Legal recruiter Shilton Sharpe Quarry’s (SSQ’s) recent decision to enter into a joint venture with US legal  recruiter Mestel & Company, is based on predictions of significant mergers between UK and US law firms,  according to a director of SSQ.

Both SSQ and Mestel & Company have experience of moving teams of lawyers during mergers, says Gavin Sharpe, a director at SSQ. And the joint venture would allow both companies to take advantage of what Sharpe predicts would be “a small number of significant mergers over the next five years”.

Sharpe admits: “We wouldn’t have done this joint venture if we didn’t believe there wouldn’t be a smaller number of law firms in five years’ times. These mergers have the potential to “change the entire shape of the legal landscape.”