. Our process begins with identifying and sourcing merger candidates that align with your specific criteria—whether by geography, practice area, profits per equity partner, or average partner compensation.

Because cultural alignment is often the key to a successful merger, our AI-driven research platform goes beyond financial metrics. It evaluates firm-to-firm compatibility through shared characteristics such as common law school affiliations, prior work experience, diversity and minority hiring practices, and more.

The FOCUS team has advised AM Law 100 & 200 firms in the acquisition of practice groups, and the recruitment of high-profile partners for such firms as Baker & McKenzie, Dorsey & Whitney, Weil, Gotshal & Manges, King & Spalding, Clifford Chance, Blank Rome, among others.

Additionally, as the legal industry has evolved over the past few years, law firms have organically grown or invested in alternative legal service providers, (ALSPs). ALSPs now comprise a $28 billion segment of the legal market, according to the Alternative Legal Services Providers 2025, published by the Thomson Reuters Institute, the Center on Ethics, and the Legal Profession at Georgetown Law, and the Saïd Business School at the University of Oxford. Overall, it reveals an evolving legal market in which the boundaries between alternative legal service providers, law firms, corporate law departments, and even technology and software firms are rapidly blurring.

The FOCUS legal industry M&A team has committed substantial resources to assisting law firms acquire or finance the expansion of ALPS, as we anticipate robust growth to continue in the ALSP sector.